MAORI MEMORIES

Taranaki Daily News, 18 November 1933, Page 1 (Supplement)

MAORI MEMORIES

STRANGE WAR CUSTOMS

(By

J.H.S.—Copyright.)

When Maru-iwi attacked one pa at Waimana under Cover of the night, they feared that the garrison would hear their approach through the bushes, so the cries of the wingless night birds kiwi, weka, and kakapo were imitated, and the hoarse’ sounds of the ruru (owl) were used as signals. The chief of the pa, Tama Ruarangi, heard the cries of the birds. He turned over and said sleepily, “My food grows tame.” He slept soundly, for he never wakened.

When a pa is attacked and the garrison slain, the place is tapu because of the blood. Only a priest of great mana, can remove tapu. If he is not available, that place is deserted and another pa built. Visiting chiefs, from some occult fancy, would not enter by the gate; but would climb the palisades. If a son were enslaved and subsequently recaptured or released, the father would rather take his life than allow that son’s children to be told that their ancestor was a slave. Maori law permitted the killing of a female relative in certain critical situations where her good name was in danger. Should a man who married into or lived with another tribe be insulted, and decided to collect his people and attack his hosts, he would be free to leave, but must remove the arawhata (bridge of the moat) as the sign of his intention.

When Colonel Whitmore captured Harema pa in 1869, he signalled the troops with rocket lights which were new to the Maoris, who fled to the bush lest these “flying candles” should discover and bum them. Ever intelligent and adaptable, the Maori changed his mode of warfare to meet the attack of firearms. The newer forts were an ingenious and often effective defence against our superior arms and numbers, and their tactics often deceived us.

Their First Guns. Tlie introduction of firearms caused'a lightning change in the age old methods of defence and attack. Hand to hand fighting gave place to long distant skirmish and cover making. The Maoris became expert bush fighters, as we found to our cost. Their first guns were flintlocks of various kinds, and were obtained by barter from the early traders. By 1830 they were known throughout the country. So keen was the desire for guns that several chiefs went to England for supplies. Between 1820 and 1840 it is estimated that in the first fierce tribal wars with flint lock guns, twenty to thirty thousand Maoris were slain. A party of Tuhoe visited Hauraki to obtain their first guns, flint and steel, powder, and later on, percussion caps. Then slaves was the price of a gun. Guns were known as pu. When Ngapuhi and Tuhoe approached Titirangi pa, near Wairoa, the garrison were told that the attackers were armed with pu, which were thought to be merely putorine (war trumpets). When the guns were raised, they laughed at the small end being in front; but as the men exposed on the stages fell in scores, they cried in alarm, “No te Atua te mea nei” (“it comes from the gods”). In the first attack on Wairoa, Te Au carried a huge flintlock pistol, and, used it with great success to harm the defenders. These first weapons still live in song and legend. The principal articles of barter for guns were dressed flax, pigs, and dried human heads well tattooed. When Auckland first sprang up, droves of 599 pigs were driven 259 miles from’Ruatahuna or barter. When bullets ran short, during the historic fight at Orakau, the Maoris made shift with peach stones, gathered from missionary peach groves, which also formed the principal part of their sustenance during the seige. Te Umu Hiki.

The singular but absurd ceremony “Umu Hiki” was used to cause a tribe whose presence as neighbours was not desirable to migrate to other lands. It was most useful—that is if there was a Tohunga (priest) of sufficient power to give effect to the spells uttered. Umu Is the steam oven, a hole in the ground, with heated stones upon which vegetables, fish, and birds covered with flax mats, were placed. Water was poured in, and the earth replaced on top. Hiki means to adjourn, transplant, or migrate. Umu was also an ancient ceremonial of fire, and hiki meant to produce fire.

If an offending tribe was weak in numbers, it would be destroyed in battle. If too powerful, it was wiser and more effective to call up the dread power of the Tohunga that he might hiki these people and cause them to flee to, other parts. The spell, laid upon a superstitious people caused them to become uneasy, nervous, and fearful of defeat. A Maori will say “ka uea te pou o te whare,” the upright of the house is shaken. The expression is one of the many singular idioms of the Maori tongue, and means the enemy were “loosened” in their hold on the district by means of the hiki. Maori Reprisals.

In 1839 an occurrence illustrative of Maori customs was reported from the Bay of Islands, which led to further disastrous raids by the Nga-Puhi tribes against the southerners. This was known as the “Girls’ War.” The captain of a whaler anchored off Kororareka (palatable bird), where as many as sixty such ships were to be seen, took to wife two Maori girls who were sisters. After the manner of the prophet Brigham Young, seme time later he annexed two sisters of another family. These four were bathing in the sunny. waves, sporting and chaffing one another, the mothers looking on. From chaff the girls got to abuse, then to cursing in Maori fashion. The mother of the first couple rushed in and nearly drowned the other pair. From the girls’ wordy abuse and tonguethrusting, to the mothers hair pulling and scratching, at once followed the tribal reprisals from the chiefs. Insults of this nature could not be permitted by the old time Maori.

Uru-roa, an influential chief, brotherin- law to the head Tongi Tika, representing the most newly wed pair, came with a large force and .plundered the kumara fields of Te Morenga and Pomare. who were of the tribe whose slightly, older wives were the injured pair. This was on March 5, 1839. The missionaries tried their best to heal the breach; but an untimely or an accidental shot, just as at the Wairau massacre, killed a woman. Then the dogs of war where let loose. Father and son, brother and brother, slew each other. On March 17 peace was ratified in the presence of a thousand M oris. “The Missionary Record” describes at length how this was done by Ururoa chanting a song of peace, then breaking a small stick and throwing it at the feet of Te Morenga. who by following his example, ratified the Treaty of Peace in a more effective manner than our conference at Geneva.