The New Zealand Wars: A History of the Maori Campaigns and the Pioneering Period: Volume II: The Hauhau Wars, (<dateRange from="1864" to="1872" TEIform="dateRange">1864–72</dateRange>) New Zealand Wars: A History of the Maori Campaigns and the Pioneering Period: Volume II: The Hauhau Wars, (1864–72) [electronic resource] James Cowan, F.R.G.S. Creation of machine-readable version Keyboarded by AEL Data Creation of digital images Kamala Bain Conversion to TEI.2-conformant markup AEL Data ca. 1534 kilobytes New Zealand Electronic Text Centre Wellington, New Zealand Modern English

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Front Cover

Spine

Back Cover

Title Page

NEW ZEALAND WARS

VOLUME II: 1864-72

Officers of the New Zealand Armed Constabulary Field Force (Parihaka, Taranaki, November, 1881.)

Front Row: Captain Baker, Captain Anderson, Lieut.-Colonel J. M. Roberts, Captain G. Mair, Captain H. W. Northcroft, Captain W. B. Messenger, Major F. Y. Goring.

 THE NEW ZEALAND WARS A History of the MAORI CAMPAIGNS AND THE PIONEERING PERIOD JAMES COWAN, F.R.G.S. Volume II: The Hauhau Wars, 1864–72 ROWEN, GOVERNMENT PRINTER, WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND—1956

First published 1923

Reprinted without amendment 1956

Preface to Volume II

THIS VOLUME of the New Zealand Wars History carries on the narrative of the Maori campaigns from the commencement of the Hauhau War in Taranaki in 1864 to the final expeditions against Te Kooti in 1872. The period covered is the most critical and the most adventurous in New Zealand's history, and the story here given is the first complete account written of the numerous campaigns conducted under the colony's self-reliant military policy which dispensed with the aid of Imperial troops.

The description of the Pai-marire, or Hauhau religion, under whose impulse the war against the pakeha was waged with a desperation unknown in the earlier years, contains much that has not previously been recorded. For this and for many other word-of-mouth contributions to a better knowledge of the Maori side of the long racial conflict my thanks go forth to my old warrior friends, both Kawanatanga and Hauhau. Many a day was spent, frequently on the fern-grown site of some fortification or on some battle-ground, in gathering from the veteran bush fighters of two races the stories of the past—stories, in the case of the Maori, often given a high dramatic value by the graphic manner of the narrator. The stirring tales of the past have been drilled into the memory of the native of the old type by unvarying repetition in the tribal home, until every incident of a day's action has been indelibly impressed, to be released like a phonograph record when the time comes. This remark applies in particular to the generation of men now fast passing away; the young Maori's mind has been transformed by books and colleges, and he has lost the marvellous memorizing powers of his forefathers.

For documentary evidence of special value I am indebted to Captain G. A. Preece, N.Z.C., of Palmerston North, one of the very few colonial soldiers who kept a diary throughout the war. His private journal of the period 1869–72 is of particular importance for its narrative of the last expeditions against Te Kooti in the Urewera Country. These expeditions in the final period of guerrilla warfare, carried out under most arduous conditions in a savage and roadless territory, are now described in detail, through the co-operation of Captain Preece and the hearty assistance of his comrade Captain Gilbert Mair, N.Z.C.

Death has claimed many of the veterans, pakeha and Maori, who were among my authorities and helpers—chief among them that good soldier Colonel Porter. I regard it as fortunate that so much material enabling us to picture accurately the life and incidents of a vanished day was gathered while there was yet time.

Wellington, New Zealand, March, 1923. J. COWAN. Contents CHAPTER 1: PAI-MARIRE 1 A new phase of Maori warfare—The Pai-marire or Hauhau religion—Tribes united in a holy war against the pakeha—The confiscation of Taranaki territory—Prophets of the Niu—Mixture of Christian and pagan faiths—Powerful appeal of Pai-marire to the Maori temperament—Magic spells to avert the bullets—Great political value of the religion—The Hauhau chants—Marvellous Powers attributed to the priests—Hypnotic influence of the Pai-marire—A singular night seance—White renegades share in the Hauhau ceremonies—The surprise at Te Ahuahu (1864)—British soldiers decapitated—The heads sent from tribe to tribe—Te Ua's apostles. CHAPTER 2: THE ATTACK ON SENTRY HILL REDOUBT 21 A story of fanatic courage—Hauhau war-party attempts to storm Sentry Hill Redoubt, Taranaki—The fortified mound of Te Morere—Te Kahu-pukoro's narrative of the assault—Hepanaia the prophet and his warriors—Daylight attack on the redoubt—Maori incantations to avert the soldiers' bullets—“Hapa, hapa, Pai-marire”—The storming-party repulsed with heavy loss—Tamati Hone's dirge for the fallen: “My brave canoes lie broken on the shore.” CHAPTER 3: THE BATTLE OF MOUTOA 30 “The Isle of Heroes”—War between Upper and Lower Wanganui tribes—Hauhau propaganda on the river—Captain Lloyd's head at Pipiriki—Savage ceremonies round the niu pole—Pai-marire converts plan attack on Wanganui Town—Down-river natives oppose their passage—Challenge to fight on Moutoa Island—Scenes in the rival camps—The children's Hauhau war-game—The battle on the island—An eye-witness's story—The friendly tribes hard pressed at first—Tamehana te Aewa's heroic stand—Complete defeat of the Hauhaus—Death of Matene the prophet. CHAPTER 4: THE SIEGE OF PIPIRIKI 37 Military post established at Pipiriki, Wanganui River—Major Brassey's force builds redoubts—Formidable gathering of Hauhau tribes—Attack on the redoubts—A twelve days' siege—Sniping and guerrilla tactics—Ammunition and food run low—Messages for relief sent to Wanganui Town—A truce with the Hauhaus—Lieutenant Newland's plucky mission to the Maori camp—A force from Wanganui raises the siege. CHAPTER 5: CAMERON'S WEST COAST CAMPAIGN 46 Operations against the West Coast tribes—General Cameron takes the field—Hauhau war-parties concentrated on the Waitotara—British army attacked at Nukumaru—Hauhau warriors charge into the camp—Two days' heavy skirmishing—Tu-Patea's narrative of the fighting—The death of Assistant Adjutant-General Johnston—Cameron declines to attack Weraroa pa—Acrimonious correspondence with the Governor—Sir George Grey's successful strategy—Weraroa outflanked by colonial forces—Capture of Hauhau party at Arei-ahi—The General's slow march up the coast—Engagement at Te Ngaio, Kakaramea—Heavy losses of the Maoris—British headquarters fixed at the Wai-ngongoro—Lieut.-Colonel Colvile's operations near Warea, Taranaki—Several villages attacked and destroyed—General Cameron's departure—The Government's self-reliant war policy—Gradual withdrawal of the Imperial troops. CHAPTER 6: CHUTE'S TARANAKI CAMPAIGN 61 General Cameron's energetic successor—General Chute enters on a bush campaign—Operations against the South Taranaki tribes—Capture of Te Putahi pa—The storming of Otapawa—Death of Lieut.-Colonel Hassard—“Die-hards” rush the pa—Kimble Bent at Otapawa—Swift movements against Ngati-Ruanui and Nga-Ruahine Tribes—Numerous villages destroyed—Work of the native contingent under Kepa—Chute's march through the forest—The Whakaahurangi track—The troops short of provisions—Nine days in the bush—Arrival at New Plymouth and return march down the coast—Skirmishing in the Warea district—Lieut.-Colonel Butler's operations from the Wai-ngongoro. CHAPTER 7: PAI-MARIRE ON THE EAST COAST: KEREOPA, AND THE MURDER OF MR. VOLKNER 72 Pai-marire propaganda on the Bay of Plenty coast—Kereopa te Rau and Patara Raukatauri Te Ua's prophets—Arrival at Opotiki and conversion of the Whakatohea Tribe—The Rev. C. S. Volkner and the Rev. Thomas Grace taken prisoners—Mr. Volkner hanged near his mission station—Kereopa's atrocities in the church—He eats the missionary's eyes—Narrow escape of Mr. Grace—H.M.S. “Eclipse” to the rescue—Seizure of the cutter “Kate” at Whakatane, and murder of Mr. James Fulloon—Pai-marire influence at Tauranga—The chief Hori Tupaea attempts to join the Hauhaus—His capture at Lake Rotoiti by Ngati-Pikiao—A curious scene in the bush—The story of Tomika te Mutu's song and its sequel. CHAPTER 8: A MOUNTAIN WAR: THE FIGHTING AT TE TAPIRI 84 A battle-ground on the Urewera border—Ngati-Manawa and Arawa bar Kereopa's progress to the plains—Redoubts built at Te Tapiri—Whakatohea and Urewera Hauhaus lay siege to the Queenite forts—Gallant work of the small garrisons—Maori heroines—Kereopa's redoubt at Hinamoki—The ceremonies at the niu pole—Skirmishing between the forts—Kereopa the Eye-eater—Daring attack by the Queenites on a hill pa—The storming of the fort, and the fight at the niu—Many deeds of bravery—Desperate plight of the Tapiri garrisons—Decision to retreat to the plains—The crossing of the Rangitaiki—Raharuhi destroys the log bridge—Major Mair and his Arawa to the rescue. CHAPTER 9: OPERATIONS AT MATATA AND TE TEKO 96 The Hauhaus on the Lower Rangitaiki—Operations by Major Mair and the Arawa—A campaign in the great swamp—Two months' difficult work around Matata—The forts in the morass—Capture of several positions—The Hauhaus retreat to Te Teko, on the Rangitaiki—Mair lays siege to the pa—Skilful sapping operations—The five trenches of the Arawa—Intense rivalry in the sap-digging—Incidents of the siege—Capture of Pa-harakeke—The surrender of the Hauhaus in Te Teko—Capture of some of Volkner's and Fulloon's murderers—Five executed in Auckland. CHAPTER 10: THE EXPEDITION TO OPOTIKI 106 Punitive force despatched to Opotiki—Difficulties of the landing—Skirmishing on the sandhills—Opotiki villages occupied—Operations against the Whakatohea—The fort at Te Puia—The Wanganui mounted men in action—A cavalry charge at Kiorekino—Sharp work with sword and revolver—The capture of Te Tarata pa—Hauhaus evacuate Te Puia and retreat on the Waioeka—Intermittent skirmishing—The pursuit of Kereopa—Expeditions up the Waimana and Waioeka valleys. CHAPTER 11: EAST COAST OPERATIONS: FIGHTING AMONG THE NGATI-POROU 117 The Pai-marire mission to the East Coast—Visit of Patara and Kereopa—Rongowhakaata and other tribes become Hauhaus—Part of Ngati-Porou converted—Hauhau outbreak in the Waiapu Valley—Aowera sub-tribe takes the field against the rebels—A skirmish at Mangaone—Ropata Wahawaha first distinguishes himself—Ngati-Porou loyalists armed by the Government—Force of colonial troops despatched to Waiapu in H.M.S. “Eclipse”—Skirmishes in the Waiapu Valley—Storming of Pa-kairomiromi—Gallant defence of Te Mawhai pa—Attacks on Pukemaire fortress—Capture of the Hauhau mountain stronghold Hungahunga-toroa—Surrender of rebel Ngati-Porou, and restoration of peace at the East Cape. CHAPTER 12: THE SIEGE OF WAERENGA-A-HIKA 125 Hauhauism in the Poverty Bay district—Enemy fortification near the mission station at Waerenga-a-Hika—Ngati-Porou co-operate with Government forces against the Hauhaus—Description of the pa—A seven days' siege—Military settlers lose several men—Hauhaus charge out from the stockade and are heavily repulsed—Hand-to-hand encounters—Major Fraser's makeshift artillery—The Hauhaus surrender; losses over a hundred killed—Arrest of Te Kooti Rikirangi and transportation with the Hauhaus to the Chatham Islands. CHAPTER 13: THE FIRST WAIROA CAMPAIGN 129 Pai-marire emissaries at the Wairoa (Hawke's Bay)—Many of the Ngati-Kahungunu become Hauhaus—The Queenite faction armed by the Government—A military force despatched to Wairoa—Ngati-Porou, under Ropata Wahawaha, go to the assistance of the loyalists—Engagement at Omaru-hakeke—Captain Hussey Killed—Dr. Scott's narrative of the fight—Skirmish near the Waihau lakes (Tiniroto)—Engagement at Te Kopane, near Waikare-moana. CHAPTER 14: THE FIGHT AT OAMARUNUI (HAWKE'S BAY) 137 Hawke's Bay in 1866—Town of Napier threatened by Ngati-Hineuru Hauhaus—Panapa the prophet and his war-party—Mr. Donald McLean (Superintendent of Hawke's Bay) takes action against the Hauhaus—Napier Militia called out and drilled—Colonel Whitmore attacks Ngati-Hineuru at Omarunui—Defeat of the Maoris with heavy loss—Peita Kotuku's narrative—Major Fraser cuts off Te Rangihiroa's war-party at Petane—Prisoners deported to the Chatham Islands. CHAPTER 15: MCDONNELL'S TARANAKI CAMPAIGN 143 The position in South Taranaki—Settlement of the confiscated lands begun—Survey work on the plains—Major McDonnell takes command of the field force—Redoubts garrisoned at Manawapou and Waihi—Ngati-Ruanui begin a campaign of ambuscades—Attack on a convoy near Waihi—A trooper tomahawked—An ambush near Hawera; narrow escape of surveyors—Night attack on Pokaikai village—McDonnell attacks Pungarehu—A sharp battle in the bush—Gallant rearguard action—Skirmishes at Popoia, Tirotiro-moana, and other bush settlements—How the Maoris guarded the tracks; the device of the tawhiti—First expedition to Te Ngutu-o-te-manu—A fortified log-hut settlement. CHAPTER 16: THE TAURANGA BUSH CAMPAIGN 153 Campaign against the Piri-Rakau Hauhaus—Survey-parties obstructed—Bush skirmishes inland of Tauranga—Forces attack Te Irihanga and Whakamarama villages—Fighting in the fringe of the great forest—Gilbert Mair's narrow escape at Whakamarama—Work of the Arawa, under Major Mair—Skirmishes and destruction of Hauhau settlements at Oropi, Te Puke, Te Akeake, Paengaroa, and elsewhere—Second attack on Whakamarama—Encounters in the bush—Fight at Te Umu-o-Korongaehe—Whakamarama settlement and crops destroyed—Skirmish at Te Kaki—Hazardous scouting operations. CHAPTER 17: HAUHAU INVASION OF THE ROTORUA DISTRICT 161 Waikato and Ngati-Raukawa menace Rotorua—Invasion via Patetere and Mamaku—Arawa out-villages attacked, and Ohinemutu threatened—Return of the Arawa from the Piri-Rakau campaign, and encounters with the invaders—The fight at Te Koutu—Lieutenant Mair's sharp skirmish in the old pa—Defeat of the Hauhaus—Mair's thirty-nine warriors. CHAPTER 18: CAPTURE OF PURAKU PA, TARUKENGA 166 Hauhaus fortify a position at Puraku, Tarukenga, overlooking Rotorua—Gilbert Mair's lone-hand scouting-work—The pa attacked by 1st Waikato Militia and the Arawa—Mair despatched to outflank the stronghold—A difficult bush march—A dramatic episode—Mair's interview with a Hauhau warrior—The entrenchment attacked and captured—Pursuit of the Hauhaus—Description of the pa—Maori skill in military engineering. CHAPTER 19: SKIRMISHING IN THE OPOTIKI DISTRICT 174 Hauhau raiding-parties troublesome in the Opotiki Valley— Ambuscades, forays, and murders—Tamaikowha's savage warfare—Two settlers killed; two others narrowly escape—Military settlers form the Opotiki Volunteer Rangers—Expeditions in pursuit of Ngai-tama and Urewera raiders—Skirmishes in the Waimana forests and gorges—Expeditions up the Whakatane. CHAPTER 20: THE OPENING OF TITO KOWARU'S CAMPAIGN (TARANAKI, 1868) 179 Titokowaru, of Nga-Ruahine, becomes the war-leader of South Taranaki tribes—A new plan of campaign—Ambuscades and surprise attacks on redoubts—Titokowaru's picked war-party, the “Tekau-ma-rua”—Horse-stealing on the plains—Armed visits to Te Ngutu-o-te-manu—Action by Mr. Booth and Colonel McDonnell—Three military settlers killed at Te Rauna, near the Wai-ngongoro—Reinforcements for the new operations—A trooper ambushed near Waihi and cut to pieces—Revival of cannibalism by the Hauhaus—Eating of human flesh at Te Ngutu-o-te-manu—Titokowaru's boastful letter—The Hauhau headquarters in the forest—Pagan ceremonies in “Wharekura”—The deserter, Kimble Bent, at Te Ngutu-o-te-manu—His strange life of bush adventure. CHAPTER 21: THE DEFENCE OF TURUTURU-MOKAI 187 The “Rorke's Drift“ of Taranaki—Story of the Turuturu-mokai Redoubt—Garrisoned by Armed Constabulary and Military Settlers, under Captain Ross—Tardy repair of the redoubt—Titokowaru's spies watch the work—An early-morning attack—Twenty defenders against sixty Hauhaus—Two hours' desperate fighting—Narratives of survivors: Cosslett, Johnston, John Beamish, and George Tuffin—Half the defenders killed and several wounded—Death of Captain Ross—The pagan rite of the Whangai-hau—A human heart offered in burnt sacrifice to the gods of battle—Heroic resistance of the survivors—Help at last from Waihi—Colonel McDonnell's dramatic vow. CHAPTER 22: TE NGUTU-O-TE-MANU: THE FIRST ATTACK 202 McDonnell avenges Turuturu-mokai—Expedition against Te Ngutu-o-te-manu pa—Skirmish in the clearing—Destruction of the village and Titokowaru's sacred house “Wharekura”—Fighting a rearguard action—Difficult work of carrying out the wounded—A brave padre. CHAPTER 23: THE REPULSE AT TE NGUTU-O-TE-MANU 206 McDonnell's second attack on Titokowaru's forest stronghold—A long bush march to the rear of Te Ngutu-o-te-manu—The column heavily fired on—Hauhaus skirmish out from the pa—A destructive cross-fire—Uselessness of untrained men in bush fighting—McDonnell's decision to retreat—Officers vainly wait for orders—Death of Major Von Tempsky, Captain Buck, and other officers and men—McDonnell's retirement with the wounded—War-rite of the Whangai-hau—Captain Roberts collects the remnant and fights a rearguard action—A night in the forest—Roberts's narrative of the battle—The killing of Von Tempsky —McDonnell's report—The day after the fight—Scenes of savagery in “The Bird's Beak” pa—Funeral pyre of the slain whites—The cannibal feast; a soldier's body cooked and eaten—The battlefield to-day—Von Tempsky's sword. CHAPTER 24: TE KOOTI'S ESCAPE FROM CHATHAM ISLANDS 222 The exiles at Wharekauri—Te Kooti becomes their prophet and leader—Founder of a new religious cult—His magnetic influence over the Maori prisoners—Singular scenes in the meeting-house—Te Kooti's ritual—Mismanagement of the military guard—A fatal reduction—Te Kooti's plans for escape—Seizure of the schooner “Rifleman”—The voyage to New Zealand—Peita Kotuku's narrative—A human sacrifice: Te Kooti casts Te Warihi overboard—Arrival at Whareongaonga, East Coast—The escapees and their equipment—The march inland. CHAPTER 25: THE FIRST ENGAGEMENTS WITH TE KOOTI 235 European force pursues Te Kooti—Captain Westrup badly defeated at Paparatu—Te Kooti's victory greatly enhances his prestige—Colonel Whitmore assumes the direction of operations—Captain Richardson's engagement at Waihau—Another success for Te Kooti—Whitmore takes up the pursuit—An arduous winter march inland—Engagement on the Ruakituri River—Captain Carr and Mr. Canning killed—An indecisive fight—Te Kooti retreats to Puketapu, and Whitmore withdraws to Poverty Bay. CHAPTER 26: WHITMORE'S DEFEAT AT MOTUROA 244 The position on the West Coast—Disorganization of the Taranaki field force—A state of semi-mutiny—Colonel McDonnell resigns and is succeeded by Colonel Whitmore—Territory north of the Patea abandoned to the Hauhaus—A convoy skirmish at Turangarere—Patea and Wairoa the advanced posts— Titokowaru's triumphant progress southward—Whitmore plans to surprise him at Moturoa—Armed Constabulary reinforcements—A night march from Wairoa camp—Moturoa pa attacked in the early morning—Hauhaus on the alert—An unfinished stockade—Whitmore's failure to scout the position—The storming-party—Attackers meet a heavy fire and are beaten off—Death of Major Hunter—Roberts's “Young Division” (No. 6 A.C.) comes up in support—Whitmore orders a retreat—A gallant rearguard action—Desperate fighting at close quarters—Maori battle-rite of the Whangai-hau: an omen of success—Plucky work of No. 2 Division—Close-quarters skirmishing in the bush—Heavy losses of Whitmore's force—Withdrawal to the Kai-iwi River—The battlefield to-day—Tu-Patea's narrative—The Wairoa Redoubt. CHAPTER 27: THE POVERTY BAY MASSACRE 263 Te Kooti's raid on the Poverty Bay settlements—Warnings disregarded—Major Biggs's fatal confidence—Hauhau war-parties surprise the Matawhero settlers—Major Biggs and Captain Wilson and their families slaughtered—Thirty-three Europeans and thirty-seven friendly Maoris killed—A Hauhau's narrative of the raid—Fugitives gather at the Turanganui Redoubt—Women and children sent to Napier and Auckland—Te Kooti fortifies himself at Makaretu. CHAPTER 28: MAKARETU, AND THE SIEGE OF NGATAPA 270 Te Kooti driven from Makaretu—His fortress on Ngatapa Mountain—European and Maori force attacks the position—Gallant work by Ropata and Captain Preece—Failure of the first attack—Arrival of Colonel Whitmore—Second attack on Ngatapa—A Ngati-Porou storming-party—The inner defences reached—Hauhaus abandon the fort at night—The pursuit by Ngati-Porou—Summary execution of more than a hundred prisoners—Te Kooti takes refuge on the Upper Waioeka. CHAPTER 29: THE FINAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST TITOKOWARU 285 Colonel Whitmore returns to the West Coast—Armed Constabulary operations against Titokowaru renewed—Corps of Guides formed—A scouting adventure at the Okehu Gorge—Attack on Taurangaika pa—A skilfully designed stronghold—Titokowaru evacuates the pa and is driven across the Waitotara—The peach-grove ambuscade at Papatupu—Last instance of cannibalism in New Zealand—The engagement at Otautu—Titokowaru takes refuge in the forest—The attack at Whakamara—A chase through the bush—Ruthless methods of warfare—Decapitation of captured Hauhaus—Rewards paid for the heads—The bush column reaches Taiporohenui—Titokowaru at Te Ngaere—Whitmore crosses the great swamp—Escape of the Hauhaus to the Upper Waitara—The massacre at Pukearuhe—Shells fired at Mokau Heads—Expeditions up the Waitotara, Whenuakura, and Patea Rivers—End of the Taranaki War—Field force transferred to the Bay of Plenty. CHAPTER 30: TE KOOTI'S RAID ON WHAKATANE 314 Attack on Bay of Plenty settlements planned by Te Kooti—The Lower Whakatane Valley invaded—Attack on the Ngati-Pukeko in Rauporoa pa—Defence of the mill and redoubt at Te Poronu—The French miller's gallant stand—His death in the redoubt—The siege of Rauporoa—Its capture by the Hauhaus—Lieutenant Gilbert Mair and his Maoris to the rescue—A forced march from Matata—Hauhaus plunder the Whakatane settlement—Te Kooti's withdrawal to the Rangitaiki—Pursuit by Major Mair—Te Kooti in Tauaroa pa—Escape to the Urewera Mountains. CHAPTER 31: TE KOOTI'S ATTACK ON MOHAKA 327 The guerrilla leader's swift movements—A dash across the Urewera Country—Sudden descent on Mohaka, Hawke's Bay—Massacre of European settlers and Ngati-Pahauwera Tribe—Te Huke and Hiruharama stockades besieged—Capture of Te Huke—Gallant defence of Hiruharama by the Maoris and Trooper George Hill—Withdrawal of Te Kooti to Waikare-moana—Colonel Lambert's futile pursuit. CHAPTER 32: WHITMORE'S INVASION OF THE UREWERA COUNTRY 337 (1869) Colonel Whitmore organizes an expedition to the Urewera Country—Two columns used in the attack—Whitmore's advance from Fort Galatea—Capture of Te Harema pa and Ahi-kereru—Whitmore's Guides ambuscaded in the gorge at Manawa-hiwi—A veteran scout's story—Difficult mountain and forest march to Ruatahuna—The bugle in the mountains—The “Officers’ Call”—The advance of the left wing—Lieut.-Colonel St. John's march up the Whakatane—Capture of Whataponga—Death of Lieutenant White at Te Paripari—Burial under fire—Heavy bush skirmishing—Fighting at Hukanui and Tahora—Arrival at Ruatahuna—Attack on Orangikawa pa at Tatahoata—Captain Travers killed—Capture of the pa—Arrival of Colonel Whitmore—United operations against the Urewera—Intermittent skirmishing—Fights at Orona and Wai-iti—Captain Mair's narrative—Peka Makarini and Te Kooti's advance-guard—Ambuscade on the Waikare-moana track—Arawa auxiliaries decapitate Urewera slain—Proposed march to Waikare-moana abandoned—Whitmore's return to Fort Galatea—Carrying out the wounded—Major Mair's hazardous march via the Horomanga—Colonel Herrick's expedition to Lake Waikare-moana—Futile operations. CHAPTER 33: THE SURPRISE AT OPEPE 362 An expedition to Lake Taupo—Lieut.-Colonel St. John's cavalry escort—The camp at Opepe—Fatal carelessness of St. John and the cavalry subaltern—Te Kooti's advance-body surprises the camp—Nine troopers slaughtered—A survivor's thrilling story—George Crosswell's marvellous escape—His flight naked across the Kaingaroa Plain—A despatch-rider killed near Heruiwi—Peita Kotuku's narrative of the encounter. CHAPTER 34: THE TAUPO CAMPAIGN (1869) 371 Te Kooti's arrival at Taupo—Horonuku te Heuheu joins his forces—A visit to King Tawiao at Tokangamutu—Skirmishing on the east side of Lake Taupo—Te Kooti defeated on the Pononga ridge—His last redoubt, the Mahaukura pa at Te Porere—Attack by Armed Constabulary and Kupapa Maoris—Capture of the pa, with heavy loss to the Hauhaus—Death of Captain St. George—Peita Kotuku's narrative—Te Kooti's flight to the bush—Friendly Maoris’ brave scouting expedition to Taumarunui—Te Kooti retreats to the Patetere forest—The fighting at Tapapa. CHAPTER 35: DEFEAT OF TE KOOTI AT ROTORUA 387 Te Kooti's dash on Ohinemutu, Rotorua—Lieutenant Gilbert Mair intercepts him and saves Ohinemutu—Pursuit of Te Kooti by Mair and a small force of Arawa—A gallant running fight—Hauhaus chased for twelve miles—Skirmishing at Wai-korowhiti and Kapenga—Peka Makarini, Te Kooti's bugler, shot by Mair at Tumunui—Te Kooti's flight to the Urewera Mountains—Mair receives his captaincy and the New Zealand Cross—New policy in Government military operations—Only native forces used in the bush campaigns—Pursuit of Te Kooti and Kereopa—Ngati-Porou, Arawa, and Wanganui contingents. CHAPTER 36: OPERATIONS AT WAIKARE-MOANA 401 Native expedition to Waikare-moana under Mr. Hamlin and Lieutenant Witty—Skirmishing on and around the lake—Mr. Large's scouting enterprise—Successful operations against the Hauhaus—Occupation of Matuahu pa—Retreat of the Urewera—Surrender of some of the hostiles. CHAPTER 37: THE CHASE OF TE KOOTI: EXPEDITIONS TO THE UREWERA COUNTRY (1870) 409 Ngati-Porou expedition to the Urewera Country—Ropata and Porter march on Maunga-pohatu—Porter captures the Ngati-Kowhatu Tribe at Horoeka pa—Complete surprise of the Hauhaus—Ropata engaged at Te Kakari—Fighting with the Ngati-Huri mountaineers—The first Government expedition reaches Maungapohatu—Ngati-Porou march out to the Bay of Plenty—Junction with Kepa and the Wanganui contingent at Ohiwa—Expedition to the Waioeka Gorge—Defeat of the Hauhaus at Maraetahi—Escape of Te Kooti and Kereopa—Te Kooti's raid on Tolago Bay—A fruitless pursuit—Further search expeditions by Ngati-Porou, under Ropata and Porter. CHAPTER 38: THE UREWERA COUNTRY: EXPEDITIONS OF THE ARAWA CONTINGENT (1870–71) 419 A special corps of Arawa Maoris enlisted for service—Captains Mair and Preece in command, Nos. 1 and 2 Companies, Arawa Flying Column—Patrol-work on the border of the Urewera Country—Surrender of the Ngati-Whare Tribe at Fort Galatea—Tamaikowha makes peace with the Government—Paerau and other Urewera chiefs break away from Te Kooti—Mair and Preece march in search of Te Kooti (1871)—Arrival at Ruatahuna—March over the Huiarau Mountains to Waikare-moana—Scouring the Urewera Ranges—March to Maunga-pohatu—Te Kakari pa surrounded and occupied—Narrow escape of the murderer Kereopa—Meeting with Tamaikowha at Tauaki—Return of the column to Te Teko via Waimana and Opotiki—A month's rough campaigning. CHAPTER 39: NGATI-POROU'S SEARCH FOR TE KOOTI 427 Further expeditions of Ngati-Porou, under Ropata and Porter—Te Kooti reported to be in Te Wera forest—Ngati-Porou search that country—Visit to Waimana Valley and Maunga-pohatu—Return to the Upper Wairoa—Te Houpapa and other places searched—Description of campaigning conditions—Living on bush foods—Primitive customs among the Urewera mountaineers—Masters of bushcraft—Picking up the fugitives’ trails—Fourth expedition of Ngati-Porou—Te Wera forest searched—The column divides. CHAPTER 40: TE KOOTI DEFEATED AT WAIPAOA 432 Captains Mair and Preece renew the search for Te Kooti—March through the Urewera Country—Snow on the Huiarau Mountains—Stormy weather at Waikare-moana—Scouting around Lake Waikare-iti—Severe wintry conditions on the ranges—Letter from Te Kooti found in a camp—Smoke seen in the Waipaoa Valley—Capture of a woman—Te Kooti's forest camp surprised —Mair and Preece rush the pa—Three Hauhaus killed in the encounter—Te Kooti's narrow escape—Execution of a prisoner, Wi Heretaunga—Preece reports the engagement to Porter—Ngati-Porou follow up the trail—The Arawa column returns by sea—Another Urewera expedition—Scouting, marching, and counter-marching in the bush. CHAPTER 41: PORTER DEFEATS TE KOOTI AT TE HAPUA 447 Smoke-signs in the ranges—Captain Porter's Ngati-Porou on the trail—Te Kooti's retreat discovered—A bush camp at Te Hapua—Porter attacks at dawn—A premature gunshot saves Te Kooti—Eleven Hauhaus killed—The leader once more evades his pursuers—Porter and his men snowed in at Opokere, Maunga-pohatu—The fugitives retreat to Ruatahuna and the Waiau country—Ropata builds redoubts at Maunga-pohatu and Ruatahuna—Capture of Kereopa at Te Roau—His execution at Napier—Ngati-Porou return to the East Coast. CHAPTER 42: THE LAST UREWERA EXPEDITIONS (1872) 458 Captains Mair and Preece again search the Urewera Ranges—March to the Waiau region, west of Waikare-moana—The fugitives' trail found—Preece's Arawa encounter Te Kooti's party on the Mangaone—Firing across a gorge—Last engagement in the Maori wars (14th February, 1872)—Government men's defective ammunition—Te Kooti's final escape—Arawa column returns to Fort Galatea—Preece's last search—The Urewera Country traversed once more, from Ahi-Kereru to Waikare-moana—Scouting the western border of the ranges—No further sign of Te Kooti—He crosses the Kaingaroa Plain to the King Country Captain Ferris's search expeditions—Captain Rushton scours Te Wera forest—End of the Maori wars. CHAPTER 43: FRONTIER PERILS AND THE FINAL PEACE 468 The Upper Waikato border in the “seventies”—Hauhau raids threatened—Murders on the Aukati line—Purukutu and party kill Timothy Sullivan—Alarm among the out-settlements—The frontier farmers' cavalry corps—Patrolling the King Country border—Blockhouses and redoubts garrisoned—Moffat killed at Taumarunui—Towhiao and his followers make peace—March through the frontier settlements—Armed Constabulary sent to Kawhia—Trouble on the Taranaki frontier—Te Whiti, the prophet of Parihaka—Ngati-Ruanui's ploughing campaign on the plains—Redoubts built and garrisoned by Armed Constabulary—John Bryce's march on Parihaka—Constabulary and Volunteers take possession—The prophets arrested and Maoris dispersed—Te Whiti, a man of peace and a restraining force—His character and teachings much misunderstood—Te Kooti pardoned—His last years—King Country fanatics make trouble—Mahuki's raid on Alexandra Township—Constabulary and Te Awamutu Cavalry arrest Mahuki and his band—Later military expeditions—The Urewera oppose surveys and roads—Armed forces despatched to Ruatoki and Te Whaiti—A peaceful ending—Honi Toia's outbreak at Hokianga—H.M.S. “Torch” sent to Rawene—March of Colonel Newall's column to Waima—The shots in the bush—Surrender of Hone Toia and his men—Good work of the Maoris in the Great War. APPENDICES Supplementary Notes to Chapters 503 The Fanatic Faith 523 Maori Field Fortifications: Description of a pa at Manutahi (Taranaki) 523 Surveying under Fire: Pioneer Work on the Taranaki Frontier 528 The New Zealand Cross 536 The Poverty Bay Massacre 538 The Pukearuhe Massacre 540 The Defeat of Te Kooti at Rotorua 543 Sikhs against the Maoris 546 The Waikare-moana Expedition (1870) 547 Turuturu-mokai Redoubt, Taranaki 548 Rua Kenana, the Prophet 548 “Lest We Forget” 549 List of Engagements and Casualties 550 INDEX 555 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Officers of the N.Z. Armed Constabulary Frontispiece Te Ua, the Founder of Pai-marire 5 Patara Raukatauri 18 Sentry Hill Redoubt 22 Mataitawa Stockade 28 Moutoa Island, Wanganui River 34 The Last Niu, Upper Wanganui 44 General Sir H. J. Warre 56 General Chute's Column on the March 67 Seizure of the Schooner “Eclipse” at Opotiki 75 Matata pa, 1865 99 H.M.S. “Brisk” 107 Volkner's Church, Opotiki 108 Attack on Omaru-hakeke Stockade 130 Scene of the Omarunui Engagement, Hawke's Bay 136 Mr. S. Percy Smith 144 Eru Tamaikowha 175 Waihi Redoubt, Taranaki 183 Turuturu-mokai Redoubt, Taranaki 186 George Tuffin 197 Lieut.-Colonel T. McDonnell, N.Z.C. 212 Waitangi, Chatham Island 227 The Schooner “Rifleman” 228 Peita Kotuku 230 Te Rangi-tahau 232 Sketch of the Moturoa Battlefield 250 Major Kepa te Rangihiwinui, N.Z.C. 252 Mr. William Wallace 255 Major R. Biggs 267 Ngatapa Hill Fortress 272 Major Ropata Wahawaha, N.Z.C. 278 Detail of Fortification, Tauranga-ika 289 The Niu Mast at Whakamara 297 Captain H. W. Northcroft, N.Z.C. 299 Pukearuhe Redoubt, from the North 305 The Original Redoubt, Pukearuhe 306 The Gascoignes' Home, Pukearuhe 308 The Blockhouse, Pukearuhe Redoubt 309 Later Blockhouse, Pukearuhe 310 Major M. Noake 312 Captain H. A. Mair 323 George Hill, N.Z.C. 331 Major-General Sir George Whitmore 339 “Big Jim,” the Maori Scout 342 The Lower Gorge of the Whakatane 346 Te Paripari, Urewera Country 348 Junction of the Whakatane and Mahakirua, Urewera Country 350 After Fifty Years: Captain Mair at Captain Travers's Grave, Tatahoata 353 The Steamer “Stormbird” 361 G. Crosswell, Survivor of the Opepe Surprise 366 Te Heuheu Horonuku 374 Captain J. St. George 379 Topia Turoa 383 Captain Gilbert Mair, N.Z.C. 390 Captain Mair and his Arawa Soldiers 394 Tohe te Matehaere 395 Lake Waikare-moana, from Onepoto 400 Major J. T. Largex 402 Sir James Carroll 406 Maunga-pohatu Range, Urewera Country 410 Colonel T. W. Porter, C.B. 412 Solomon Black, N.Z.C. 415 Thomas Adamson, N.Z.C. 416 Captain Porter and Ngaitai Maoris 417 Captain Preece, N.Z.C. 423 The Urewera Mountains 430 Netana Whakaari445 Te Whiu Maraki455 Kereopa Kai-whatu 456 Onepoto Redoubt, Waikare-moana 459 Colonel Lyon 469 Wahanui 471 Orakau Blockhouse 472 The Maori King's Flag 475 Parihaka 476 Colonel J. M. Roberts, N.Z.C. 479 Armed Constabulary Camp at Waikino, Taranaki481 Normanby Redoubt, Taranaki 482 Watch-tower, Manaia Redoubt 483 Pungarehu Redoubt 484 Rahotu Stockade and Camp 484 Taranaki Rifle Volunteers at Parihaka 485 Armed Constabulary Field Force, Parihaka 486 Te Whiti surrendering at Parihaka 487 Tohu Kakahi after Arrest at Parihaka 489 Colonel Goring 491 Major Gascoyne 492 Te Kooti's House at Te Awahou, Rotorua 493 Opunake Redoubt 495 Armed Constabulary Force 495 No. 3 Division Armed Constabulary 495 Urenui Redoubt, North Taranaki 497 Taranaki Bush Rangers' Redoubt, Wai-iti 498 Pukearuhe Redoubt 499 The Mahurehure Leaders, Waima, Hokianga 500 Te Kooti's War-flag, “Te Wepu” 545 PLANS AND SKETCH-MAPS Weraroa Pa, Waitotara 50 Otapawa Pa, South Taranaki 64 Entrenchment, Opotiki Church Redoubt 109 Waerenga-a-Hika Pa and Battlefield 124 Puraku Pa, Tarukenga, Rotorua 169 Manutahi Redoubt, South Taranaki 181 The Battlefield of Moturoa 245 Ngatapa Hill Fortress 274 Cross-sections of Ngatapa 280 Tauranga-ika Pa 286 Sections of Tauranga-ika Pa 288 Rauporoa Pa, Whakatane 318 Mohaka (H.B.), 1869 326 Urewera Country, with Routes of Whitmore's Expedition, 1869 336 Scene of the Surprise at Opepe 363 Scene of Waipaoa Engagement, 1871 434 Scene of Te Hapua Engagement, 1871 448 Kohitau Redoubt, Maunga-pohatu 453 The Urewera Country 460 Hawera Blockhouses 478 Redoubts at Pipiriki 519 Te Teko Pa and Major Mair's Saps 519 Orona and Te Wai-iti, Urewera Country 520 Scene of Captain Mair's Defeat of Te Kooti, Rotorua 521 Waikare-moana and the Urewera Country (showing scenes of last fights in the Maori wars) 522 Manutahi Pa, North Taranaki 524 Chapter 1: PAI-MARIRE

THE DEFEAT OF the Kingite tribes and the settlement of the confiscated lands with large bodies of drilled men assured peace, albeit a sullen one, in the Waikato, but Cameron's successful campaign, 1863–64, by no means secured the general pacification of the Maoris. While British cannon were battering to dust the last defences of the Kingite warriors, a new and infinitely more desperate and formidable plan of campaign was formulating itself in Taranaki. Less than a week after the fall of Orakau the colony was startled by the reports of a new phase of warfare in Taranaki, accompanied by a fanatic ferocity unknown in the previous campaigns. This hardening-up of the Maori fighting-spirit in a kind of holy war imparted to the racial struggle a savagery and a bitter persistence that carried the war up to the young “seventies.” If it developed to the utmost the Maori amor patriae and the peculiar military tactics in which the natives excelled, it produced also a determination on the part of the British colonists to see the fight through in their own way. The beginning of the Hauhau campaign saw the beginning of New Zealand's policy of self-reliance in matters military. After 1865–66 the numerous campaigns and bush operations were conducted by the colonial forces; and, although there were very critical hours when it seemed as if the aid of Imperial troops would again have to be called for the heavily strained resources of the settlements met the demands, with the assistance of those native tribes which for a variety of reasons, political and otherwise—expediently accepted by the pakeha as loyalty to the Queen—decided to throw the weight of their arms against the Hauhaus. It was in fact only the help of these loyalist or Kupapa tribes, under the leadership of colonial officers, that turned the scale and brought lasting peace to the old frontier.

The confiscation of land, the territory of the so-called rebels, was a prime factor in the renewal of the war. The Native Land Settlement Act, framed by the Whitaker-Fox Ministry, and passed by the Legislature in 1863, entrusted enormous powers of confiscation to a Government which ignored the just protests of such men as Sir William Martin and Bishop Selwyn. Arbitrary appropriation of the land which for centuries had been the property of large tribes—appropriation without adequate consideration for the rights of non-resisters and for the innocent children of the native belligerents—was inevitably a source of bitter and undying hatred. The confiscation of huge areas of Waikato and Taranaki territory enabled the Government to reward its forces with land-grants, but the crude and unjust manner of the seizure, the unconcealed wish of many colonists and even some politicians for a war of extermination of the Maori, went to give strong colour to the native belief that the white man's desire for land was the all-controlling factor. Some thoughtful people perceived the great tactical danger of a confiscation policy, quite apart from any question of ethics. It would stiffen the martial fibre of the race; it would debase a chivalrous kind of warfare into guerrilla campaigns of utter savagery. The Waitara seizure was ever in the Maori mind. The injustice done to Ngati-Awa by that act of spoliation had never been atoned for. The politicians and officials persisted in regarding the Maoris as rebels because they had rightfully defended their home-land. A more reasonable, more just view was that taken by a writer in an English magazine (the “Cornhill”) in 1865. “The Maori revolt,” he declared, “is the more excusable that it is instinctive. The chiefs probably cannot prevent it. They cannot check their intense attachment to their land—their ‘mother’ as the Maori calls it—which belongs to races that have not yet become commercial.”

Early Governments imperfectly appreciated the peculiar depth and strength of the Maori's regard for his ancestral land; they could not understand why a race should fight to the death for a country which for the most part lay in a waste condition. Patience, conciliation, and an honest endeavour to understand the native point of view and to remove mutual misunderstandings were counselled by a few, but in truth the interests operating for strong-handed action were all-powerful. The wrong perpetrated at the Waitara should have been righted generously, but nothing was done, apart from the grudging renunciation of the purchase, to compensate Wiremu Kingi te Rangitaake for the wholly illegal acts which had sent him into an unwilling rebellion. The Taranaki and Ngati-Ruanui Tribes who had come to Ngati-Awa's assistance were punished for their rebellion by measures of potential confiscation which affected more or less the whole West Coast from Waitotara to the White Cliffs. It is true that provision and promises were made for the restoration of land to those who had not rebelled, but these promises were not properly kept. Military settlers were placed on the territory of some hapus that had remained peaceful, and of such complications hostility was the inevitable fruit. Both races were strong and stubborn, and the Maori blood was prone to fire up into savagery at threatened intrusion. The Maori, too, had come to realize that now or never was the time to assert himself to the utmost, and throw off a rule whose character and effects he had not realized to the full when he accepted the British overlordship in 1840. To-day the two races are so indissolubly blended in social intercourse, in national ideals, in a common pride of country, that they can afford to look back without passion on the conflict of race interests in the “sixties,” finding but a pathetic lesson in the spectacle of the two headstrong, independent peoples of our earlier cruder years challenging each other to a death struggle for the prize of the land—in a bounteous country where there was room for twenty times their number. The intense devotion with which the Maori held to his land is difficult, perhaps, for the present generation to realize. Only when one discusses the subject with a native of the olden time, a venerable man or woman who has fought the pakeha and marched chanting around the sacred niu mast, is the power of this land-love made manifest.

The land—always the land, from the days of Wakefield onward—that was the putake o te riri, the grand root of all trouble. But when the white fire of a fanatic religion fused the people in a federation of hate against the pakeha all problems merged into one, that of race-mastery. So, when Pai-marire captured the impressionable and essentially religious Maori nature it spread like a fire in dry fern, and we find tribes who had no grievance whatever against the white man united in casting off semi-civilization, and throwing themselves into the battle for Maori independence.

The Pai-marire or Hauhau religious cult, which welded so many tribes in a bond of passionate hate against the pakeha, was partly a reaction from the teachings of the Christian missionaries, and partly a recrudescence of the long-discredited but unextinguished influence of the Maori tohunga or priest. It was a blend of the ancient faith in spells and incantations and magic ceremonies with smatterings of English knowledge and English phrases and perverted fragments of church services. Ridiculous as they were when analysed, the sum of the teachings had a most powerful effect upon the impressionable Maori. Pai-marire appeared just at the hour when the hostile tribes, embittered by heavy losses in men and property, were in a mood to welcome a new battle-cry and new hope of turning the tide of war against the pakeha. By its appeal to the imagination and the strong religious sentiment of the Maori it took the place of the missionary faith which the people had once embraced with fervour, but stronger still was the appeal which it made to their love of country and kin. It supplied the necessary links of a common aspiration between tribe and tribe, and this chain was the stronger because it was forged in the heat of a great religious revival. That this revival was in the nature of a return to barbarism and superstition did not lessen its irresistible call to the Maori; it was all the more welcome because it enabled him to throw off the last restraints of the now unpopular churches. The old tohunga Maori, schooled in the ancient religion, were the first to accept Pai-marire; they were astute enough to recognize that by adopting it they would secure the ancient ascendancy of their class over the people which the Rongo-Pai had impaired though not destroyed. These priests became so many Mad Mullahs advocating the doctrine of fire and tomahawk so strangely at variance with the title of the religion. No Mohammedan leader preaching a jehad against the infidels was more fiercely passionate in his denunciation of the aliens than were the chief apostles of Hauhauism; and no fighting race was ever more receptive to the gospel of a crusade than the tribes from coast to coast of the Island when Kereopa brandished the smoke-dried head of a slain white soldier before his excited congregations and initiated them in the ceremonies of the niu. The old fanatic fire has burned to ashes, but the haunting, heart-stirring chants remain; and many there remain, too, of the disciples who marched round the sacred mast painted red for war, intoning the song of Te Ua; for Pai-marire, with its variations of Tariao and Wairua-Tapu, endured long after the war. Even to-day the Ringa-tu or Wairua-Tapu ritual, the offshoot of Pai-marire, is a regularly established Church, numbering several thousands of adherents, and the sign and token of this Maori sect to-day is the magic gesture of Te Ua to turn aside the pakeha's bullets, the sign of the upraised hand, the ringa-tu, palm outwards, on a level with the head, as if in the act of warding off the enemy's projectiles. So persists the fanatic sign of old, long after the fiery faith that inspired it has gone.

The Pai-marire faith had its origin in the half-crazed brain of a Maori of the Taranaki Tribe named Te Ua Haumene, whose home was near Cape Egmont. He had taken a Scriptual name, Zerubbabel (maorified into Horopapera). He had imbibed the teachings of the missionaries, and was a close student of the Bible, particularly of the Book of Revelations. The ecstatic visions of the Dreamer he interpreted in his own peculiar fashion. Strange visions appeared to him in the semi-delirium of his night seances with the spirits. Curious stories are related by the Maoris of the first coming to Te Ua of the anahera, or angels, from

From a photo, about 1866] Te Ua Horopapera Haumene, the founder of the Pai-marire Religion (Te Ua made his submission to the Government in 1865)
whom he received inspiration. The angel Gabriel (ldquo;Kaperiererdquo; in the Maori version) appeared to him, and revealed to him a new religion which was to give the Maori dominion over all the hosts of the pakeha. Te Ua promulgated this miraculously revealed faith, and, although little regarded at first, he gradually drew around him a band of believers. There was not much of the ancient Maori religion in his system of incantations and spells. For the atua Maori of old there were substituted troops of angels, headed by Gabriel, and these supernatural visitants were to give the faithful the gift of tongues, and confer upon them many strange and wonderful powers. Te Ua's guiding spirit or supreme deity was the Atua Pai-marire, meaning ldquo;Good and peaceful God,rdquo; a phase that came to be applied to the religion which he founded. The term “Hauhau,” by which the disciples of the new faith came to be known, had its origin in the exclamation “Hau!” used at the end of the chorus chanted by the disciples. Literally it means “wind” but it has another and more esoteric significance, for it was the term applied to the life-principle of man, the vital spark. “Anahera hau,” or “wind angels,” one of the curious phrases originating with Te Ua, was a reference to the fancy that the angels came to the Maoris on the winds of heaven, and that they ascended and descended by the ropes which were left dangling from the yardarms of the sacred mast, called the niu. “Hau,” “hauhau,” or “whakahau,” is also a battle-cry meaning “Strike! Attack!”

This niu was the central symbol of worship under Te Ua's dispensation. The term was the olden Maori word for the short sticks used by the tohunga in his mystic arts of divination, particularly before a battle. Te Ua's niu was a tall pole or flagmast, round which the faithful were to march in procession chanting their hymns. The first niu erected in Taranaki is said to have been part of one of the masts of the steamer “Lord Worsley,” wrecked near Cape Egmont in 1862. Crossed with a yard, rigged with stays and halliards, and adorned with flags of curious design, it was the first visible emblem of the fantastic religion. Te Ua stood at the foot leading the chants, while his band of believers went round him chanting the responses in the “angel”-inspired ritual. Each tribe as it fell convert to the magic of Pai-marire set up its niu under the direction of Te Ua or his sub-priests. By the end of 1865 a niu stood in nearly every large village from Taranaki to the Bay of Plenty (excepting the Arawa country), and from the north of the Wellington district to the Waikato frontier. Some of these masts of worship were of great size, and very decorative they were when the war-flags of many colours and many devices were displayed upon them from truck to yardarm, while below the earnest worshippers marched around the sacred pole. A remarkably lofty niu was that which stood at Whakamara, in the Ngati-Ruanui and Pakakohi country, inland from Patea; it was 70 feet or 80 feet in height, and was crossed with three yards; the blocks through which the flag-halliards were rove had been taken from a vessel wrecked on the coast. This niu was destroyed by the Government forces under Colonel Whitmore in 1869. Another celebrated niu stood on the village square at Taiporohenui, the headquarters of Te Ua and the Ngati-Ruanui in 1865–66. Often a woodcarving of a bird was placed on the truck of the pole; this represented a rupe, or dove. Carved knobs sometimes decorated the ends of the yard or the crosstrees; one of these knobs was called Rura and the other Riki, the names of two of Te Ua's gods. Riki was war-god; when the red flag called by that name was hoisted to the masthead it was a signal that fighting was about to begin. On the Whakamara niu there were carved rupe at some of the yardarms, from which also dangled ropes for the convenience of the spirits in descending on the people.

Some of the ancestral beliefs were mingled with Te Ua's perversion of Biblical teaching. The incarnation of his personal atua, or guardian diety, was the owl, or ruru, a bird which is regarded with veneration by the Taranaki Maoris; they say it is a god and has a hundred eyes. Sometimes, the old natives say, when Te Ua was in a village distant from his home a ruru would appear and fly about him or perch near him: this the prophet would regard as a warning to return to his home. Kimble Bent, the pakeha-Maori, related to me that when Te Ua was in Otapawa pa, on the Tangahoe River, early in 1866, a ruru flew from the forest at dusk and perched on the ridge-pole of the house in the front of which the prophet was sitting. Te Ua called to it and recited an incantation, and the bird flew back to the bush. Te Ua thereupon announced to the people that his owl-god had appeared to him and warned him to return to his home on the coast. He left Otapawa next morning. A few days later the pa was stormed and taken by the British troops under General Chute. Such incidents went to confirm the popular belief in the Pai-marire high priest's great personal mana and his supernatural attributes.

The peculiar appeal of Pai-marire to the popular imagination made I t a most powerful instrument for Maori nationalist propaganda. With the assumption of supernatural virtues by the priests was blended a kind of mesmeric influence over the devotees which made them oblivious to danger and swept them into desperate efforts to regain the ancient supremacy of the race. Te Ua and his apostles impressed their disciples with the belief that implicit faith in Pai-marire and the observance of the rules laid down by the founder would ensure success in war. A cardinal principle in the religion as first practised was the belief that the pakeha's bullets could be averted by certain magic spells. Thus the faithful marched to battle chanting their hymns and holding the right hand up on a level with the face, palm toward the enemy, while they cried in quick sharp tones, “Hapa, hapa! Pai-marire, hau!” “Hapa” means to pass over or ward off; the act and the formula were supposed to avert the bullets from the true believer. In exactly the same spirit the Arabs of the Sudan charged upon the British squares, and the wild tribes of the north-west frontier of India came rushing down against rifle and machine-gun. Even repeated defeats and the deaths of their first war-prophets did not demolish the faith in the incantations and the magic sign of the upraised hand; and not only were the hostile tribes completely carried away by the spell of the ceremonial and chants, but the people friendly to the British were attracted by the new religion. Veteran Kupapa, or friendly natives, who served on the Government side in the Hauhau campaigns describe the curious blending of fear and fascination which came over them when they watched from their entrenchments the Pai-marire devotees marching round their poles, and listened to the wild music of their rhythmic chantings.

This belief in the efficacy of spells of securing protection from the enemy's weapons has been a feature of many a racial war or crusade. Among the North American Indians and the Mohammedan peoples of Africa and Asia there have been many instances of the same fanatic faith.

“The Suffi and Hadda Mullahs exerted the whole of their influence upon their credulous followers. The former appealed to the hopes of future happiness. Every Ghazi who fell fighting should sit above the Caaba at the very footstool of the throne, and in that exalted situation and august presence should be solaced for his sufferings by the charms of a double allowance of celestial beauty. Mullah Hadda used even more concrete inducements. The muzzles of the guns should be stopped for those who charged home. No bullets should harm them. They should be invulnerable. They should not go to Paradise yet: they should continue to live honoured and respected on earth.”—“The Story of the Malakand Field Force” (Winston Churchill), page 257.

Also see note on the North American Indian Messianic craze in 1890, at the end of this chapter.

Even among the Scottish Highlanders of a past generation we hear of curious examples of a confidence in the power of wise men to avert hurt in battle. An old Western Highlander who lived at Broadford, in the Isle of Skye, used to tell how it came to pass that so many soldiers had returned safe to the Isles after the French and Spanish campaigns. It was because there was a blind man in Broadford who was able to put the charm upon them. “On each in turn he laid his hands,” Miss Gordon Cumming wrote in her book “In the Hebrides,” “and they went away looking straight before them. One man half turned his head and saw his own shoulder—an evil omen—and sure enough he lost that arm; but though the balls fell around the others as thick as peas they were nowise hurt, but returned as living proofs of the blind man's power.” In the Boxer War in China the rebel leaders pretended to be invulnerable to bullets. A cable message from Constantinople in 1914 described a Kurdish rising under the Vali of Betliz in which the sheikhs who led the outbreak convinced the peasants that they could turn the bullets of the enemy into dust before they struck them. The superstition was revived in the recent Maplah rebellion in India. A cable message from Delhi, 11th January, 1922, states that a notorious chief named Chembrasseri Thangal, one of the leaders of the rising, who, with five others, had been sentenced to death by a military court, had deluded his followers into the belief that he possessed mystic powers and was invulnerable to bullets. A few years ago, in the revolt of a section of the Boers against British rule, a fanatic prophet named Van Rensburg assured Beyers's men that he would make them invisible to their foes in battle. To this day some of the survivors of the Hauhau wars tell how they uttered a spell called huna, the purpose of which was to conceal them from their pursuers. No cover was supposed to be necessary: the huna was sufficient, they believed; it raised a friendly mist which befogged the foe. We read of very much the same kind of supernatural mist in the “Iliad.”

The political value of such faith was enormous. Pai-marire attracted even many of those who had no faith in Te Ua, but who joined with their fellow-Maoris in lamenting the deaths in the Kingite wars and the losses of land, and in putting forth an effort to sweep the land clear of the pakeha. Spreading out fanwise from the foot of Taranaki Mountain to the heart of the Island, to the north and to the south and to the eastern seaboard, it united in a common body of hostility to the Government all those tribes who had grievances against the British. It was fortunate for the European population that no military genius showed himself in the early stages of Pai-marire, and that no Maori statesman with a brain like Wiremu Tamehana's threw himself into the task of making the most skilful use of the common bond established by the new religion. Te Kooti came on the scene three years too late to turn the Hauhau cult to the fullest account, and by that time he had evolved a system of worship of his own which closely resembled a Christian church service. The missioners chosen by Te Ua to promulgate the faith were not men of high capacity intellectually, and such savage apostles as Kereopa made the tactical mistake of committing murders and precipitating war before the union of the tribes was completed. It is clear that Te Ua charged his messengers to the East Coast and other tribes to carry out their mission peacefully, and to refrain from acts which would involve premature war.

Several times a day the Hauhaus in every settlement gathered at the foot of the niu pole of worship and marched in procession round and round the mast, chanting in chorus the Pai-marire incantations taught by the prophet. Many of these chants, sounding very musical as they rang through the forest that walled in the rebel villages, were simply meaningless strings of English words rounded into the softer Maori; others were either transliterations or mispronunciations of parts of the Church of England services, with a sprinkling of Latin from the Roman Catholic ritual. Some phrases were military orders, picked up at the soldiers' camps. Some others showed a nautical origin; Te Ua boxed the compass like any pakeha sailor.

ldquo;Porini, hoia!” (“Fall in, soldiers!”) was the call when the Pai-marire prophet marched to the niu and took his stand at its foot, within a kind of altar-rail painted blood-red. The people fell in, in military order, and round and round the sacred mast they went, and as they marched they recited in a high chant this curious medley, believing it a most potent incantation given to the sons of men by the angels:— Kira, wana, tu, tiri, wha—Teihana! Rewa, piki rewa, rongo rewa, tone, piki tone—Teihana! Rori, piki rori, rongo rori, puihi, piki puihi—Teihana! Rongo puihi, rongo tone, hira, piki hira, rongo hira—Teihana! Mauteni, piki mauteni, rongo mauteni, piki niu, rongo niu—Teihana! Nota, no te pihi, no te hihi, noriti mino, noriti, koroni—Teihana! Hai, kamu, te ti, oro te mene, rauna te niu—Teihana! Hema, rura wini, tu mate wini, kamu te ti—Teihana! [TRANSLATION] Kill, one, two, three, four—Attention! River, big river, long river, stone, big stone—Attention! Road, big road, long road, bush, big bush—Attention! Long bush, long stone, hill, big hill, long hill—Attention! Mountain, big mountain, long mountain, big staff, long staff—Attention! North, north-by-east, nor'-nor'-east, nor'-east-by-north, north-east, colony—Attention! Come to tea, all the men, round the niu—Attention! Shem, rule the wind, too much wind, come to tea—Attention!

Then the measure of the incantation changed and took a less staccato and more musical note. “E te Matua, pai-marire” (“O Father, good and gracious”) the leader began, and all the people responded, “Rire, rire, hau!” Then they chanted in a wild cadence, sometimes falling softly away, then rising and swelling into a volume that throbbed with a fervour intense, the ritual of “Waiata mo te ata,” or “Morning Song,” beginning with this karakia— To mai Niu kororia, mai merire! To mai Niu kororia, mai merire! To mai Niu kororia, mai merire! To rire, rire! [TRANSLATION] My glorious Niu, have mercy on me! [or pity me!] My glorious Niu, have mercy on me! My glorious Niu, have mercy on me! Have mercy, mercy!

The words “mai merire” were a transliteration of the Latin “miserere mei” in the Roman Catholic prayers. Another burst of “Morning Song” followed:— Atua pai-marire, Atua pai-marire, Atua pai-marire, Rire, rire! Atua Tamaiti, pai-marire, Atua Tamaiti, pai-marire, Atua Tamaiti, pai-marire, Rire, rire! Atua Wairua-Tapu, pai-merire, Atua Wairua-Tapu, pai-merire, Atua Wairua-Tapu, pai-merire, Rire, rire!

This chant, rhythmic and haunting in its frequent repetitions, was inspired by the Church of England prayer-book. It called upon God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost to “have mercy upon us—mercy, mercy.”

In the evening assemblies in the meeting-house there was much chanting of hymns and prayers. This was one of the evening hymns:— To tangikere Pata, mai merire, To tangikere Pata, mai merire, To tangikere Pata, mai merire. To tangikere Titekoti, mai merire, To tangikere Titekoti, mai merire, To tangikere Titekoti, mai merire. To tangikere Orikoti, mai merire, To tangikere Orikoti, mai merire, To tangikere Orikoti, mai merire. To rire, rire!

Translated, and avoiding the repetitions of the Maori, these lines were— O Father, have mercy on me! Holy Ghost, have mercy on me! Mercy, mercy!

A maorified version of the Benediction was chanted with one voice, all the people holding up the right hand on a level with the head as they intoned in solemn music these words:— Kororia me te Pata, Ranei tu, Ranei to, Riiko—e! Te wai te pikine, Huoro Pata Hema ta pi Wai wi rau te, Rire, rire, hau! [“Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning and ever shall be, world without end”—and, instead of “Amen,” “Rire, rire, hau!”]

The words in a Maori dress were simply “pidgin,” imitating the sounds of the English. An aged half-caste woman who saw much of Hauhauism in the “sixties” says that it was a long time after she first heard the “Kororia,” as it was termed, before she discovered what it meant. “The Hauhaus used to come to me,” she narrates, “and say, ‘Our gods taught us this; it is English and you ought to know it.’ The people believed that when they had learned all these incantations well their gods Rura and Riki would give them power to walk upon the water and perform many other miracles”.

Goodness and mercy were the distinguishing attributes of the Hauhau faith, if one judged it by the hymns and prayers; but these chants all formed part of a scheme designed to exalt the Maori and obtain for him spiritual and material advantage over the hated white man, and the “good and peaceful” refrains soon became war-cries in the most desperate racial struggle yet waged in the Island.

Curious stories are told of the hypnotic power which the chants of Te Ua, combined with personal magnetic influence of the wizard-like tohunga Maori, exercised over many of the people. A half-caste member of the Ngati-Rangiwewehi section of the Arawa Tribe (the woman already mentioned) described some of the scenes which she witnessed when the niu of Pai-marire stood at Puhirua, on the north-west side of Lake Rotorua, 1865–67. Ngati-Rangiwewehi and one or two allied hapus were the only people of the Arawa who accepted the Hauhau faith; they were predisposed towards it because of their heavy losses in 1864 in the rifle-pits of Te Ranga. Moreover, the prophet Kereopa was a member of the tribe. The prophet of the niu at Puhirua in 1865 was a tohunga named Tiu Tamehana, and when he led his disciples in the rites they seemed perfectly oblivious to all outside things. Said Heni te Kiri-karamu, narrating the strange scenes in Puhirua,—

“I never would have anything to do with Pai-marire myself, but my mother, two of my young daughters, and my brother Neri were living with the Hauhaus at Puhirua, and they became converts. The Pai-marire believers seemed to be possessed of a spirit; they would keep on circling round and round the niu pole perhaps for an hour, half-dazed, holding their hands aloft, repeating their prayers in a sing-song chant. Their bare legs and arms might be covered with namu (sandflies), but they apparently did not feel their bites. My mother and brother went circling about the niu in procession with the rest. As I sat on the marae watching the Ngati-Rangiwewehi go round the niu I particularly admired one young chief woman named Hikairo. She was dressed only in a beautiful korowai, a white cloak of fine dressed flax. It was fastened over her right shoulder, leaving that arm free, and reached to below her knees, and her bare firmly shaped arm was upraised in the gesture of the Hapa Pai-marire as she marched with dignified step round the flagpole. She, like the others, was perfectly fascinated by the Hauhau service. When my brother met me on my visits to the village he would greet me in strange words and repeat his Hauhau charms; he explained that he was trying their effect on me and endeavouring to turn me to the new faith. But I told him that I could not place my faith in the Hauhau religion, and he agreed at last that the spells would have no power over one who was so firm an unbeliever.”

This niu at Puhirua, and one which was erected at Te Kiri-o-Tautini, three miles inland to the north-west, were the only Pai-marire poles of worship set up by the Arawa. The deserted hill pa Puhirua is a beautiful spot overlooking the northern and north-west shore of Rotorua Lake, between Awahou and Hamurana (Te Puna-i-Hangarua); the site of the old headquarters of Ngati-Rangiwewehi is now a burial-ground. Te Kiri-o-Tautini was the centre of a collection of small settlements for food cultivation on the southern edge of the great forest which extended northward to the Tauranga district.

A singular night seance in the communal meeting-house at Puhirua was described to the writer by the venerable Heni:—

“One night,” she said, “the people tried to put the spirits on me—that is, to influence the Pai-marire gods to gain me as a convert. The spirits, or nga wini as they called them [winds, the hau of the Maori], were supposed to dwell in the niu, but they could be invoked in the wharepuni at night. On this occasion a stranger named Nohoroa te Koki was in the village, and as he was not a believer in the Hauhau religion up to that time it was determined to convert him, and at the same time to make a final effort to turn me to Pai-marire. We were told to stand up, and then the people began their prayers and recited karakia after karakia in chorus to try and draw the wini down upon us, to lodge upon Nohoroa and myself and charm us into the new religion. But I was a difficult subject; perhaps my English education made me proof against the tohunga powers. After a while I began to laugh, and this annoyed the people, who earnestly told me I was very wrong to laugh when they were calling down the spirits. Nohoroa laughed, too, at first; but presently he became still and attentive. Then, as the chants went on, becoming more and more earnest and intense, he began to tremble and shiver, and went into a kind of trance or fit. He opened his mouth and commenced to recite the usual pidgin-English incantations, ‘Piki mauteni, rongo mauteni,’ and so on. He was a convert at last. The people were greatly gratified at what they imagined was the miraculous work of the spirits. But they never won me over.”

The devotees of Pai-marire professed to regard the Jews as co-religionists; they considered that under Te Ua's dispensation the Maoris were the chosen people of God, just as the Jews were in the Old Testament. This twisting of the Scriptures to suit the exigencies of the day persisted long after Te Ua's time. Te Kooti's favourite theme was the sufferings of the Israelites, to wh