SUCH THINGS WERE

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3548, 2 May 1939, Page 3

SUCH THINGS WERE

The Story of Cambridge from Earliest Recorded Times.

1 C. W. VENNELL 1

CHAPTER VI. (Continued). Knowing something of Te Waharoa’s record, and determined to prevent further bloodshed at all costs, even at that of his own life if need be, and finding remonstrance cf no avail, Brown set out the following morning to meet the Ngati-koroki, to try to persuade them to turn back. He was accompanied on this hazardous mission by a nephew of To Waharoa, a chief named Ngakuku, who was one of Brown’s early converts. Te Waharoa’s consent was necessary before they could set out, but this was not withheld. The chief had his reservations which he did not confide to the missionary. There was no alternative to leaving Mrs Brown at the mission station, entirely at Te Waharoa’s mercy. She, brave woman, was ready to accept the same risks as her husband. On the road, which lay through the Hinuera valley, Brown and his companion met a second messenger from Te Waharoa, who had been to Maungatautari, and was returning with a provocative message from the Ngatikoroki that there were coming to Matamata threats or no threats. They were not carrying flax either, they said, but muskets. The former they had thrown away in favour of the latter on hearing of Te Waharoa’s belligerent attitude. Among such people, Brown was living on a powder magazine which might blow up at any moment. While still some distance from Maungatautari, Brown met some Ngati-koroki scouts, who, on seeing him, ran back to tell the main body of warriors that a pakeha was coming. Imagine yourself as that pakeha, unarmed and alone, facing a tana of hostile savages. In his journal on 4th August, 1835, he wrote: “On reaching the spot we found about one hundred armed men and about the same number of women and children. We took up a position about twenty yards from them and, in accordance with native custom, sat for some time in solemn silence. “At length one of the chiefs got up and made a speech which he commenced by saying that he supposed that a missionary was come to send them back to their homes, but they were too brave to listen to him. Tie was followed by some other chiefs, some of whom seemed very much inclined to be saucy, but the older chiefs spoke much more reasonably, one of them observing that it was not right to be angry with me till they heard what I had got to say. They then called upon me to stand up and speak, a summons' which I obeyed with feeble knees and a stammering tongue. I told them that I was not what they had been calling me, a messenger from Te Waharoa, but a messenger from Jesus Christ who commanded all men to love one another. They listened with a good deal of attention to what I had to say, and finally consented to go back in the morning. . . . They then wished me to see how very brave they should have been had they proceeded to Matamata, and commenced their hideous war dance.” The Ngati-koroki chiefs were evidently very impressed by Brown’s disregard for personal danger and by his utterances. The Maoris always admired a brave man. They crowded into his tent that evening and talked until midnight, in an endeavour to persuade him to leave Te Waharoa’s tribe which they said was a very tutu a one. They wanted him to come and live with them, blandly assuring him that they Avere men “with very good hearts, and very quiet spirits.” But Brown Avas not to be persuaded. As he and Ngakuku turned their faces towards Matamata next morning the Ngati-koroki let off their muskets as a. parting salute. Had they knoAvn that To Waharoa and a Avar party were at that moment on their way from Matamata by a different route, their bullets might not have been Avasted on the empty air. Fortunately for BroAvn, the treacherous chief missed the Ngati-koroki. He and his Ngati-haua folloAvers returned to their pa next day “in a very sullen humour because they had been depriA r ed of the pleasure of shooting some of their relatives and friends.” The Ngati-koroki Avere sincere in their invitation to Mr BroAvn. Six or seven Aveeks after the episode of turning back the Avar-party, they sent a message from Maungatautari to tell him that they Avere “believing for nothing” and Avantcd a missionary to live among them. The best BroAvn could do was to send them a native teacher as soon as he had one sufficiently Avell-trained, but that could not be done in a feAV Aveeks. Meanwhile the intrepid missionary continued his good Avork of trying to bring peace among the warring tribes, and Avas actually instrumental in bringing the long-draAvn out Avar betAveen Te Waharoa and the Ngatimaru of Thames (which had continued intermittently in the interval betAveen the Battle of TaumataAvhvi and BroAvn’s arrival at Matamata) to an end. But no sooner Avas peace concluded on one side than Avar threatened on the other. On Christmas Day, 1835, a relative of Te Waharoa’s Avas treacherously murdered at Rotorua, and the chief immedately set about planning the terrible revenge which he eventually took, sacking Ohinemutu with terrible slaughter. By Avay of Avorking themselves up to the requisite state of fury, the Ngati-haua Avarriors performed various horrible rites. One Avas to place a human head, dressed with feathers, in a fallen tree and to do a Avar dance round it. Sometimes in these dances a Avarrior would seize the head and brandish it about, and (to use BroAvn’s Avords) “by this action, apparently increase the savage exultation displayed in their fiend-like countenances.” So long as the missionary did not try to interfere too much, Te Waharoa Avas his friend, but the chief became incensed at BroAvn’s efforts to stop the Rotorua war. “If you are angry Avith me for what I have been doing,” he told the missionary, “1 Avill kill you and eat you and all the missionaries.” And it Avas no idle threat. In spite of Brown’s strenuous efforts, the. Avar Avith Rotorua pursued its grim course. Maketu fell to Te Waharoa Avith terrible slaughter, sixty-five of the enemy being eaten and a hundred and fifty brought as slaves to Matamata. “The sights however were harrowing,’’ Brown wrote on Ist April, 1836, describing the return of the war party; “a heart stuck on a pointed stick —a

head secured to a short pole—baskets of human flesh with bones and hands protruding from the tops and sides, and (what more deeply affected me than any other object) was one of the infant children of our school dandling on his knees and making faces at the head of some Rotorua chief who had been slain in the battle.” (To be Continued).