Greater Britain

It is a lovely day; fair will be the children that are born to-day; but
we quit our land.

In some parts there is forest; in others, the ground is skimmed over
by the birds in their flight.

Upon the trees there is fruit; in the streams, fish; in the fields,
potatoes; fern-roots in the bush; but we quit our land.”

It is in chorus-speeches of this kind that David‘s psalms must have been recited by the Jews; but on this occasion there was a good deal of mere acting in the grief, for the tribes had never occupied the land that they now sold.

The next day, Dr. Featherston drove into camp surrounded by a brilliant cavalcade of Maori cavalry, amid much yelling and firing of pieces skyward. Hunia, in receiving him, declared that he would not have the money paid till the morrow, as the sun must shine upon the transfer of the lands. It would take his people all the night, he said, to work themselves up to the right pitch for a war-dance; so he sent down a strong guard to watch the money-chests, which had been conveyed to the missionary hut. The Ngatiapa sentry posted inside the room was an odd cross between savagery and civilization; he wore the cap of the native contingent; and nothing else but a red kilt. He was armed with a short Wilkinson rifle, for which he had, however, not a round of ammunition, his cartridges being Enfield and his piece unloaded. Barbarian or not, he seemed to like raw gin, with which some Englishman had unlawfully and unfairly tempted him.

In the morning, the money was handed over in the runanga-house, and a signet-ring presented to Hunia by Dr. Featherston in pledge of peace, and memory of the sale; but owing to the heat, we soon adjourned to the karaka grove, where Hunia made a congratulatory and somewhat boastful speech, offering his friendship and alliance to Dr. Featherston.

The assembly was soon dismissed, and the chiefs withdrew to prepare for the grandest war-dance that had been seen for years, while a party went off to catch and kill the oxen that were to be “steamed” whole, just as our friends’ fathers would have steamed us.

A chief was detached by Hunia to guide us to a hill whence we commanded the whole glade. No sooner had we taken our seats than the Ngatiraukawa to the number of a hundred fighting-men, armed with spears and led by a dozen women bearing clubs, marched out from their camp, and formed in column, their chiefs making speeches of exhortation from the ranks. After a pause, we heard the measured groaning of a distant haka, and looking up the glade, at the distance of a mile saw some twoscore Wanganui warriors jumping in perfect time, now to one side, now to the other, grasping their rifles by the barrel, and raising them as one man each time they jumped. Presently, bending one knee, but stiffening the other leg, they advanced, stepping together with a hopping movement, slapping their hips and thighs, and shouting from the palate, “Hough! Hough!” with fearful emphasis.

A shout from the Ngatiraukawa hailed the approach of the Ngatiapa, who deployed from the woods some two hundred strong, all armed with Enfield rifles. They united with the Wanganuis, and marched slowly down with their rifles at the “charge,” steadily singing war-songs. When within a hundred yards of the opposing ranks, they halted, and sent in their challenge. The Ngatiraukawa and Ngatiapa heralds passed each other in silence, and each delivered his message to the hostile chief.

We could see that the allies were led by Hunia in all the bravery of his war-costume. In his hair he wore a heron plume, and another was fastened near the muzzle of his short carbine; his limbs were bare, but about his shoulders he had a pure white scarf of satin. His kilt was gauze-silk, of three colors – pink, emerald, and cherry – arranged in such a way as to show as much of the green as of the two other colors. The contrast, which upon a white skin would have been glaring in its ugliness, was perfect when backed by the nut-brown of Hunia‘s chest and legs. As he ran before his tribe, he was the ideal savage.

The instant that the heralds had returned, a charge took place, the forces passing through each other‘s ranks as they do upon the stage, but with frightful yells. After this they formed two deep, in three companies, and danced the “musket-exercise war-dance” in wonderful time, the women leading, thrusting out their tongues, and shaking their long pendant breasts. Among them was Hamuéra‘s wife, standing drawn up to her full height, her limbs stiffened, her head thrown back, her mouth wide open and tongue protruding, her eyes rolled so as to show the white, and her arms stretched out in front of her, as she slowly chanted. The illusion was perfect: she became for the time a mad prophetess; yet all the frenzy was assumed at a whim, to be cast aside in half an hour. The shouts were of the same under-breath kind as in the haka, but they were aided by the sounds of horns and conch-shells, and from the number of men engaged the noise was this time terrible. After much fierce singing the musket-dance was repeated, with furious leaps and gestures, till the men became utterly exhausted, when the review was closed by a general discharge of rifles. Running with nimble feet, the dancers were soon back within their pahs, and the feast, beginning now, was, like a Russian banquet, prolonged till morning.

It is not hard to understand the conduct of Lord Durham‘s settlers, who landed here in 1837. The friendly natives received the party with a war-dance, which had upon them such an effect that they immediately took ship for Australia, where they remained.

The next day, when we called on Governor Hunia at his wahré to bid him farewell, before our departure for the capital, he made two speeches to us, which are worth recording as specimens of Maori oratory. Speaking through Mr. Buller, who had been kind enough to escort us to the Ngatiapa‘s wahré, Hunia said:

“Hail, guests! You have just now seen the settlement of a great dispute – the greatest of modern time.

“This was a weighty trouble – a grave difficulty.

“Many Pakéhas have tried to settle it – in vain. For Pétatoné was it reserved to end it. I have said that great is our gratitude to Pétatoné.

“If Pétatoné hath need of me in the future, I shall be there. If he climbs the lofty tree, I will climb it with him. If he scales high cliffs, I will scale them too. If Pétatoné needeth help, he shall have it; and where he leads, there will I follow.

“Such are the words of Hunia.”

To this speech one of us replied, explaining our position as guests from Britain.

Hunia then began again to speak:

“O my guests, a few days since when asked for a war-dance, I refused. I refused because my people were sad at heart.

“We were loath to refuse our guests, but the tribes were grieved; the peeple were sorrowful at heart.

“To-day we are happy, and the war-dance has taken place.

“O my guests, when ye return to our great Queen, tell her that we will fight for her again as we have fought before.

“She is our Queen as well as your Queen – Queen of Maories and Queen of Pakéha.

“Should wars arise, we will take up our rifles, and march whithersoever she shall direct.

“You have heard of the King movement. I was a Kingite; but that did not prevent me fighting for the Queen – I and my chiefs.

“My cousin, Wirému, went to England, and saw our Queen. He returned…

“When you landed in this island, he was already dead…

“He died fighting for our Queen.

“As he died, we will die, if need be – I and all my chiefs. This do you tell our Queen.

“I have said.”

This passage, spoken as Hunia spoke it, was one of noble eloquence and singular rhetoric art. The few first words about Wirému were spoken in a half indifferent way; but there was a long pause before and after the statement that he was dead, and a sinking of the voice when he related how Wirému had died, followed by a burst of sudden fire in the “As he died, we will die – I and all my chiefs.”

After a minute or two, Hunia resumed:

“This is another word.

“We are all of us glad to see you.

“When we wrote to Pétatoné, we asked him that he would bring with him Pakéhas from England and from Australia – Pakéhas from all parts of the Queen‘s broad lands.

“Pakéhas who should return to tell the Queen that the Ngatiapa are her liegemen.

“We are much rejoiced that you are here. May your heart rest here among us; but if you go once more to your English home, tell the people that we are Pétatoné‘s faithful subjects and the Queen‘s.

“I have said.”

After pledging Hunia in a cup of wine, we returned to our temporary home.

CHAPTER V.

THE MAORIES

PARTING with my companions (who were going northward) in order that I might return to Wellington, and thence take ship to Taranaki, I started at daybreak on a lovely morning to walk by the sea-shore to Otaki. As I left the bank of the Manawatu River for the sands, Mount Egmont near Taranaki, and Mounts Ruapéhu and Tongariro, in the center of the island, hung their great snow domes in the soft blue of the sky behind me, and seemed to have parted from their bases.

I soon passed through the flax-swamp where we for days had shot the pukéko, and coming out upon the wet sands, which here are glittering and full of the Taranaki steel, I took off boots and socks, and trudged the whole distance barefoot, regardless of the morrow. It was hard to walk without crunching with the heel shells which would be thought rare at home, and here and there charming little tern and other tiny sea-fowl flew at me, and all but pecked my eyes out for coming near their nests.

During the day, I forded two large rivers and small streams innumerable, and swam the Ohau, where Dr. Featherston last week lost his dog-cart in the quick-sands, but I managed to reach Otaki before sunset, in time to revel in a typical New Zealand view. The foreground was composed of ancient sand-hills, covered with the native flax, with the deliciously-scented Manuka ti-tree, brilliant in white flower, and with giant fern, tuft-grass, and tussac. Farther inland was the bush, evergreen, bunchlike in its foliage, and so overladen with parasitic vegetation, that the true leaves were hidden by usurpers, or crushed to death in the folds of snakelike creepers. The view was bounded by bush-clad mountains, rosy with the sunset tints.

Otaki is Archdeacon Hadfield‘s church-settlement of Christian Maories; but of late there have been signs of wavering in the tribes, and I found Major Edwardes, who had been with us at Parewanui, engaged in holding, for the government, a runanga of Hau-Haus, or Antichristian Maories, in the Otaki Pah. Some of these fellows had lately held a meeting, and had themselves rebaptized, but this time out of instead of into the church. They received fresh names, and are said to have politely invited the archdeacon to perform the ceremony.

Maori Church of Englandism has proved a failure. A dozen native clergymen are, it is true, supported in comfort by their countrymen, but the tribes would support a hundred such, if necessary, rather than give up the fertile “reservations,” such as that of Otaki, which their pretended Christianity has secured. There is much in the Maori that is tiger-like, and it is in the blood, not to be drawn out of it by a few years of playing at Christianity.