PREPARATIONS FOR WAR

Te Ao Hou, September 1961, Page 52

PREPARATIONS FOR WAR Within the village, the question of peace or war was considered in the meeting house or on the marae. The assembled people, both men and women, devoted themselves to warlike speeches, songs and chants, thus working themselves up into a state of excitement and military fervour. The chief had to have his people's support from the start. There were a number of ceremonial ways of calling upon the aid of allies, such as offering a chief of another hapu a burnt cloak. A messenger would hand such a token over without a word, to be accepted or rejected; the claim for help was simply based on kinship. The use of such symbols rather than full explanations was at least partly prompted by the need for secrecy. If a hapu accepted the offering he was invited to a great feast always held before a war was started. There was no specific military training except for the war dances and other demonstrations at the place of assembly. These demonstrations were scanned by expert old men or women for evidence of the warriors' fitness and enthusiasm. Mistakes in the movements were ill omens. Yet the young were educated for war. Boys were taught to wake at the slightest sound, to evade a falling blow. They used reeds and wooden rods to practise the spear thrusts. In adolescence real but padded weapons were substituted. Boys learned to wrestle, box, jump, run, throw stones, and climb. They also memorized ritual utterances used in war. Surprise was an important element in Maori warfare. One could never know what enemy might turn up for an insult even several generations ago might make a hapu decide to take the warpath at any time together with what allies could be found. The Maori proverb said: ‘Birds

Maori war dress varied a good deal as between one fighter and another. The chief shown here is wearing a closely-woven full-sized war cloak and an apron-like garment (maro) fastened with a war belt. The weapons are spear and patu (John Liddiard Nicholas, 1817, Courtesy Turnbull Library). sleep sound and peacefully upon the tree branch, but man is ever wakeful and in dread of enemies.’