Brighter Britain! (Volume 2 of 2) / or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand

by W. Delisle Hay

The settler resented and repudiated this claim for utu altogether, and, hearing that the Maori were getting their guns ready for the raid, he summoned all his neighbours to assist in his defence. A dozen or more of them armed and came over to stop with him, and a very pretty little disturbance seemed imminent.

However, there was a clergyman who had great influence with the hapu. At first, he probably helped to kindle the chief's ire by inveighing against the hideous guilt of the farmer, after the manner of unworldly clerics; but, seeing subsequently the direction things were about to take, he altered his tactics. Knowing the Maori character thoroughly, he took what was certainly the best possible step under the circumstances.

Instead of preaching against war and bloodshed, he stopped the war-party, as it was setting off, by intimating that the house, land, and bulk of the stock belonged to the absent brother, and that it would, therefore, be wrong to touch it. Maori justice instantly perceived the point, and a korero was immediately held to discuss it. Then the chief and his advisers began to find themselves in a hopeless muddle. They could not withdraw the claim for utu honourably—according to their notions—and in default of it they must exact something. At the same time, it was repugnant to their ideas of justice to meddle with what belonged to an unoffending man, and he an absentee to boot. So the korero lasted day after day, and the Maori could find no way out of their dilemma.

Meanwhile, the father of the girl who had caused the mischief, and who was a greedy old wretch, happily cut the Gordian knot. While things were still unsettled, he sneaked off one day alone, and made his way to the farm. There he intimated to the young settler that he was prepared to take five notes for his daughter's wrong, and would consider all claims liquidated by it. The young man's blood was up, however, and he refused to pay the fraction of a penny as utu. But some of his friends were cooler; and after a long palaver the young fellow consented to purchase a horse from the Maori, at a price somewhat above its value.

Back went the outraged father to the hapu and told what he had done. The ariki scolded him heartily for his baseness, that is to say, for the small amount of utu he had exacted. But all were overjoyed at the incident, which served to make a way out of the difficulty. An ambassador was sent up to the farm with the following message from the ariki, which I roughly translate—

"Oh, friend! There is now peace, and things are smooth between us. Pita is a fool, he took what was too little. That is his affair, and I have told him my mind. You have made utu to him and the wretch is satisfied. That ends all. I have no more to say. We are friends as before."

And now arose a new phase of Maori character. They are always very desirous to get up alliances between the races, and will do anything to induce a Pakeha to marry a Maori girl. Even such informal engagements as that just hinted at are so far from being repugnant to them, that they generally show an increased regard for the Pakeha who is indiscreetly amorous among their unmarried women.

The chief in this case was governed, in the first instance, by an artificial veneer of sentiment inculcated by the new religion. Now that this was broken through, and the vexed question of utu disposed of, the genuine Maori feeling rose to the surface, and a warm friendliness arose for the Pakeha—the rangatira Pakeha be it remembered—who had shown that he "liked the Maori girls."

Accompanied by a score or so of the rangatira of his hapu, the ariki rode over to the young settler's place. As proof of the re-establishment of cordial relations, kitsful of peaches, melons, kumera, taro, and other gifts were carried by the party. The young man met them with all hospitality, killed a pig and feasted the party for a couple of days, presented a dog to the ariki, and finally paid a return visit to the kainga, where he was received with open arms by the entire hapu. He has ever since remained a prime favourite with the Maori, who, singularly enough, respected him for his line of action when the difficulty arose, almost as much as they warmed to him for his amorous predilection.