THE STORMING OF OHAEAWAI

Te Ao Hou, October 1956, Page 41

THE STORMING OF OHAEAWAI We still remember some words spoken by the Ngatirangi chief Pene Taui: ‘He aha tenei e toia nei i runga i au?’ (What is this thing dragged over my head?). They commemorate a slight difference in the Maori camp regarding the place for the next battle. Kawiti, it seems, asked for a stand to be made in his territory, but Pene Taui's reply decided the issue, and the choice of battleground was Ohaeawai, Pene's own pa, just a few miles south of Okaihau. Here new methods of warfare were adopted by the Maoris. In addition to the usual pallisades of heavy timber, flax-leaves were also used to protect the defenders, and this flax actually succeeded in deflecting bullets. Rockets were used by the British, but met with little success. Women, too, played their part in the trenches behind the pallisades by loading the guns for the men. When the soldiers charged the pa, they were met by an uninterrupted volley of lead from the defenders, causing the loss of many brave men. It is said that the Maoris had managed to obtain a Union Jack by creeping through the bush and stealing it. The Officer seeing it in the pa, flying below the Maori flag, lost his head and ordered his men to charge. That was exactly what the Maoris in the pa wanted to happen. Pene Taui's pa had withstood the heavy bombardment of the British artillery and the defenders had repelled the soldiers' onslaughts, striking back with devastating result. Thus Pene's choice of battlefield was justified. Hone Heke was wounded at this engagement. Some say he had broken the tapu laws of the field of battle. He had taken some object from a dead soldier's person and so become ‘noa’. Be it as it may, Heke after this began to lose heart for the fight. Now a wounded man, taken away to the ancestral ‘tuaahu’ shrine at Hikurangi, he began seriously to think of peace. He even made an appeal to Kawiti, who replied in words that have become proverbial ‘I mea au i tu ai koe ki te riri kia taea teika o te kopua, kahore i te patihitihi nei ano, kua karanga koe kaati’. (I expected when you took up arms that you would go out to catch the fish of the deep; now, only in the shallows, you are calling out for peace). Kawiti was determined to continue the war.(3) If Hone Heke desired unconditional peace after the battle of Ohaeawai, as Kawiti's story asserts, this desire did not last long. He certainly refused the offers made to him shortly afterwards to conclude a separate peace with Governor Fitzroy. That Kawiti was adamant on continuing the war is also not surprising, for the peace offers made by Governor Fitzroy included a demand for all of Kawiti's land. Heke took part in the battle of Ruapekapeka. When peace was finally established after this battle, Kawiti received a free pardon from Sir George Grey, Fitzroy's successor. (Editor.) Up to now Kawiti's forces had fought outside the pa defences in every battle. A master of flanktactics, he had taken on the task of forcing the pakeha to fight on two fronts. He now retired to his own pa, where he could face the foe from behind his own defences. He would show that he could build a pa like Pene Taui's, if not a better one.