Footprints Of History When Hauhau Fanatics Plotted To Sack Napier

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 157, 31 March 1937, Page 13

Footprints Of History When Hauhau Fanatics Plotted To Sack Napier

THE FAITH OF PAI MARIRE

Forgotten Battlefields Of 70 Years Ago

(By

Stephen Gerard.)

VI. Perky, bumptious mynah-birds perch on the fruit trees of Taradale; along the foothills cotton-tailed bunnies nibble the market-garden lettuces; irrepressible brown-eyed Maori youngsters haid the water-melon plots of Omaranui; but no more formidable disturbance to-day breaks the deep peace of the rich lands on either bank of the Tutaekuri River. Willows and stately poplars stand beside the stream. Only an obelisk at Omaranui, only a granite monument at Eskdale on the Taupo Road, remind the passer-by of the battles of October 12, 18GG, whereby Napier was saved from bloodshed and pillage at the hands of Hauhau fanatics.

I asked an Omaranui farmer, I questioned a storekeeper at Bay View, I put it to an educated Napier Maori youth, in vain. Could no one tell an inquirer where or how or why these memorable engagements took place? Not until long afterward, far away in the Urewera Country, did I chance to meet an elderly native able to recall the names of the dead who fell that day. Yet Omaranui and Petane fights were the first of a train of events that led to the bloody raids of Te Kooti, and the famous trial of Rua Kenana, and that ended no more than a month ago at a tangi at Matahi, where I talked with old Te Paire and the chiefs of the Tuhoe tribe. These were famous fights, momentous events, that befell but 70 years since. So soon men forget! The Teaching of Te Ua Hauniene. During that period of unrest when the white man was elbowing out the Maori, as a fledgling cuckoo his nestmate, from his rightful demesne, Native discontent found outlet in the King movement, cause of the Waikato Wars, and in the Hauhau craze, when the mad prophet of a ridiculous creed spread blood and strife from Egmont to East Cape. A Taranaki Maori. Te Da Haumene, was subject to fits of madness, and on these occasions his compatriots bound him for the public safety. One day by sheer strength—though he attributed it to the Archangel Gabriel’s assistance —he burst the ropes that bound him. So he was fettered with lock and chain. Again he broke free. The Maoris began to think that after all Gabriel might have something to do with it. Then, in a fit of madness, Te Ua cut of his son’s leg, so it was said, with an axe; and with the aid of the Archangel replaced it, leaving only a scar in proof of the miracle! This tale was widely believed, and Te Ua was hailed as a prophet. He preached a religion of his own invention, the faith called Pai Marire. He preached the new god Hau, and the war-god, Riki. He preached in incomprehensible gibberish, as a maniac raves, inveighing always against the white man: and he dispatched his emissaries throughout the land to promulgate the Hauhau cult. Tn the wild Urewera, where the warlike and adventurous mountaineers dwelt unconquered in the bush fastnesses, the new beliefs found favour. Indeed, the Tuhoe people still believe strange doctrines evolved directly from the Pai Marire.

The Sack of Napier Planned.

Now. that squat. tattooed chief Hapukn, who had been worsted by the lean Moananui and driven from the Heretaunga Plain, welcomed the Hauh.au delegates. But the Ahuriri chiefs took counsel and resolved to discourage the hew movement. The envoys, Taranaki and Urewera men. took counsel, too. and their plan was nothing less ambitious than the sack of Napier town. A messenger slipped back over the upland passes, and down from the mountains came more than a hundred Tuhoe warriors, all armed. They eamped at Omaranui, across the swamps that bordered the Tutaekuri River.

Two men saved Napier. Archdeacon Samuel Williams saw through the Hauhati plot, galloped into town, and warned Sir Donald McLean. McLean, determining on instant action, called out the militia and attacked the war party. “Nga Urewera Haere Po” was the sobriquet of the mountain people. “The Urewera Who Walk by Night.” It was apt that their own tactis were employed against them at Omaranui. By the wan light of the stars the troops set out, 200 strong, men of the Napier Rifles and the Napier and Mepnee Militia. Lieutenant-Colonel George Whitmore was in command. There were also 200 friendly Natives, under the chiefs Renata. Tareha, Kopu, and Ihaka Whaanga. They did not march in step or in ordered ranks, but threaded their way silently and swiftly in Indian file. Dawn was breaking pearl-grey, and a bleak wind was blowing when they took up their positions under cover, investing the fortified pa beside the stream.

Meantime the mounted volunteers were sept along the shores of the Inner Harbour to seize the fleet of war canoes in which the Hauhaus were to have paddled across to Napier. The Natives in charge of these vessels claimed that they belonged, not to the rebels, but to Tareha. Whether or not this was so, they were cut adrift, and their guardians marched prisoners to Napier.

Omaranui Fight.

So at dawn the Urewera men, looking out from their whares, over the stout palisades, saw to their surprise that they were surrounded by a force outnumbering them four to one. Little they cared for that. They were men of the Tuhoe tribe who proudly boast, ‘‘He iti na Tuhoe, e kata te Po—a few Urewera men, and Hell will laugh because of the numbers we will send to the spirit world.” So when Mr. Hamlin, the interpreter, bade them lay down their arms, they carelessly refused. The watchers round the pa saw them dancing round the sacred Hauhau pole, from which fluttered on the breeze the scarlet ensign of the Ilauhau war god Riki. Across the river, on a little hill, McLean and Whitmore waited while Mr. Hamlin parleyed. An hour was spent vainly requesting the Hauhaus to surrender. All that time a flag of truce flew from the hill-top; but at length it was hauled down, and the Union Jack was broken out. While the Hauhaus left off their dancing and looked to the priming of their flintlocks, Whitmore and his men crossed the river

and from its eastern bank poured a hail of bullets into the Omaranui stockade. The Hauhaus blazed back. For a full hour the firing was heavy, although the casualties among the settlers were few.

After an hour, however, the Europeans closed in, skirmishing up towaid the palisade. The enemy lire was becoming broken and intermittent. Colonel Whitmore, standing up in full view, sword in hand, was on the point of calling his men to charge and carry the pa by storm, and the friendly Natives, distinguished by red and white scarves on their left arms, were already rushing from their cover, when within the enemy lines a tall Native stood erect on the earthworks and shouted for the firing to stop. His ri"lit arm hung limp, for his shouldei was shot through, but in his right he brandished a taiaha to which was tied a fluttering rag of white. Only with difficulty were the friendly Natives withheld from rushing the pa, and killing the prisoners. Dead behind the bullet-scarred stockade lay more than a score of the defenders, and a like number of wounded. Only two of the attacking force were killed, but about 20 were seriously injured. Nigh on 60 prisoners were taken. A score or so of Natives slipped away, before the Europeans entered the pa, and though the mounted men hunted their trail all day, they only brought a dozen of them back. But it was a crushing defeat. The Skirmish at Petane. On the same day, at the same hour, a force of 40 military settlers from Wairoa, who in the darkness had taken up a position on what is now the Te Pohue Road, fell in with a force of Hauhau reinforcements. The Europeans were waiting under cover of flax and toitoi buslies in the gully, when 30 armed Maoris, led by the chief Te Rangihiroa, came marching up the creek-bed. When Major Fraser, who was in charge, stood up and called on them to surrender, they halted in some surprise, and began to load and cap their muskets. At once Major Fraser gave the word to fire. At that first volley old Rangihiroa crumpled up, shot through the jaw. Twelve of the Hauhaus went down. The rest scattered, and for five minutes returned the fire; then, seeing the odds were against them, broke and took to their heels. Five were taken prisoner.

But that is not the end of the story. The Hauhaus captured at Omaranui, with the five Petane prisoners, were taken back to Napier and lodged in the town jail. Later, with other rebels taken on the East Coast, at Wairenga a Hika, they were transported to the Chatham Islands. There they fell un : der the spell of the evil Te Kooti, a greater and more notorious prophet than Te Ua, and at his bidding they seized the schooner Rifleman, and came back to New Zealand far more bitter and dangerous ami implacable than ever they were before. The Rlnga Tu teaching’ of Te Kooti is still the religion of the U rewera; the old Tuhoe chiefs still speak with admiration of his bloody raids, and his elusive chase: there are old folk yet living who shed tears still for the dead Te Kooti slew.

But at Napier there are few who can tell a passer-by what befell at Omaranui and Peta'ne. The country children play at pakera and Maori on the plinths of the memorials, and if they catch again, even in play, some hint of what has been, they are wiser than their parents. The drovers and the tourists and the travellers pass, with never a backward glance at the peaceful fields. In unmarked graves, far from their beloved mountains of the Huiarau, dream the forgotten Tuhoe dead. Past them, uninterested and busy, hurry the motor-buses. Over them, careless and gay. hop the perky, bumptious, imported Indian hill-mynah birds. (Next Saturday: The Village at Bay View.)