AN EYE FOR AN EYE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21698, 13 January 1934, Page 1 (Supplement)

AN EYE FOR AN EYE

BY W. GIBBS BECKETT

SEQUEL TO HAWES EPISODE

Te Ngarara, reigning chief of tho Ngatiawa, was gathered unto his fathers. Fate had ordained for the Reptile a sudden and a violent end, only according to his deserts. Pakehas had descended upon the Whakatane coast in the schooner New Zealander to seek justice following the Hawes massacre, and it was only right and proper that such should bo. Had a pakeha fired the shot which killed To Ngarara, thero the* matter would have died, but to the native mind it was not meet that the medium chosen to execute a white man's justice should have bean a Maori from a distant tribe, and one unconcerned in the previous affair. Consequently the rage of Te Whanau Apanui waxed great, surpassing all measure. Such a procedure was a deliberate rupture of the Maori's finer distinctions in the matter of tribal etiquette, and something assuredly would have to be done about it. Now hero must bo recorded, for the first time in print, one of those sad misunderstandings that form interesting blemishes on the complexion of history both Maori and European. It transpired that aboard the New Zealander when Te Ngarara went to his fate there were two natives—Te Hana, the Ngapuhi chief, who was actually responsible for the shooting, and a Ngatiporou tribesmen from Horoera, near Te Araroa, East Cape. To this latter gentleman, for some unaccountable reason, was the deed attributed by the bereaved Ngatiawa. So, convinced the execution of thoir revered rangatira was due to Ngatiporou subterfuge, the Whakatane natives heaped execration upon tho heads of Horoera's innocent inhabitants, and vowed a dire vengeance.

Bent on Revenge Soon accordingly a taua was made ready with all expedition, and the warparty left by canoe for the East Cape. The ill-fated Ngatiporou were somehow apprised of the impending attack, and set to work overhauling their defences with a colerity born of unhappy foreboding. The tribe was summoned to assemble in a pa by Horoera's pleasant foreshore, and here throughout the long day the tohungas knelt and chanted their humble supplications to the tribe's protective gods, endeavouring with prolonged karakia, and with the execution of weird native rites, to sway the atua's fickle sympathy in favour of the Ngatiporou. When darkness interrupted preparations for defence, each quarter of the heavens 'was minutely searched for good or evil omens. All folk of the hapu observed the tribal tapu with strict circumspection, for to arouse the anger of the atua at such a time would bo tanta*mount to suicide.

Yet, despite all these worthy provisions against an unkind fate, Ngatiporou suffered an overwhelming defeat in the ultimate conflict, the pa's defences crumbling before a spirited and well-organised onslaught. The panicstricken defenders, with their protective palisades collapsed, and Ngatiawa tomahawks whistling about their ears, sought safety in flight, streaming in disorder on to the level sand-dunes fronting the pa. But here lay no escape for them, for the assailants, mad with the lust for blood and inflamed with a righteous passion, headed them off like sheep, and did not pause in their promiscuous slaughter until the great bulk of the defenders, men, women and children, had .been mercilessly butchered and lay in tragically grotesque heaps in a welter of their own blood.

Mistaken Vengeance Thus foil the Ngatiporou pa at Horoera before the exultant Whanau Apanui. It was not until some time later that the assailants realised that utu had been exacted at the expense of an innocent people—that the Ngapuhi, not the Ngatiporou, should have suffered. Occasional visitors to that out-of-the-way spot have been surprised, when at times an inquisitive sea-breeze agitates the smooth surface of the sand-dunes, to find on the seafront a litter of grinning skulls and bleached bones exposed to view, as if mutely guarding the spot where fell the defenders in their greatest numbers. There is a book, " The Story of Te Waharoa," written in 1866 by Judge J. A. Wilson, of the Native Land Court, which is beloved, of the Bay of Plenty historian. Between its two covers is a host of invaluable facts, records and theories collected during his long service to the State, and attractively compiled and written in an engaging style for the general reader. So much of goodness is to be found in this volume that it may be said what few inaccuracies exist may bo overlooked; but obviously it is desirable to rectify wrong impressions before they gain wide credulity. In his preface to a second edition, ]flo6, the late Judge Wilson said: "It is forty years since the story was published, during which time not a single statement of fact therein regarding Maori history has been questioned, much less refuted." However, on page 33, the chronicler describes how Te Ngarara came by his end, and then states that To Whanau Apanui, clamouring for pakelia blood to atone for the rangatira's death, fitted out a flotilla and sailed as far hs Hick's Bay, where they attacked and carried a pa at Wharekaliika, " for the purpose of getting into their hands two pakehas who lived in it." A Correction

But the Maori did not demand utu from tho pakeha—utu applying only to inter-tribal dispute. The Wharekahika affair, as far as I have been able to ascertain, antedated tho Horoera assault, and had to do with an expedition to augment supplies of guns and ammunition. The actual skirmish arose from the sale of a smoked head in exchange for firearms, from which episode the name Ngati Hokopu was applied to one of the Ngatiporou hapus. Although this point in unrecorded by Judge Wilson, his description of events following tho capture of Wharekahika pa provides us with interesting reading. One of the pakeha prisoners was instantly killed, " but the natives complained ho was thin and tough, and that they could scarcely eat him. The second European escaped in a marvellous manner. He fled, and attempted to climb a tree, but the native who pursued him, a Ngaitai man, cut his fingers off with a tomahawk, and tumbled him down out of it. We suppose tho Maori preferred making a live man walk to tho kainga to carrying a dead man there, otlierwiso another moment would have ended tho pakeha's life." Then it was that a Divine Providence intervened. When we consider how few and far between must have been the visits of ships to this coastline in 1829, we must account it something not far short of a miracle that at this moment a whaling ship should round the point and drop anchor in the bay. The Maoris, being in extreme need of firearms, hearkened to their captor's promises of a grand ransom in guns if he were surrendered to his countrymen. A boat approached the shore, and the pakeha, walking beyond his captors, cried out to them in English, " When I jump into the water, fire." He plunged in, and was saved, while a deadly volley from the whaleboat left many a dusky warrior on the Wharekahika foreshore to be accorded tho honours of a Maori tangi.