Stories of New Zealand

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 139, 13 June 1936, Page 5 (Supplement)

Stories of New Zealand

By JAMES COWAN.

(Continued from page 330.)

The warriors on the hills watched with amazement the whites leaving the town. Heke could scarcely believe it, as he sat there with Jiis doublebarrelled gun, in his hand, counting the boatloads hurrying off to the two men-o'-war, the whaler, the Government brig Victoria, and Bishcrp Selwyn's little mission schooner the Flying Fish. His war was only with the flagstaff, with the colours "te kara" as he called the British flag. The warriors on the hills behind the town rushed down and joined the others, and the whole of thefti formed up for a great war dance. This is the translation of the chant that accompanied the leaping and stamping, and the thrusting of weapons: This is the battle, the battle! We are the victors, the braves! Foaming in angry surf Are the waters of Tokerau, The sea of many islands! Bring hither the slain foemen To the root of the forest tree, Upon Its bending boughs We'll liang their carven flesh — The fruits of victory! This was an ancient war soijg of the cannibal days. The boast about the "fruits of victory" was symbolical; that is, it did not mean that the Maoris actually intended to eat their dead enemies. But they had been cannibals, only three or four years before the hoisting of the British flag. Refugees in the Ships. The day closed with occasional shots from the frigate, little regarded by the Maoris, who were now absorbed in the joy of lootng, drinking the grog in the public-houses, seizing blankets, clothes, tobacco, preserved foods and all the varied stock of the stores. Some loaded their canoes that had been paddled round from, the bay in the rear of the town.

It was a sad and heavy niglit abroad the crowded ships, where the refugees thought sorrowfully of their ruin. The Hectors and a number of other families were in the bishop's schooner. The English wlialesliip received over 100, the American frigate St. Louis took 125 on board, and the rest found quarters in H.M.S. Hazard, where the troops were also accommodated. Captain McKeever, the commander of the St. Louis, waa praised by the British for his courage and humanity. As a neutral, lie could not take a share in the fighting, but he sent his unarmed boats ashore, and himself frequently •went under fire, like Bishop Selwyn and the Rev. Henry Williams, to bring off the women and children. The ships sailed for Auckland next day. An old warrior named Pokai, telling the story half a century after the war, said that the Ngapuhi were annoyed at this shelling. "We treated the women and children kindly," he said, "and took those who remained late off to the ships in our

canoes. As soon as all the refugees were on board —and even before that —the man-o'-war set to an I opened fire on our people on the beach. It was an act of treachery to shell us after the town had been given up to us by the whites. When the firing began some of us were sorry, we had not tomahawked all the pakehas we could find." That was the Maori way of looking at it.

The Maori casualties of the day were heavier than those of the British, but they weighed' lightly against the victory. The British lost ten seamen, and marines and privates of the 90th killed; in addition, two people died from injuries received in the explosion of the magazine. The wounded numbered 23. The Maori division which suffered most was Kawiti's, in the fight near the English church.

In the graveyard around the English church memorials remind visitors of the battle. There is the tomb of six gallant men of the frigate Hazard who fell in the .defence of Kororareka, working their gun in the narrow pass above the church or wielding cutlasses against Kawiti's warriors-. These lines from Mrs. Hemans' poem "England's Dead" are graven on the slab below their names:

The warlike of the isles. The men of field and wave, Are not the rocks their funeral piles, Tiie seas and shores their grave? Go, stranger! Track the deep, Free, l'ree the white sail spread ! Wave may not foam nor wild wind sweep, Where rest not England's dead.