Chapter VIII: The Hauhau Council-Town

Life in Taiporohenui--A great praying-house--The ritual of the
_Niu_--Singular Hauhau chants--"_Matua Pai-mariré_"--Bent's new
owner, and his new wife--The tattooers--Another white renegade

Another summer came, and the crops were gathered in, and the men of Tito's _hapu_, after nearly a year of comparative peace, wearied for the war-path again. Rimatoto and other small bush-hamlets were deserted, and the tribes gathered in, bearing their food supplies to the Hauhau council-village of Taiporohenui--close to where the town of Hawera now stands. Taiporohenui was a famous name--a word of _mana_, as the Maori would say--amongst all the tribes from Whanganui to Waikato. The name, say the wise men of Taranaki, goes back far beyond the days of the later Maori migration to New Zealand, in the canoes Aotea, Tokomaru, Tainui, and other Polynesian Viking ships. It was that of a great temple in Tahiti, in the tropic isles of the Hawaiikian seas, countless generations ago. And in this latter-day Taiporohenui the Maoris, mindful of their ancient traditions, built another temple.

This Hauhau praying-house and council-hall, constructed of hewn timber with _raupo_-reed walls and _nikau_-thatch roof, is described by Bent as the largest building of native construction that he had seen. It was about one hundred and twenty feet in length, and was of such exceptional size that the ridge-pole was supported by four _poutoko-manawa_, or pillars, instead of one or two, as in the ordinary Maori meeting-house; there were five fires burning in it at night, in the stone fireplaces down its long central aisle; on either side were the mat-covered resting-places of the people. The timbers of the house were of the durable _totara_ pine. The inside was lined with beautiful _tukutuku_ work, of _kakaho_ reeds and thin wooden lathes artfully fastened with _kiekie_ fibre, arranged in many handsome geometrical patterns. Beneath the first large _poutoko-manawa_ in the house was buried a large piece of greenstone in the rough, the _whatu_, or "luck-stone," of the sacred house. It was the Maori custom when the centre-pole of a large meeting-house or the first big palisade-post of a fort was set in position, to place a piece of greenstone, often in the form of an ornament, such as an ear-drop or a carved _tiki_, at its foot.[3]

In front of the great house on the _marae_, or village square, stood the sacred _Niu_-pole, a _totara_ pine flagstaff, nearly fifty feet in height, with a yard about fourteen feet long; the staff was stayed like the mast of a ship. The war-flags of the Hauhaus were flown from the _Niu_, and the people daily marched around its foot in their "_Pai-mariré_" procession, intoning the chants their prophet had taught them. This _Niu_ was one of the first worship-poles planted in Taranaki by the Hauhau prophet's command, and it was the centre of many a wild fanatic gathering. At its foot there was planted a large piece of unworked greenstone--as was done when the first house-pillar was set up--as the _whatu_ of the sacred pole; this block of _pounamu_ is still there, says Bent.

Round this staff of worship, where the bright war-flags hung, the people marched daily in their strange procession, chanting their wild psalms. Tito te Hanataua was one of the priests of the _Niu_, and he led his tribe in the services after the Hauhau religion.

Some of the chants were amazing mixtures of English and Maori; some were all pidgin-English, softened by the melodious Maori tongue. Here is a specimen of the daily chants, intoned by all the people as they marched round and round the holy pole. The priest shouted, "_Porini, hoia!_" ("Fall in, soldiers!"); then "_Teihana!_" ("Attention!"), and they stood waiting. Then they chanted, as they got the order to march:

_Translation._

_Kira_ Kill
_Wana_ One
_Tu_ Two
_Tiri_ Three
_Wha_-- Four--
_Teihana!_ Attention!

Round the sacred flagstaff they went--men, women, and children--chanting:

_Rewa_ River
_Piki rewa_ Big river
_Rongo rewa_ Long river
_Tone_ Stone
_Piki tone_-- Big stone--
_Teihana!_ Attention!

_Rori_ Road
_Piki rori_ Big road
_Rongo rori_ Long road
_Puihi_ Bush
_Piki puihi_-- Big bush--
_Teihana!_ Attention!

_Rongo puihi_ Long bush
_Rongo tone_ Long stone
_Hira_ Hill
_Piki hira_ Big hill
_Rongo hira_-- Long hill--
_Teihana!_ Attention!

_Mauteni_ Mountain
_Piki mauteni_ Big mountain
_Rongo mauteni_ Long mountain
_Piki niu_ Big staff
_Rongo niu_-- Long staff--
_Teihana!_ Attention!

_Nota_ North
_No te pihi_ North by East
_No te hihi_ N. Nor'-east
_Norito mino_ N.E. by North
_Noriti_ North-east
_Koroni_-- Colony--
_Teihana!_ Attention!

_Hai!_ Hi!
_Kamu te ti_ Come to tea
_Oro te mene_ All the men
_Rauna_ Round
_Te Niu_-- The _Niu_--
_Teihana!_ Attention!

_Hema_ Shem
_Rurawini_ Rule the wind
_Tu mate wini_ Too much wind
_Kamu te ti_-- Come to tea--
_Teihana!_ Attention!

And so on, a marvellous farrago of Maorified English words and phrases. It was Te Ua's "gift of tongues," they imagined, that had descended upon them.

Night and morning, too, the sound of Hauhau prayers rose from the great camp. Here is one, the "Morning Song" ("_Waiata mo te Ata_"), in imitation of the English Prayer-book:

_Translation._

_Koti te Pata, mai mariré_; God the Father, have mercy on me;
_Koti te Pata, mai mariré_; God the Father, have mercy on me;
_Koti te Pata, mai mariré_; God the Father, have mercy on me;
_To riré, riré!_ Have mercy, mercy (or peace, peace)!

_Koti te Tana, mai mariré_; God the Son, have mercy on me;
_Koti te Tana, mai mariré_; God the Son, have mercy on me;
_Koti te Tana, mai mariré_; God the Son, have mercy on me;
_To riré, riré!_ Have mercy, mercy!

_Koti te Orikoti, mai mariré_; God the Holy Ghost, have mercy on me;
_Koti te Orikoti, mai mariré_; God the Holy Ghost, have mercy on me;
_Koti te Orikoti, mai mariré_; God the Holy Ghost, have mercy on me;
_To riré, riré!_ Have mercy, mercy!

_To mai Niu Kororia, mai My glorious _Niu_, have mercy
mariré_; on me;
_To mai Niu Kororia, mai My glorious _Niu_, have mercy
mariré_; on me;
_To mai Niu Kororia, mai My glorious _Niu_, have mercy
mariré_; on me;
_To riré, riré!_ Have mercy, mercy!

The more warlike chants ended in a loudly barked "_Hau!_" the watchword and holy war-cry of the rebel bushmen. Very wild they were, these savage hymns, haunting in rhythm, and stirring the people to a frenzy of fanatic fire.

Kimble Bent joined in these Hauhau war-rites like any Maori, and marched, chanting with his wild comrades, round and round the _Niu_.

Several skirmishes between the whites and Maoris occurred in the winter and early spring of 1866, and one of these had some concern for the exile. About three miles away from Taiporohenui was a village called Pokaikai, to which "Ringiringi" was sent awhile by his chief. While he was there the prophet Te Ua arrived. He dreamed a dream, one of bad omen, and he straightway counselled "Ringiringi" to return at once to Taiporohenui. "Ringi" obeyed. Three days, or, rather, three nights afterwards, a force of colonial soldiers under Colonel McDonnell unexpectedly attacked Pokaikai and rushed the village, killing several Hauhaus. In some way the Forest Rangers under McDonnell had heard that the deserter Kimble Bent was in Pokaikai, and they were eager to capture or shoot him. Some of them surrounded one of the _wharés_ in which they imagined Bent was sleeping. A young volunteer named Spain had just previously, unnoticed by them, gone into the _wharé_ to bring out a dead Hauhau, and while he was there the Rangers--hearing some one say there was a white man within--fired a volley into the hut, which unfortunately mortally wounded Spain. This young soldier was the only _pakeha_ killed in the fight.

Tu-Mahuki, a friendly Maori of the Whanganui tribe who served on the British side in the Maori War, with his wife Takiora.

(_From a sketch by Major von Tempsky, 1866._)]

When "Ringiringi" heard of the Pokaikai affair from the fugitives who fled through the bush to Taiporohenui, he felt that the Hauhau prophet had indeed been his good angel, for it was only Te Ua's injunction to return to the main Hauhau camp that had saved him from the vengeful bullets of his fellow-whites. And thenceforward the white man was a dreamer of many a strange dream, and he came to believe almost as implicitly as the forest-men themselves in the omens that lay in the visions of the night, and in warning voices from the spirit-world.

About this time "Ringiringi" changed hands, much as if he were a fat porker or a keg of powder or any other article of Maori barter. Rupé ("Wood-pigeon"), a chief of Taiporohenui, made request of Tito--to whom he was related--for his _pakeha mokai_, his tame white man. He had never owned a _pakeha_, he explained, and would like one all to himself, and he knew that "Ringiringi" would be a handy man to have around, to keep his armoury of guns, of miscellaneous makes and dates, in repair, and to make cartridges for him. So "Ringiringi" was passed over to his new owner, whom he served, with the exception of some short intervals in the war-time and in the period of exile on the Upper Waitara, until 1878.

Soon after "Ringiringi" had become one of Rupé's household, his chief's son, a young lad named Kuku (another name for the wood-pigeon), fell seriously ill. The white man doctored and carefully nursed the boy, and under his treatment he recovered. Rupé's gratitude to his _mokai_ took a chieftain-like form. As payment, or _utu_, for curing his son, he led up his daughter, a young girl of fifteen or sixteen, and presented her to "Ringiringi" as his wife.

"Indeed, she was a pretty girl," says the old _pakeha_-Maori, recalling the dead past. "I'll never forget her. She had handsome features, almost European, though she was of pure Maori blood. Her lips were small, her hair was wavy and curly, instead of hanging in a straight, black mat, and she had what was very strange in a Maori, blue eyes--the first blue-eyed native I have ever seen. She was a very gentle girl--she never _kanga_'d or said unpleasant things about others, never quarrelled with the other women. She did not smoke either, which was unusual. Her chin was tattooed, but not too thickly or deeply. She had, too, the _rapé_ and _tiki-hopé_ patterns engraved on her body, the hip, and thigh, tattooing which was in fashion in those days, and which the girls and women were proud of displaying when they went out to bathe."

With this agreeable young wife, whose name was Rihi, or Te Hau-roroi-ua, Bent lived for nearly three years. She bore one child, which died, and soon after she, too, died, to the _pakeha_-Maori's great sorrow. His one-eyed wife, the lady of Otapawa, had left her unwilling husband some months before he took Rihi in Maori marriage.

Amongst the primitive arts of the Maori with which "Ringiringi" became familiar about this time was that of _moko_, or tattooing. The _kauae_ tattooing--on chin and lips--was still universal amongst the native women, though few of the men now submitted their faces to the chisel or the needle of the tattooing artist. A popular form of tattooing amongst both sexes was that technically known as _tiki-hopé_, the scroll-patterns on the thighs and other parts of the body usually concealed by the waist-shawl. The white man saw numbers of women as well as men decorated in this fantastic fashion. In fact, he was so thoroughly Maori by this time that he was about to undergo the operation himself, in the winter of 1867, when living at the village Te Paka, near the old fort Otapawa. He had the _ngarahu_, or _kapara_, the blue-black pigment, ready for the dusky engraver, and would shortly have been made pretty for life in Maori eyes had not the tattooing been peremptorily forbidden.

"I wanted my face tattooed," says Bent, "for I was as wild as any Maori then. I intended to have the curves called _tiwhana_, or arches, tattooed on my forehead, over the eyes, and the _kawekawe_ lines on the cheeks, extending to the corners of the mouth. What a curiosity I would have been, though, when I came out of the bush! I would have been able to earn my living in my old age, going on exhibition, like the bearded lady in the circus!"

It was Te Ua the prophet who forbade the tattooing. He happened to be in residence at Te Paka just then, and he reminded "Ringiringi" that he had _tapu_'d him, and explained that to _moko_ his skin would be a violation of that particular brand of _tapu_. To the white man this was not quite clear; nevertheless, he agreed to obey the prophet's Mosaic command "to make no cuttings" in his flesh, and remained a plain, undecorated _pakeha_.

However, he acquired some skill himself with the tattooing instruments, and exercised it in printing names and sundry devices on the persons of the villagers. He learned, too, how to manufacture the indelible _ngarahu_, or _kapara_, pigment. In making this tattooing-ink the soot from fires of white-pine (_kahikatea_) wood was used. A cave-like hole was dug in the side of a bank, with an opening resembling a chimney in the top. A large fire was kindled in the cave, or _rua_, and for several days was constantly fed with the resinous timber of the _kahikatea_. Above the earth-chimney were arranged a number of twigs of the _karamu_ shrub (a coprosma), with the bark stripped off, set up in the shape of a tent, and covered with a layer of leaves. The dense smoke from the fire deposited a thick soot on the _karamu_ sticks. For some days the fire was kept up; then the twigs were removed, and the soot scraped off into wooden receptacles. It was mixed with water, and worked into little round balls. The soot-balls were then placed on a layer of _poroporo_ leaves in an _umu_, or earth-oven, and steamed for about three hours, when they were taken out and set to dry. In later times, after the war, Bent often employed himself in the manufacture of this tattoo-dye; and was, he says, accustomed to receive ten shillings for a ball of _ngarahu_ the size of a peach.

To Te Paka village there came one day another renegade white man, an Irish soldier named Charles Kane, or King. He had been a private in the second battalion of the 18th Royal Irish Regiment, and had, like Bent, revolted against army discipline, and deserted to the Hauhaus. The Maoris had christened him "Kingi." He lived in Bent's _wharé_ in Te Paka for some time. He was exceedingly bitter against his old officers, and, in fact, against his fellow-whites in general; so much so, that he boasted of his intention to fight against them, and, as will be seen later, actually did so in the attack on the Turuturu-mokai redoubt. Like most of the soldiers who traitorously deserted their colours in those war-days, he fell at last a victim to the tomahawks of his Hauhau companions.