History of New Zealand.
Vol. i.
History
of
New Zealand.
by
In Three Volumes.Volume I.
Chapman and Hall,
Limited
[
The right of Translation and Reproduction is reserved.]
Errata.
Vol I., p. 32, note 1, “Archbishop,”should be “Archdeacon.”
Vol I., p. 37, “Bidwell,”should be “Bidwill,”bis, and at 209, 210.
Vol I., p. 55, line 8, should be “from the thirty-fourth to the forty-seventh parallel of South Latitude.”
Vol I., p. 64, “September 1642,”should be “December 1642.”
Vol I., p. 183, line 21, “nephew,”should be “son.”
Vol I., p. 218, line 29. Note.—Governor Hobson reported that Mr.
In the same letter Mr.
Of the latter he adds that “nothing but strict Maori usage and custom is its foundation.”
Vol. II., p. 363, line 27, omit “he was translated to the War Office and.”
Vol. III., p. 445, line 16, omit “a rupture between, ”and insert “the tender of their resignations by.”
Vol. III., p. 445, line 17, omit “who,”and insert “which.”
Vol. III., p. 445, line 17, omit “having tendered their resignations.
Vol. III., p. 450, omit all words after “authentic statements”at end of note.
Preface.
It is impossible to study the facts connected with the Maori race without being deeply interested in their fortunes. With whatever motive any one might undertake to write a history of the English occupation of New Zealand, he is no sooner confronted by the facts with regard to the Maoris—their polity, their laws, their sagacity, their cannibal rites, their blood-thirstiness, their heroism, their generosity, and their eloquence—than he finds that amongst them, and not amongst the invaders of their country, will be found the chief and most lasting interest of his work. He will find also that many of the hundreds of volumes written about New Zealand transmit statements originally put forward by those who had an interest in deception in order to conceal their own misdoings. But, though the task may be laborious, he will find also, by diligent search amongst authentic records, ample proof of the real facts, and of the methods by which they have been obscured or misrepresented.
If, by repetition, a man may, as Shakspeare tells us, make such a sinner of his memory as to credit his own lie, how much more easily may the public embrace an error which is unwittingly propagated by those who copy in one work what they find printed in another! Fortunate is it that there have been always upright Englishmen on the spot to protest against wrong-doing. It will suffice to mention the names of three;—Sir
At one time it was hoped that several persons of great ability and high character, who had amassed much recorded information and had lived long in New Zealand, would combine the results and give them to the world. But that hope has vanished. I learned from one of them, who went to New Zealand in 1839, and lives there now, that on the occasion of a visit to Europe he abandoned the idea of publication, and destroyed his manuscripts. The failure of that project, and encouragement from those concerned in it, embolden me to present the following narrative compiled with a diligent endeavour to test every statement by reference to the most authentic sources of information.
No one who has explored historical regions will dare to say that he has avoided error in his own writings. It is enough if he can conscientiously affirm that he has spared no pains to avoid it. No man can presume to say that he has produced a work which ought to satisfy the critical judgment of others, or even of himself. But life is all too short to enable him to do either one or the other. All that he can do is to collect materials with care, to compare them with a strict desire to garner the truth, and to publish
It is nearly half a century since I first saw, in the house of
London, st November, 1882.
Contents of Volume I.
New Zealand.
Chapter i.
The Maoris.
The Maoris.
We have taken the substance, and might accord the name of the Maoris to their land.Ethnologists and speculators have disputed as to the manner in which the Maori race found a way to the country which a Dutch voyager called New Zealand, but which ought to be called Maoria.
There is, however, no reason for distrusting the traditions of the Maoris.
There may be an admixture of fable coined by Eastern imagination, but there is internal evidence sufficient to confirm the story in the main.
From the day when Cook's Tahitian companion,
Natives of many of these islands have visited New Zealand during the last forty years, and, like
The tradition of the Maoris was that they migrated to New
They add that a previous explorer, a chief named Ngahue, fleeing from civil war at Hawaiki, had discovered New Zealand and returned with the precious Pounamu or green-stone, found in the Middle Island, which was then named Te Wai Pounamu.
There was internecine war at Hawaiki when Ngahue returned thither, and on the death of a great warrior his sons carved enormous canoes with axes made of the Pounamu so auspiciously brought; one of the canoes being called Arawa, and arriving first.
Such was the Arawa tradition, and on the east coast a large tribe still proudly bears the name of Arawa. In memory of it, Amongst the accounts given of the Maori fleet differences will be found in learned works. Variance between tribal traditions accounts for many differences. One copious narrative was published by the Rev.
Other tribes arrogated for other canoes the honour of having first reached the promised land, the guiding star to which was the Southern Cross, called in Maori language Star of the South. Amongst the most celebrated canoes were the Aotea, Tainui, Kuruhaupo, Takitumu, Tokomaru, and Matatua.
The calabash, the kumera, the taro, and the yam, were carried in the fleet. The karāka,Corynocarpus lœvigatus. The fleshy fruit was used by the Maoris.
The canoes were of larger kind than those afterwards used in New Zealand, and the veneration of the Maoris imputed greater strength and skill to their ancestors than has belonged to posterity.
The great distance between the Sandwich Islands and New Zealand has caused many persons to endeavour to find some other island as the original hive of the Maori. Recently a traveller who had previously deemed the distance of the Sandwich Islands from New Zealand impassable by canoes, saw reason to qualify his doubts. He found that the Maori fleet might have a fair wind throughout. Mr. It perhaps deserves notice that one of the principal islands of the Hawaiian group is Maui, that Maui is the demigod of Maori mythology, and that the Northern Island of New Zealand is called Te Ika o Maui, the fish of Maui, because he drew it up from the depths of the sea.
It was my fortune to hear a Rarotonga chief and a Sandwich Islander discuss these traditions with Maori chiefs on the banks of the Waipa in the Waikato district, in 1879.
Explanation followed fast upon question, and it was interesting to compare the Sandwich Island tradition with the Maori. A general concordance might have arisen from vague and floating rumour. But the Europeans present were surprised when it was found that the Sandwich Island story agreed with that of the Maoris, not only as to the migration, but as to the names of the canoes in which the voyage was undertaken.
Of all but one canoe mentioned by the Maoris the Hawaiian knew the names; and his ignorance of that one tended to confirm the general truth of the separate traditions by proving that one was no servile copy of the other. A Maori chief earnestly dissuaded me from crediting the Hawaiian tradition in one particular. The Maori belief was that civil war and the fame of the Pounamu caused the emigration. The Hawaiian declared that in the civil war one party was hopelessly surrounded and doomed to die, when an old chief said, “Let us not kill them. Are they not our brothers? Let us rather mark out trees from which canoes may be made to carry them elsewhere.”His eloquence prevailed, and when the canoes were about to depart he implored the exiles to live in peace in the land they were seeking. They would prosper if they tilled the earth, they would be miserable if they followed the deeds of Tu, the god of war… The Maori in 1879 declared that the Hawaiian was right in all that he said except as to the overcoming of Maori ancestors at Hawaiki. They were, he said, unconquerable, and greater than any men in these degenerate days.
The canoes were parted on the voyage, and arrived at different times and places in New Zealand.
The tradition in Rarotonga is precise. The ancestors of the people came from Avaiki. The island is called Hawaii by its natives—Hawaiki by the Maoris,—Avaiki by the Rarotongans,—Havaiki at the Marqu esas,—Havaii at Tahiti—and Savaii at Samoa. The slight literal changes which the language has undergone (where l is used in Hawaii the Maori uses the letter r) do not impede conversation after the lapse of many centuries. There are slight differences in pronunciation even in the Northern Island of New Zealand.
Ingenious speculators have found in verbal similarities and in phrases, proof that the Maori has close affinity with the Chinese, with Hindoos, and with the Japanese. Such arguments may strengthen a belief in the descent of all existing men from one family, but except upon the supposition of several migrations do not elucidate the problem as to the abode of the Maori before he floated southwards.
It is true that he took with him images which strangely resemble the sitting idols of the East. A red porphyritic image about a foot high, and of great specific gravity, reported to have been carried by the Arawa canoe, was presented by Arawa chiefs to Sir The stone buildings and gigantic sculptures found at Easter Island are conveniently ascribed by speculators to an extinct race. But the carved images carried by the Maoris in their migration prove that whencesoever they came they were acquainted with sculpture and venerated its productions. It is the fond idea of so many that a society of man cannot retrograde in arts, that they would annihilate races of mankind rather than forego a theory. It must be admitted that the Easter Island problem is crucial. A statue carried thence to the British Museum is eight feet high and weighs four tons. In the island some statues were between thirty and forty feet high. Cyclopean stone platforms on various headlands presented an array of the vast images for each of which a rock-carved crown had been made of different material from that of the body. The gaze of the images is said to have been always upward.
Protruding from the hideous mouth is the tongue, If one fact could confirm a theory, the contortions of the Maori wardance might be held to prove a Maori migration from India. Mr. Bidwell in 1839 saw a handsome woman so transform her features as to become “very much like some of the most forbidding of the Hindoo idols.”—‘Rambles in New Zealand,’ by John Carne Bidwell. London, 1841.
Moreover, the savage acts of the sect which worshipped Siva and the ferocious Kali were emulated in New Zealand, and the carvings of the Maoris might be adduced to show that the Lingamhari of Hindostan had taught the sea-rovers of the Pacific those obscene rites which defiled the Dionysiac festivals in Greece, The ὠμοφάγια of Greece may be remembered not as palliating Maori cannibalism, but as a sad instance of the atrocities to which human flesh is prone.
Some writers have imagined that the Maori migrated from North America. Whencesoever he sprung he belonged to a sea-roving band, which conquered island after island from the darker races found in possession, and eventually fitted out the expedition which seized New Zealand.
However dimmed by time in some respects, or encrusted with mythological additions, there is little doubt that the mental grasp and fond veneration of the race enabled them to preserve their folk lore with wonderful accuracy.
In one volume ‘Ko Nga Motuatea, Me Nga Hakirara o nga Maori,’ by Sir In another volume, ‘Polynesian Mythology and Ancient Traditional History of the New Zealand Race’ (London,
The love of ancestors was cherished with a fervour amounting to religion; and to doubt that the Maori, like the Druid, could retain from generation to generation the main facts is to show more credulity in one's own fancy than in evidence.
The genealogical wands, representing each ancestor from the date of the Maori landing, and comparison of the genealogy recorded in one part of New Zealand with that preserved in another with which there had been intermarriages in the past, have shown in English courts the trustworthiness of Maori records.
A brief summary of the districts in which the various leading tribes settled, and of the positions which they occupied when Captain Cook saw them in 1769, may here be given.
The Arawa canoe left a few persons at Maunganui (the projecting steep cone which stands like a sentinel seaward of Tauranga), and the remainder proceeded to
Tradition declares that their hero's stature was nine feet.
Their territory included the coast at
The luxurious warm baths provided by nature did not soften the savageness of the Maori heart. The feuds of the Arawa tribe were as ferocious as those of others, but fortunately for the colonists it has ever prided itself on loyalty to the Queen.
It arrogated superior importance on account of having carried to New Zealand not only the stone image which was obtained by Sir
Other tribes contended for the honour of having carried with them the fruits of the earth with which to replenish their new home, but the massive carved idols were the precious freight of the Arawa canoe. They appear to have been venerated rather than worshipped. Though all Maoris treasured the green-stone “heitiki,”they could not be charged with adoring those quaint resemblances to images. I have been assured by one whose experience coursed over more than forty years, Bishop of Wellington, Dr. Hadfield.
The voyage of the Tainui was notable from the fact that after landing a few persons at the East Cape and at Katikati, the leader, Hoturoa, entered the
The fact being ascertained the canoe was dragged overland from Tamaki to the head of the Manukau harbour, and a final landing being made at Kawhia the voyagers became the parents of the tribes which, as Waikato, Ngatimaniapoto, Ngatiraukawa, Ngatitoa, and others, occupied the Waikato territory, with rights upon the west coast.
The volcanic hills near Auckland, whose terraces and excavations tell of the labour of centuries, were peopled by men of the Tainui. At the earliest date probed by English researches (early in the 18th century), the occupants of that coveted and much-suffering isthmus were known as Nga Iwi, or “the tribes.”
The Tokomaru One tradition tells that the Tokomaru like the Tainui was dragged across the isthmus between Tamaki and Manukau.
The Aotea carried her people, under the guidance of Turi, to the harbour which bears her name on the west coast. Proceeding southwards he gave names to Waitara, Oakura, and other places, and planted seeds of the karaka (laurel) on his way. He founded a colony at Patea, and his people were the ancestors of the tribes of Wanganui.
The great Ngapuhi tribe has a tradition of its own, and scorns the assertion of the Arawa people that the Ngapuhi progenitors were carried in the prow, “Puhi,”(or adorned with feathers) of the Arawa canoe and were thence named.
The Ngapuhi declare that their forefathers, under Nukutawhiti, immigrated in a canoe named Mamari, which followed another voyager, a chief named
They point with reverence to a massive stone which Nukutawhiti placed near Tarawaua at Hokianga. Long after the English were established in the neighbourhood every passing Maori laid on the stone a branch of Raurekau A species of coprosma.
The Matatua landed her voyagers at Whakatane. The Kuruhaupo brought others to Poverty Bay. One tradition averred that the Takitumu, commanded by Tata, carried the first immigrants to the Middle Island, with the evil reputation of having seen lots cast and bodies devoured when hunger raged among the crew.
There were vague rumours that aborigines were found and destroyed by the Maoris in both islands. If some were spared and enslaved their features may be partially preserved among the varieties of physiognomy found in the islands.
The Waitaha, a portion of the first canoe-immigration, are reputed to have held possession of the Middle Island until overborne by a wave of conquest in the 16th century, when the destroying Ngatimamoe intruded from the North Island, to be themselves similarly swept away in the 17th century by the Ngai Tahu, who again were harassed by raids from the Northern Island, and were finally decimated by the conqueror Rauparaha within the memory of English visitors.
The varying or conflicting traditions treasured in each tribe make it impossible to assert confidently that any of them is true in all particulars. But there is sufficient general agreement to enable the antiquarian to rely upon the main thread of the story.
The date of the Maori occupation or conquest can only be conjectured. It can be computed only by guessing the length of life of each Maori ancestor.
Genealogies were graven on a staff. The name of each ancestor was recalled by serrated projections, and the Maori recited the roll from father to son with the fervency of a devotee and the pride of an Englishman who now holds lands held by his forefathers in the days of the Saxons.
There was no failure of memory on such a point, and careful inquiry has established, approximately, the fact that as early as
All were not chiefs of high degree, but no indolence was allowed to mar the pedigree of the highest families.
The roll-call of the genealogical tree was strengthened by the records of song and chaunt.
This proud race in its native state was found defiant, bloodthirsty, and cannibal. Yet it was good-humoured and honourable. There was much variety in physiognomy as well as in colour. Aquiline noses were not uncommon, and even a Grecian type of face was sometimes seen. Often the nose was broad and flat. The men were generally tall, the women not so. The lower part of the women's faces was massive, and expressed determination. Dark-haired and brown-skinned though in some cases not duskier than many Spaniards, muscular in body, with well-formed intelligent heads, the Maoris were manly in bearing; fluent and vigorous in speech.
Dark oracular sayings, poetic imagery and allegories, proverbs which required an interpreter to apply them, coloured the language of an orator. Its meaning was sought like that of the Delphian oracle—by careful study.
The deadliest foe of the Maoris could not scorn them. Their dignity, chivalry, eloquence, and capacity, their intuitive talent for war and skill in fortification forced themselves upon the recognition of the world; and the colonists, who have eaten their way into the territory, paid a moral tribute to the dispossessed when they placed them in the halls of the Legislature.
Mr. Swainson declares ‘
Such is the testimony of an accomplished eye-witness who lived long years amongst them, and held office as Attorney-General in the early days of English colonization.
Another writer ( ‘On the Maori Races of New Zealand.’ Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, vol. i.
Continually at war with one another they selected promontories or isolated hills for fortified abodes; and with wooden implements made embankments, ditches, and terraces, the magnitude of which astonished all observers. They were eminently an agricultural people. As one plot of ground was exhausted, the tillers passed on to another, as was the habit of the ancient Germans. They never used manure. They passed from plot to plot as they deemed that fresh ground was required.
Captain
The Kūmără, or sweet potato, and the taro (caladium esculentum), were cultivated with care and neatness, which was, in the opinion of Sir
The men also dug up fern-root ( The “green-stone mĕrĕ,”about fourteen inches long, was shaped like the blade of an oar. The “heitiki”or image was of various sizes. The largest were several inches long, and massive. The perforation and polishing entailed immense labour. The heitiki was suspended upon the breast. The art of perforating the pounamu or jade was notable in the Maoris. Sir John Lubbock (‘Prehistoric Times’) remarks: “The smiths of the Bronze Age seem to have been unable to pierce bronze, and the holes for rivets are cast and not pierced.”Yet the Maoris (classed with the Stone Age) drilled holes through one of the hardest of substances.Pteris esculenta) at special seasons and stored it, under the name of Arŭhĕ, for food. They fished, they made eel-weirs, they made stone hatchets useful not only in war but in cutting down timber. They carved canoes and built houses. They ground the green-stone with much labour into ornaments, into weapons, carpenter's tools, and images. The grinding and polishing of this hard material was accomplished by friction with flint and wet sand. The perfection of a green-stone mĕrĕ was the labour of years, and carried with it the admiration of a tribe.
While the men had these duties to perform, for the women was reserved the preparation of food, and the weaving of the baskets in which they cooked it. Such baskets in ancient days were never used a second time to contain food.
The women prepared flax (Phormium tenax), and made it into clothing; they procured shell-fish and firewood, and weeded the cultivation grounds. On them fell the heavy task of carrying on their backs every year the fresh gravel required for the kumara, or sweet potato fields. They also gathered fruit and expressed the juice of the Tutu (Coriaria ruscifolia) for drinking.
The ample supply of fish, cray-fish, and shell-fish, made amends for the paucity of animals on land. Numerous varieties of wild-duck and the mutton-bird (Titi or Pelecanoides urinatrix) furnished food in season. The great rail, the weka (Ralus Australis), was as large as an ordinary domestic fowl. Quails, and pigeons, and other birds, if not abundant, furnished variety of diet.
The remains of the Pipi shells, strewn on every old pah in myriads, attest the enormous supply and consumption of cockles in the islands, and the part performed by the Maori women in providing the principal meals, of which there were two—morning and evening—eaten hot, the men sitting apart from the women A siesta after noon was usual.
The Maori averred with pride that he had imported from Hawaiki the sweet potato, the taro, and the gourd. The latter supplied not only refreshing food in summer, before the kumara was ready for use, but vessels for containing water, oils, or cooked animal food. From the karaka (corynocarpus), of which the kernel is poisonous unless prepared with care, the Maoris made a wholesome and pleasant food.
The edible fern provided unfailing support. The root was dug up in spring, cut into pieces, and stacked in dry places so as to admit of ventilation through the stack. When required for use it was steeped in water, sun-dried, and then roasted at the fire.
The cultivation of the kumara, or sweet potato, was almost a solemnity. The men adorned their hair and their wooden spades. The seed-end of the potato was carefully placed towards the east. Songs were chanted to propitiate the god of cultivated food. The tillers washed their hands and held them over a tapu-ed fire before breaking their fast.
The cooking consisted of baking and roasting. Captain
The Maoris had no kind of intoxicating liquor. Their drink was water. The expressed juice of the Tutu was merely refreshing.
It has been said by a medical authority that the scrofulous tendencies developed in later generations of Maoris have arisen from the inferior diet introduced by Cook—the sweet potato, the taro, and fern-root being far more nutritious than the common potato which was the gift of
The Maoris did not use salt; dried fish which had been steeped in the sea supplied them with saline food. Tribes which had no sea-fishing of their own exchanged mats for dried fish with their neighbours.
The pig, though known in Polynesia, had not been carried by the Maoris to New Zealand.
They had no means of boiling water. Their vessels were wooden. To open shell-fish they obtained hot water by putting hot stones into water in their wooden vessels. Yet with their scant appliances, Maoris feasted in thousands.
In the neighbourhood of the hot lakes nature had provided them with an unbought luxury of cooking of which they were boastful.
Labour was divided into classes—male, female, sacred, and common.
Though the chiefs were honoured as of noble blood, they worked hard equally with and amongst their numerous slaves. In labour, as in war, it was the glory of the chief to excel, though the baser kinds of work he did not touch.
Vast posts appeared in the palisade which enclosed the houses of the fortified village. The enormous war-canoe with its hundred
The numerous fabrics made from various vegetable fibres attested the inventive faculty of the race, or the high state of art which they carried with them from Hawaiki.
The string-turned drill with which they bored the hard greenstone as deftly as an European lapidary was tipped with quartz.
The wedge (matakahi) enabled them to split blocks of timber. Of the saw they were as ignorant as were the Russians before the days of Peter the Great.
Tradition was precise, and the demands of custom were inexorable. Only the chief (Rangatira) could wear the white-tipped tail-feathers of the Huia (Neomorphia Gouldii); and the staff of the chief was adorned with feathers and inlaid eyes of mother-of-pearl.
There were large war-gongs, various kinds of flutes, whistles, and a trumpet, made of wood or of a large conch-shell, which alarmed
Though they had no medium of exchange, they gave and received gifts, and it was a point of honour that the recompense should exceed in value that of which it was a recognition. There was an exchange of commodities, however, and inland tribes gave mats or other articles of value in return for dried fish or shark oil, supplied by friends from the coast.
But for their continual warfare the tribes might have been the happiest of mankind in the luscious but temperate climate of the North Island.
Yet they encumbered life with ceremony. There was rejoicing over birth; there was a function of naming, or removal of tapu from the child; and betrothal often occurred as soon as the child drew breath.
Tattooing ensued at the age of puberty. The whole face of the man was deeply scored with curved lines having some beauty in themselves if not in their position, and the breech and thigh were carved deeply with sinuous lines darkened with dyes. The completed operation occupied years, the lines being deepened at intervals.
The lips of the women needed to be tattooed before they could marry, and perpendicular or curved lines from the mouth to the chin added to an effect more strange than pleasing on a naturally handsome face.
The statuesque appearance of an old chief whose head seemed rigid as the figures in an Egyptian temple, excited more wonder than disgust.
Both sexes wore a short kilt, and a mat was fastened over the shoulder. In war the men discarded everything but their weapons and their belt, which was made of flax. Dog-skin mats were a favourite garment with the chiefs.
Polygamy was encouraged, and divorce was easy. Alliances of the well-born in different tribes were valued because of the influence they created or ensured. At the death of friends there was formal wailing or tangi, which was often repeated if the deceased was of high reputation.
The Maoris gashed themselves like other ancient people of the East in their great lamentations. Mourners came from far to join in the doleful duty.
The body of the deceased was allowed to decay, and another ceremony, the hahunga, or cleaning of the bones, ensued after many months or even after years. Those who scraped the bones were tapu, or sacred, and could only be relieved from their state by the tohunga or priest. The bones when cleaned were carried by a select few and secretly deposited in some cave or rocky cleft in uninvaded recesses. For a stranger to touch them was desecration. An enemy if he could find them would make flutes or fish-hooks of them, and the tribe of the deceased would be horror-struck.
Captain
Priests dressed the body and placed it in sitting posture, garlanded with flowers. Albatross feathers adorned the hair. The face was smeared with oil and red ochre. The body was enveloped in a fine mat. The weapons of war he had used were around the body of the chief in the midst of the bones of his ancestry. Birds were sacrificed to the gods. Tribes came
Laments were sung, of which the following, composed by a Rarawa chief, Papahia, may serve as an example:—
Who according to Maori tradition was borne “aloft to the moon and stars.”
Canopus.
‘Maori Mementos,’ C. O. B. Davies. Auckland, 1855. In the same work will be found the following dialogue between the locust and the ant, a song, by an unnamed Maori poet.
After a time the body of the departed chief was wrapped in mats and placed in a canoe-shaped box, with the “mer,”and
After about a year the bones were scraped clean and secretly deposited by priests, with those of ancestors, in caves or recesses in the mountains. Then the “mere”was received by the heir.
But, for a great warrior, hahungas might be repeated for years. The preserved head was brought from its hiding-place to grace the ceremony, and fervid orations commemorated the virtues of the dead, and aroused the emulation of the living.
The tohunga or priest was not the only or principal priest. The Ariki, the head of the tribe, the first-born male or female by the eldest branch, was the chief priest of the people. As the representative of the great progenitor, from whom the tribe was named, he or she was entitled to and received respect amounting to homage. Yet, as amongst the ancient Germans, incapacity might cause a transfer of the active duties of a chief to some one worthier than the heir of the great name, though in matters affecting the whole tribe the blood right was never forgotten.
The offspring of intermarriage of important chiefs or chieftainesses might become of higher blood than the father, and the child or heir of the name was honoured accordingly.
But the “mana,”or prevailing influence of the well-born, might be tarnished by unworthiness, and the low-born but daring and sagacious counsellor and warrior in troublous times
Chiefs wore the insignia of their position. Only they could wear the huia feathers and the white plume of the crane. They wore the heitiki or green-stone image on their breasts. They kept the green-stone mere, the cherished heirloom of the tribe.
Even the slave, the αἰμάλωτος, spared by his captors, might by prowess obtain position amongst them, and such instances have been known. Though slavery was a reproach, it was a lot which all who went to war might encounter, and if a captive was spared after a great battle he might and often did live in comfort among his conquerors.
The land was the domain of the people, and though by separate cultivation a man had a right to the product, he acquired no fee-simple of the land. Over the whole domain the tribe hunted, and as the kiore or native rat was snared in distant places the boundaries of each territory were well-known, and, if necessary, defined by marks.
Alienation to a foreigner could not be the act of the separate occupier. Only common consent could alienate the common property.
In the same manner if a hapu, or sub-tribe, of a neighbouring clan was invited to settle on the lands of a tribe, the new-comers, under the general tribal sanction, acquired such rights as any occupier of the inviting tribe could have possessed. Inheritance was from father to son. Mr. Colenso, F.L.S., states this broadly (vol. i. ‘Transactions of New Zealand Institute’) in an elaborate paper on the Maori race, and it may be accepted as a maxim, subject to such qualifications as are elsewhere mentioned.
Treasure-trove belonged to the finder in ordinary cases, but certain royal fish or a white crane fell to the ariki, or head of the tribe.
Captain
The men were good oarsmen. The sails were made of mat, but their chief use was in sailing before the wind.
Sea-fights were not common. When they took place the object on each side was to overturn the enemy's canoe and brain the crew struggling in the water.
The “whare,”or ordinary house of the Maori, was, in Cook's opinion, a wretched abode. The frame was of wood and the roof of thatch. The entrance admitted a man on his knees. Dried grass was strewn over the floor. The height of the ridgepole of the roof was usually five or six feet. There was a fire-place, and a hole near it let out some of the smoke and was the only window.
One which was built in 1878 at the mouth of the Thames by the chief Taiperi of the Ngatimaru tribe, was nearly seventy feet in length and thirty in breadth. There was a large porch in front about twelve feet in depth, extending to the width of the building. An elaborately-carved door admitted visitors from the porch to the main building. On the pediment, high above the door, was carved the name of the progenitor of the Ngatimaru, Hotonui. Other ancestors were carved in grotesque forms on the massive posts of the interior walls, which were more than seven feet high, while the steep roof rose with Gothic pitch.
The ordinary whare, or abode, which
The Hakari was a great festival which accompanied the making of peace or conference about great affairs, or was in return for a previous feast. Crops were obtained from land planted for the occasion, and after the great dances the ruler of the feast divided to each tribe its portion.
Six thousand guests have been seen by Europeans at a Hakari. It was a point of honour that a feast given in return should be more profuse than its precursor. The Maori poured forth all that he had. The assembly was like a joyous fair. Presents were exchanged, bargains made, and all the popular pastimes of Maoris made their Isthmian games a round of pleasure.
Their musical instruments were wooden or shell trumpets and flutes. Dancing, singing, wrestling, spear-throwing, contests with long sticks, and great orations, furnished memories of a happy Hakari.
The national songs and chants have, fortunately, been preserved by Sir
The assembly of a tribe was called a Runanga, and great orations were made at it. The conference itself was called a kórero. An orator who could touch the strings which roused the veneration of the race for their ancestors or their traditions could work a Maori audience to frenzy.
They were fond of games. They had whipping-tops, and kites which hovered in the shape of birds. They had a game with ball, and played maui, or intricate cat's cradle, with dexterity. The young men practised athletic exercises by wrestling, running, leaping, swimming, and in contests with the spear. The dance, in which the performers bounded as one man in admirable time, wielding their weapons as if one muscle moved every spear or gun, excited them to seeming fury. The savage distortion of face, and the grating, quivering sound like
Grossness of speech, which would have been intolerable amongst the unrefined Europeans of the 15th century, did not offend the Maori taste, and some of the indecencies of Bacchic orgies might seem to have been conveyed by the Maori Vikings across the Pacific from Hindostan, where they existed under another name.
The Maoris reckoned time by lunar months, of which they had thirteen. May was their first month, and was marked by the appearance of the star Puanga (Rigel) in the morning. The flowering of certain trees distinguished various months, the rising of stars accompanied others.
March was the period in which the kumara crop ripened, and April was the season for digging it up. Errors arising from the lunar calculation were sufficiently remedied for Maori uses by the rising of stars and the flowering of plants. They continually rectified their calendar instead of allowing it to run into such disorder as compelled Julius Caesar to change the style when he had to intercalate two long months to reform it. Nights, not days, were the units into which the month was divided, each having a distinct name.
Marriage was attended with no solemnities. Polygamy was practised, and divorce could be obtained by turning a wife out of doors. If a man wished to marry a woman of different tribe the consent of his own tribe was required as well as that of hers. The wife was treated well if faithful (as was the rule), but might be killed for infidelity. The unmarried girl was allowed liberty unknown to the married. Captain
Children of importance were named by a priest, with a formal rite, in which he sang an incantation praying for heroism and strength for a boy, and industry for a girl. The boy was
The salutation of Maoris was the hongi, or rubbing of their noses together; and ceremony required a (tangi or) wail on meeting of long-parted friends, or on arrival at any place where friends had died since the last visit.
Dignity was the characteristic bearing of a chief, and there were many Europeans whose admiration of the Maori was unbounded. There were others who commenced their acquaintance with respect, and were repelled into aversion by the uncleanliness of their savage friends. Yet persons of all classes were found who took up a permanent abode with them long before the English set up any form of government in the islands. Such denizens became the clients of a Rangatira or chief, and were called Pākĕhā Pakeha meant “foreign.”
Patron and client acknowledged reciprocal duties. Profit was supposed to accrue to the first from the bargains he made through his Pakeha with, traders. The client, on the other hand, submitting to friendly extortions from his Rangatira, was protected from ill-usage by others.
These singular relations have been described by one who entered into them (Mr.
His experiences were published under the title of ‘Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha Maori,’ and it may safely be affirmed that, allowing for passages written for effect, no New Zealand story which is at variance with the spirit of Mr.
Long after English rule had been established in New Zealand the Colonial Government succeeded in persuading Mr.
It may be well to cite his interpretation of a Maori word, on which turned, in the opinion of some persons, the war of 1860 between the colonists and the Maoris, and the greater war which was its consequence.
“Mana' has several different meanings, and the difference between these diverse meanings is sometimes very great, and sometimes only a mere shade of meaning, though one very necessary to observe; and it is therefore quite impossible to find any one single word in English, or in any other language that I have any acquaintance with, which will give the meaning of ‘mana’ And, moreover, though I myself do know all the meanings and different shades of meaning properly belonging to the word, I find a great difficulty in explaining them.… Virtus, prestige, authority, good fortune, influence, sanctity, luck, are all words which, under certain conditions, give something near the meaning of mana, though not one of them gives it exactly.…Mana sometimes means more than a natural virtue or power attaching to some person or thing, different from and independent of the ordinary natural conditions of either, and capable of either increase or diminution, both from known and unknown causes. The mana of a priest or tohunga is proved by the truth of his predictions as well as the success of his incantations, which same incantations performed by another person of inferior mana would have no effect. When most of a doctor's patients recovered his mana was supposed to be in full feather.… Mana, in another sense, is the accompaniment of power, but not the power itself; nor is it even in this sense exactly ‘authority,’ according to the strict meaning of the word, though it comes very near it.
“This is the chief's mana. Let him lose the power and the mana is gone; but mind you don't translate mana as power; that won't do; they are two different things entirely. Of this nature also is the mana of a tribe, but this is not considered to be the supernatural kind of mana.
“Then comes the mana of a warrior;… before leaving him some supernaturally ominous occurrence might be expected to take place, such as are said to have taken place before the
Lizard Skin was Mr. Toa were thought as much of in their world as any Greek or Roman of old was in his; and, moreover, that it is my private opinion that if the best of them could only have met my friend, Lizard Skin, in his best days, and would take off his armour and fight fair, that the aforesaid Lizard Skin would have tickled him to his heart's content with the point of his spear.mêlées where he would have sometimes six or eight antagonists that he had received these wounds. He was a great general, and I have heard him criticize closely the order and conduct of every battle of consequence which had been fought for fifty years before my arrival in the country.… Before the introduction of the musket the art of war had been brought to great perfection, and when large numbers were engaged in a pitched battle the order of battle resembled in a most striking manner some of the most approved orders of battle of the ancients… My old friend had a great hatred of the musket. He said that in battles fought with the musket there were never so many men killed as when in his young days men fought hand to hand with the spear; when a good warrior would kill six, or eight, ten, or even twenty men in a single fight.”The old man thus celebrated by Mr.
How many ideas clustered around the word in the mind of a Maori could be guessed only by those who had lived amongst the people.
It will be seen hereafter that a colonial minister, a prime mover in the great war of 1860, spoke scornfully of the word “mana,”declaring in the General Assembly that he neither knew nor wanted to know anything about it.
The Tapu of New Zealand, like the Taboo of the islands of the Pacific, was a mysterious power which Europeans were continually offending ignorantly if not maliciously. It held universal sway over all Maoris. A superstitious awe compelled obedience. Though the Ariki, the chief priest or pontifex maximus, could impose it upon any object, he was himself bound to submit to it. In each chief resided a kind of sacredness; the head and back being its principal depositories. If he desired to preserve any land or other object from intrusion he called it his head or back, and to violate the “tapu”thus conferred was a deadly insult to the chief who had imposed it. War-parties were “tapu”; any property could be subjected to it, for a time or indefinitely, and it could only be removed by religious obedience to prescribed forms. The staff or wand on which genealogies were preserved; the first-fruits of the sweet-potato crop; Maoris engaged in making nets; slaves in attendance on chiefs or priests; fishing expeditions, and numerous objects were held to be “tapu”in a sacred sense. The graves of ancestors were “tapu”in the highest degree. He who touched anything sacred placed himself under a ban. He who, when under the “tapu,”entered a house rendered it
A chief with a war-party happened to leave a portion of food prepared for his dinner. Slaves and camp-followers came afterwards to the spot, and one strong man, seeing the food, ate it without asking questions. Being told of the atrocity he had committed the man was seized with convulsions and died in a few hours. ‘Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha Maori.’ London, 1876.
Tapu was thus a mode of preserving property. It preserved the forests, fishing-grounds, and game.
The sick were tapu and isolated accordingly. Enemies of the Maori declared this law selfish. Their friends said that sickness arose from a visitation of an “Atua”or offended spirit, who must be avoided. Tapu thus pervaded every relation in life or death.
The Pakeha Maori himself, Judge
Returning with sixty men from an expedition he saw a number of bones on the beach, picked up a human skull and buried it. His companions fled or shrunk from him. He sat apart at night. They placed food near him, which it was his duty to eat without touching it with his hands. They shuddered when in spite of their cries he handled it. They left in dismay, travelled all night, and warned his household, all Maoris, of the accursed plight in which their master would return. The inmates fled. When he reached his home it was desolate. Four days he lived or fumed alone, cooking his own meals and dwelling in his kitchen. Then a “Tohunga,”or priest, came in a canoe to charm away the “tapu.”Mumbling incantations, he made the culprit eat a baked kumera. All the kitchen utensils were doomed to destruction. The very clothes of the offender were thrown away. At night the household returned to their allegiance; but a new kitchen was built, as none of them would enter the old one for many years after its desecration.
The Tohunga or priest was also a seer. Like the oracle of Delphos his utterances were sometimes ambiguous. Consulted about the success of a war-party, one cried out, “A desolate
The bewildered audience had retired to rest when Mr.
On the minds of such a people the tapu wielded a potent influence. Dread of supernatural rather than of human vengeance sanctified it in their eyes; but their traditions, laws, and customs, gave it minute application, and hardened its use. The authority which first enjoined obedience had passed into the hand of the high-born Ariki, at once patriarch and priest, and endowed with a power which if scorned by the wilful or careless might call supernatural curses upon them. Supposed to be sprung from Heaven the power was wielded by man, and no Maori disputed it.
The Maori prized “high birth, vigour of bone, desert of service.”The noble families which had immigrated from Hawaiki were, in their several tribes, the governors of the new land. Yet the principal chief could scarcely be called a kind even in his own tribe. Priest and the great chief were the two highest orders. Next to them were the “Rangatira,”the general name for every chief of noble birth.
There was a middle class, and a lower class of people, and under all were the slaves; the captives, and the children of the αἰχμαλῶτοι, who abounded in the land, as the hewers of wood and drawers of water.
Stern even after death, the law of slavery was believed to extend beyond the grave. The great were to be happy, and in various dwellings in space each Maori was to find his eternal abode.
A Rangatira of great fame might acquire more weight in council than the tribal chief, but the latter was not deposed from his hereditary position.
Like the Germans of old, Maori chieftains came of noble birth; their leaders in war were chosen for their valour. Reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute, sumunt.—Tacitus.
In the councils of the old men the movements of the tribe were determined, and great meetings were held at which orators declaimed before their countrymen. Ever among them the speaker who could most artfully or pathetically interweave ancient song or proverb with his reasoning succeeded best in reaching their hearts, and sometimes roused them to ungovernable applause.
Ancestry and veneration for the past held sway. They loved the land which enshrined their forefathers with a feeling repellent of marketable value.
War was the delight and occupation of every chief.
The almost universal salutation to Captain
Tradition said that the warriors who landed in the Tainui, at Kawhia, crossed the island and burned the Arawa canoe at
The torch of war was never afterwards quenched.
A proverb said that women and land were the causes of strife.
The first Europeans who visited New Zealand found the Maoris dwelling in forts framed on hills to prevent surprise.
No man was safe from attack, except by means of his own
An ill-tempered man might, however, bring on war at any time by rearing an effigy of a chief and striking it. The insult demanded redress as if cast upon the living man. It was an insult not to him only, but to his tribe, and any of them might avenge it. The result was chronic war.
“Wherever we landed,”Cook wrote, “the people told us that we were at but a small distance from their enemies.”
With the savageness of cravers for an enemy's flesh the Maori mingled feelings of delicacy and honour.
Opposing armies have broken up their forces until a fixed day, in order to let one or other side attend to a farming operation, or celebrate the obsequies of a friend.
On the day fixed the ranks of war were resumed. It was customary to warn an enemy of the time when he would be attacked. If he was starving food has been supplied. After a battle visits were sometimes interchanged, and even the future plan of the campaign discussed, before it was resumed with Maori ferocity.
The weapons of old time were spear and club. Captain
The women went out to meet their returning warriors. The widow of a slain warrior has been known to brain more than one prisoner brought back in bonds. She could also doom a slave to die to avenge her husband. The tapu was duly removed from the returning war-party.
The heads of fallen chiefs were placed with the bones of their ancestors, but could be produced to excite the tribe to vengeance. Those of the foe were reared about the pah or village, and continually insulted.
“Where is your father? eaten! Your brother? eaten! Your wife? There she sits, a wife for me! Your children carry burdens as slaves!”
The doom which Hector dreaded for Andromache fell with dire reality on Maori wives. Maori savageness, more cruel than the Greek, 'Aλλἀ μἐ τεϑνειω̃τα χυτὴ κατὰ γαι̃α καλὐЛτοι Пρἰν γ' ἔτι ση̃ς τε βοής σον̃ ϑ' ἑλκηϑμοι̃ Лυϑέσϑαι. ‘Iliad,’ vi. 464.
Captain
The keen eye of the sailor detected the flaw, that there was
By the side of the hill was a patch of cultivation tended by the dwellers in the fort.
The great navigator was lost in astonishment at a people who having genius for building so admirably a place of defence, had invented no better missile than the dart thrown by the hand. Every village, he said, was a fort.
Carved heads, or figures like vast idols, were placed over the gateways of pahs, and wooden figures with protruded tongues were placed at intervals in the palisades.
Before the introduction of fire-arms Maori villages were forts placed on hills. The inhabitants marched down to till the soil under the guard of fighting men in times of danger.
There was one compensating result. The hills were healthy sites, and in spite of decimation by wars the population of the North Island was considerable when first seen by Europeans.
A law called “Muru,”or “plunder,”was strange. If a man's child fell into the fire, if his canoe were upset, if a fire he had kindled spread too far, the “hapus,”or subsections of the great tribe to which he belonged, were entitled to assemble and inflict the penalty of the “muru”upon him. The victim was informed beforehand, and the compliment to him was greater in proportion to the size of the marauding band. He prepared a feast of all that he had.
The “taua muru”(or party for the muru) arrived, and was welcomed with shouts. The inevitable war-dance was exhibited by the guests and hosts. A spear-combat ensued between the victim and the leader of the “muru”band. Fierce as it seemed it was not meant to be fatal. When blood was drawn it ceased.
The visitor roared out “Murua! Murua! Murua!”and his friends began, according to law, to sack the village, while the late combatants sat down to converse together, scrupulously avoiding any allusion to the original delinquency which caused the “muru.”
The general effect of the custom was, according to Mr.
He saw a coat, purchased from a trader, pass into six hands
The muru may have been a partial antidote to the conservative operation of the tapu. Though life was sacred during the muru it was little cared for if taken during a proper quarrel. Yet if a man killed another by accident his offence was heinous. He and his kindred were open to plunder by the friends of the deceased. A Maori commentator speaking of the Muru Whakanui (stripping to exalt), or complimentary Taua, argued that in Maori eyes it really honoured its sufferer. If any disaster to a chief were to be unnoticed, men would quote the proverb, “Ah, the death of a dog, no heed need be given to it.”Another object was, he said, to caution the men of the tribe to take proper care of the chief. In preserving his influence they were guarding themselves.
A slave might at any time be killed by his master.
The reverence for war extended to sanctioning acts which would otherwise be wrongful. A war-party, or even a band which had travelled for a great war-dance and festival, could lawfully plunder inoffensive strangers as it travelled homewards. But its legalized rapine was moderate. It did not sack or destroy.
Where land was proverbially a cause of war, titles orally preserved became hopelessly involved.
The paramount authority of the chief, his “mana,”was the only safeguard. Chiefs descended from the leaders of the immigration from Hawaiki were deemed to have special mana over the tribal land.
Marriage relations conferred partial rights.
One man claimed compensation because his grandfather had been murdered on land—another because his own grandfather had committed the murder.
If wise counsels could not allay strife, fresh fighting conferred fresh rights.
Conquest—absolute conquest with occupation—gave indefeasible title. But if a remnant of a defeated tribe escaped death or captivity, it preserved its rights except as regarded those portions of its birthright which the conquerors chose to occupy, to till, or to hunt or fish over.
Known of all men among Maoris, after a fashion, these rights were to be the source of unnumbered woes by means of Englishmen whose interests were supposed to lie in despising or disputing them.
In 1871 the Native Lands Court was long engaged in an inquiry as to the consequence of a Maori war of 1830.
The Ngatihaua chief claimed Te Aroha on both sides of the Waihou river by virtue of conquest. The Ngatimaru admitted their defeat at Taumatawiwi, in the Waikato district, and their expulsion therefrom, but denied the loss or evacuation of the Aroha block, which they pleaded that, though it was ravaged by marauding parties, they had never ceased to occupy more or less. The allegation of the Ngatihaua was that certain of their number had occupied places in the land, and thus acquired complete title accruing from conquest.
After much conflict of evidence before Judges
The dispute furnished a key to the endless causes of war amongst a race whose titles were recorded only in oral tradition.
Another trial of a question of title before the Native Lands Court in 1869, The Orakei Case. Chief Judge Fenton's Judgment.
Maungawhao (now absurdly called Mount Eden) was the highest, and still bears traces of the vast works erected upon it. But in 1720 Mangakiekie (One Tree Hill), was the dwelling-place
The ancient dwellers, the Ngaiwi (i.e. the tribes), had been broken; the isthmus was the highway of war-parties; and the Ngatiwhatua, who were the nominal occupants, were plundered by each marauding war-party that traversed their territory, and were also involved in perpetual strife with the Ngatipaoa.
The distribution of the tribes at the time of the English occupation in 1840, may be briefly summarized thus:
In the extreme north of Te Ika o Maui (the North Island of the colonists) the Aopouri had been decimated by wars with their neighbours, the Rarawa.
South of the Rarawa territory, which approached Hokianga, the Ngapuhi, Hongi's tribe, occupied the land from sea to sea, until they reached the land of the Uriohau, extending from Kaipara to Cape Rodney, and bounded on the south by the territory of the much-enduring Ngatiwhatua, “Nga”—the plural of the article “te,”“the,”or Ngati—was the usual affix to the names of tribes, e.g. Ngatimaru, Ngatimaniapoto, Ngatiawa. Sometimes, e.g. Rangitane, the affix was not used. Sometimes it was abbreviated, as in Ngapuhi.
The Ngatitai held the small block which is bounded on the west by the Tamaki Creek and the Manukau harbour, and does not quite extend to the Papakura river nor to the Wairoa on the south.
Thence the Waikato tribes occupied the Waikato river from its mouth upwards, above the confluence of the Waipa river, where was the Maori settlement Ngaruawahia, or “the meeting of the waters.”
From Matamata on the Thames to the west coast, under the sagacious guidance of Te Waharoa, the Ngatihaua leader; of
Inland the Ngatimaniapoto met the Ngatiraukawa, a tribe which held land on the Waikato upwards from Maungatautari towards Lake Taupo, from which the Waikato or Horotiu river streamed northwards.
The Ngatitama held a tract of land extending inland from Mokau to upper sources of the Wanganui river. The Ngatiawa held a much-loved territory at the Waitara, although their principal chief had, in concert with Rauparaha, led forces southwards to conquer new lands. Mount Egmont was included in the Ngatiawa boundary.
The Taranaki tribe held a small tract on both sides of Cape Egmont, with the whole of its coast.
The Ngatiruanui held the land fronting the Waimate bight, and stretching inland so as to include a portion of the Wanganui river. A small tract, including Waitotara and extending nearly to Wanganui, was held by the Ngarauru.
The Ngatihau held the lower part of the Wanganui river and joined the Ngatiruanui on the north, although the Ngarauru boundary projected sufficiently to enclose a small portion of the Wanganui.
South of the Ngatihau territory was an expanse in which the Rangitiki and Manawatu rivers and a portion of the Tararua mountains were included. In this expanse were the lands of the Muaupoko, the Rangitane, and the Ngatiapa.
Superadded to them in certain places were the Ngatiraukawa, who, on the invitation of Rauparaha, followed him to enjoy his southern conquests. When the Colonial Government endeavoured to buy lands in the district the numerous titles were so little understood or respected that neither Sir
South of the composite territory alluded to was a small tract
The Ngatitoa, under Rauparaha, held the Island Kapiti, and also a tract on the mainland, including the Porirua harbour and a great portion of the (Eritonga or) Hutt river.
The peninsula which includes Port Nicholson was held by another branch of the Ngatiawa, of whom the principal chief was E Puni.
In the enumerated tribes each will be seen to have held some land bordering on the sea. But there was one great tribe which occupied the heart of the island and had no such sea-claims. Nevertheless the great Lake Taupo, often called m&ocar;&acar;n&acar; or sea, by the Maoris, was in their domain.
The Ngatituwharetoa, under the giant
On the north i. e. the residue of the tribe who had not cast in their fortunes with Rauparaha at Rangitiki and Manawatu.
The east coast from Cape Palliser to Paretu (north of Table Cape) was considered to be the land of the Ngatikahungunu. Their western boundary was formed by the eastern limits of the lands of the Ngatiapa, the Ngatitoa, the Ngatiawa (at Waikanae), the composite district, and by
Poverty Bay was the heritage of the Rongowhakaata, who were bounded at Gable End Foreland by the Ngatiporou, who held the coast thence round the East Cape to Cape Runaway.
Thence on the eastern are of the Bay of Plenty to Opape the Whanauapanui held the land. From Opape to the river Whakatane the Whakatohea ruled.
Both the Whanauapanui and the Whakatohea territories were bounded by the land of the Ngatiporou in the interior.
From Whakatane to Waitahanui the land was held by a section of the widely-distributed rovers, the Ngatiawa.
From Waitahanui to Papomoa the Arawa held the coast, and their territory extended inland to the hot-lake district of Rotorua and Rotomahana.
There was in the interior, at the back of the Ngatiawa district just mentioned, a rugged tract belonging to the Uriwera tribe. They required the almost inaccessible fastnesses of the Whakatane mountains to shelter them from their numerous neighbours. Their boundaries touched upon the lands of the Ngatiawa, the Arawa, the Ngatituwharetoa under
On the coast from Papamoa to Katikati the Ngaiterangi held the land. On their northern boundary they met the Ngatimaru and Ngatipaoa, who, with their numerous subdivisions (some of which derived their name from ancestors of bygone centuries), held the whole of the Coromandel Peninsula, with great portions of the Thames and Piako rivers, and whose western boundary was co-terminous with the Waikato boundary, and ran through the Wairoa range, trending northerly until it met the waters of the
The population of the tribes thus distributed in the Northern Island was believed to exceed one hundred thousand. Rumour said that it had once been greater. It was plain that by desertion or otherwise many once populous forts and villages had become desolate.
There were amongst the Maoris living in 1840 many who held high reputations as counsellors or warriors. Hongi had left the world which he had troubled, and Te Waharoa had died of disease. But Rauparaha at Kapiti,
Mr. J. C. Bidwell, who saw him in 1839, described him ‘Rambles in New Zealand,’ by J. C. Bidwell. London, 1841. Te Heu's brother who succeeded him composed a pathetic but proud lamentation for the lost chief, who was “a spreading tree to shelter his people when evil hovered near.”Stars disappearing were emblems of the beloved lost one.… What strange god has caused so dread a death?… Show again thy strong frame… Ah! the people are comfortless and sad… Lo! thou art fallen. The earth receives thee as its prey. But thy wondrous fame shall rise resounding through heaven.
The Middle Island, Te Wai Pounamu, the land of mountain, flood, and fiord, seems never to have been largely peopled. Various traditions were extant as to the manner in which the Maoris overspread it sparsely.
No distinct story explained the fate of the tribe supposed to have been landed from the Takitumu canoe. It may have recrossed Raukawa (Cook's Strait) to the warmer land of Te Ika o Maui.
Precise narratives declare that under Tauriapareko a detachment of the Ngatihau sailed from Wanganui and occupied the Arahura country, where the precious green-stone was found; and that from that detachment sprung the Ngaituahuriri, a powerful hapu of the Ngaitahu, whom the English found in possession.
Maori tradition ascribes to another migration from Taupo, by way of Wanganui, the occupation of the southern shore of Cook's Strait by the Ngatitumatakokiri, who were, in 1642, the assailants of
Other migrations succeeded. Details may be found in ‘A Compendium of Official Documents relative to Native Affairs in the South (or Middle) Island,’ compiled by
The Ngatikuri, a branch of the Ngatiruanui, migrated to Cloudy Bay.
The Ngatimamoe, descendants of the warriors of the Aotea canoe, migrated from Wanganui, rather to slay and conquer than to discover new lands.
The Ngaitahu, sprung from the Ngatikahungunu of the east coast, went forth to slaughter their cousins in the Middle Island about the time when Philip II. planned the destruction of the English by means of his invincible Armada.
After wars, reconciliations, inter-marriages, and renewals of slaughter and cannibalism, the Ngatimamoe were thrust to the south, and the Ngaitahu held sway to the north of the 43rd South parallel.
For them a murderous doom was prepared by Rauparaha long after white men had frequented Cook's Strait, increasing rather than diminishing the ferocity which prevailed.
In 1827 Rauparaha slew hundreds at Kaikora, and though peace was made he planned fresh assaults. In one expedition he met a rebuff which he never forgave. His uncle, Te Pehi, while engaged with other chiefs in entrapping the Ngaitahu, was slaughtered, and Rauparaha, who had been wily enough to avoid the fate of his uncle, sullenly retired, brooding over schemes of vengeance, in which he was to be aided by the master of a British vessel, in 1831.
Speaking in general terms it may be said that, in 1831, Rauparaha and his allies had, by slaughter and subsequent occupation, acquired a title to much territory on the south shore of Cook's Strait. But he was not glutted with revenge, and besieged and captured, with the usual cannibal results, a great pah at Kaiapoi, where hundreds of the Ngaitahu fell. Nevertheless the remnant of the tribe maintained a desultory warfare, and Tuhawaiki on one occasion surprised the wary Rauparaha himself, who only escaped by swimming in the sea to his fleet of canoes at the mouth of the Blind River. About 1835 Rauparaha formally apportioned to his own tribe the Ngatitoa, and to his Ngatiawa and other allies the territories at Cloudy Bay, at D'Urville Island, Queen Charlotte's Sound, and
The Ngaitahu by degrees returned from the south, and under the increasing influence of the missionaries felt themselves safe near their old homes at Kaiapoi. Soon after
The decimation of the Ngaitahu and the Ngatimamoe, though it left territory to them, grievously impaired their importance, and made it easy for the English to procure for trifling sums enormous tracts, which were represented as useless to the owners. Part of the consideration was to be the provision of schools, hospitals, and the application of fifteen per cent. of the land revenue for their welfare. The “unfulfilled promises,”of which they complained year after year, and the ignoble evasions of the New Zealand Government, form a dreary episode in their history. It may be mentioned that when the British Government assumed the sovereignty of the Middle Island the Ngaitahu were recognized as lords of the soil of the east coast from Kaiapoi to Stewart's Island, but there had been much intermarriage between them and the Ngatimamoe.
There was a race, the Moriori, settled at the Chatham Islands, and it has been suggested that they, the original denizens of New Zealand, had gradually been driven southwards. But their language was not so different as to demand such an explanation.
The proclivity to decay and degradation which, after a period of high culture, plunged ancient Egyptian and Phœnician cities into relative barbarism, has often abased other families of the human race, and the Moriori cannot fairly be classed as a being of different order from the Maori because he is not his equal now.
The Ngatiawa proved their roving tendencies long after Europeans were visitors to their country. A chief chartered an English vessel in 1838 and sailed to the Chatham Islands, where he subdued the Moriori inhabitants, and established his own people.
The Maori language, so easily understood by Captain A grammar, drawn up by Kendall previously, had, by Mr. Marsden's aid, been printed in Sydney in 1818. Revised by Professor Lee as described in the text, the new edition was printed by the Church Missionary Society in s. As in Australia, there was a sound which no English letter would render, and a combination of two letters (ng) was coined to give it approximately. The letters were a, e, h, i, k, m, n, ng, o, p, r, t, u, w. The pronunciation of letters adopted by the missionaries was that of the Italian language. The broad sound of the a was the prevailing tone which struck a foreigner, and a dialogue in mild accents was pleasing to the ear. Every word ended with a vowel, and every English word converted into Maori terminated in like manner. Like other unwritten languages the Maori was not copious, but the Oriental genius of the people relieved it by the imagery of their songs and orations.
Their veneration for nobility of birth preserved them from becoming an undistinguished herd. Their intricate laws of tapu had lost no vigour during the centuries of their occupation of New Zealand, which preceded the English intrusion. Divided into tribes and rent by wars, the Maori race clung to the laws and rites of its ancestors. It had, or rather it may be said each tribe preserved, definite laws and rules of conduct for all cases. Howsoever or wheresoever adopted it had a code commanding right and forbidding wrong in a manner questioned by none. It had all the foundations of sovereignty which resides in lawful states. There was no disaffection; there was unhesitating submission or concurrence with that which the accredited rulers declared to be just.
But for their wars and their lust for cannibalism the Maoris might have been happy, so far as man can attain happiness without hopes and aspirations which prepare him for a life to come. Of that life to come they had consciousness, but their laws did not teach how to attain it with the blessing of a Father in heaven. The priceless heritage of man in the Lord's Prayer was not revealed to them until gifts from vile sources had poisoned the springs of their life. Yet they retained remnants
The nearest approach to practical worship was reverence for ancestry, but it did not assume the form of prayer. The Lares Familiares of Italy, the Θεοὶ ἐΦέστιοι of Greece, the Pitris of Hindustan, were reproduced if not continued in the tūpŭnă (ancestors) of the Maori. High on the pediment of the great house of a tribe was carved the image of the Ἥρως ἐЛώνυμος. To the distant progenitor were often assigned virtues or powers more than mortal. In the dim regions of mythology the supernatural and natural were blended.
Maui was mortal, but had power to fish up the Northern Island from the depths of the sea. He controlled the sun and moon in their courses.
Yet were the Maoris not without traditions of the throes by which the world they saw around them was wrought into its forms.
From primæval night had sprung light and thence came nothingness. Afterwards followed in succession various abstractions, which produced at last Rangi and Papa (Heaven and Earth). From them sprung the things which men see. Before Heaven and Earth were parted their children were in darkness and became rebellious. They determined to rive asunder their parents or to slay them. One only, Tawhiri-matea, the father of winds and storms, would not consent.
Rongomatane, the god and father of the cultivated food of man, struggled to rend apart Heaven and Earth, but failed. Tangaroa, the god and father of fish and reptiles, Haumiatikitiki, the god and father of the food of man which springs without cultivation, Tu-matauenga, the god and father of fierce human beings, strove in vain in like manner. Then Tane-mahuta, the god and father of forests, of birds, and of insects, rose and with giant force suceeeded. Heaven and Earth were sundered; darkness was made manifest, and so was the light.
Then were seen the multitudes of human beings hitherto concealed between the bodies of Rangi and Papa. But the god and father of storms, Tawhiri-matea, followed his father to the realms above, and hurried to the sheltered hollows in the boundless skies. Thence, in indignation at the sundering of his parents, he sent forth clouds and hurricanes, sweeping away forests, lashing the ocean into fury, and terrifying his rebellious brothers, all but one of whom he conquered. But Tu-matauenga, the god of fierce man, resisted him, and slew and ate his brethren who would not aid in the struggle. But, like Tu-matauenga, Tawhiri-matea was unconquerable, and remained the enemy of man whom he still vexes with storms. Tu-matauenga taught the human race incantations and prayers;—to Heaven for fair weather and to Earth to bring forth all things abundantly.
The tradition told by the Maoris to Sir ‘Polynesian Mythology and Ancient Traditional History of the New Zealand Race, as furnished by their priests and chiefs.’ Sir
The children of Tu-matauenga multiplied upon earth, and in due time Maui, the Maori demigod, was born. The general name for the islands in Maori tradition.Ibid.
Howsoever the custom arose, the cannibalism imputed to Tu-matauenga, the god of fierce man, was not only imitated but enshrined as a part of the religion of the Maoris. It was not as mere food that flesh was eaten. The feast was the incarnation of triumph, and, as such, was not shame but glory.
The foulest and most disgusting scenes were enacted in the sight of Englishmen. Human bodies strewn about the ground; fragments carried to the ovens and thrust before the face of the visitor in boasting or derision; sights at which humanity might shudder to its inmost core,—were the sequel to every battle.
Maori tradition tells that the Maori was not a cannibal when the Arawa and her sister canoes carried the race to its new homes; but the horrid rite existed and remained among islands of the Pacific.
Revenge and superstition gave it force in New Zealand. The hatred of the living was fed; the dead were disgraced by being eaten. One corpse was set apart for the god of war; and portions of it were kept as symbols to remove the “tapu”from the conquering war party. It was the ferocious desire of the victors to prevent, as it was ever the heroism of the vanquished to secure, the carrying away of the dead and wounded. It was so great a disgrace to the Maoris to be eaten that if a crew of them were starving, under circumstances in which Europeans have yielded to the dying lust for human food, the Maori would welcome death rather than let a morsel of a friend approach his lips. He devoured his enemy with a passion accursed by his religion. He ate a slave as a tribute to a friend who was dead.
The women were not indulged in the repast. But for the chief woman of the tribe was reserved the devouring of a portion of the first victim slain in battle, consecrated to the Atua, or god, who had given victory.
The ferocity of the Maori was raised to the dignity of a religious rite.
Captain
Trained thus, the Maori was athirst for blood and gloried in inspiring terror. Thus was said to have sprung up the custom of tattooing, which Maoris declare to have been adopted after the migration to New Zealand. Yet, as it prevailed among the islands whence they came, it is open to every inquirer to decide for himself whence the New Zealand custom was derived.
The face, hips, and thighs of men were scored in waving patterns, of which each line had a name. The heraldic bearing of a chieftain was worn on his face, and was as well known as the tartan of a Highland clan. The duskier countenances became almost black with the process, dark vegetable pigments being inserted when the lines were cut. The priest performed the operation with a mallet and sharp incisor. Bystanders sung ancient songs to inspire the patient with fortitude. The elders accumulated their adornments by degrees, and shone superior to the young.
Whether adopted to terrify the enemy or not, the curved lines became beautiful to the Maori eye, and the women suffered the disfigurement on the lip, chin, and eyelid. Captain
The mythology and traditions of the Maoris would fill volumes. Many of the traditions of the Maoris have been preserved by Sir vide ‘Mythology and Traditions of the New Zealanders,’ London, 1854; and ‘Poetry of the New Zealanders,’ New Zealand, 1853. They are also detailed at some length in ‘New Zealand and its Inhabitants,’ by the Rev.
The word “Maori,”which means “native,”was used as the descriptive term for “man,”before the arrival of European voyagers made it necessary to invent another term, Pakĕha, “foreign,”to describe other races of mankind.
Savagely addicted as were the tribes to war their abodes appear to have been, for some time, comparatively unchanged until the introduction of fire-arms revolutionized the mode of warfare.
Early in the 19th century the visits of whaling and other vessels had supplied fire-arms to a limited extent in the districts north of the Gulf of
In 1820, Captain Cruise of H. M. 84th Regiment, saw twelve muskets in the hands of a tribe at Whangaroa, and heard at the Bay of Islands that the fire-arms possessed by the Ngapuhi had made them “the terror and scourge of New Zealand.”
An illustration of Maori conquest, within the range of modern evidence, may here be given.
The wily Ngatitoa chief Rauparaha, at Kawhia, when he heard of the traffic of fire-arms in the north, scented danger from afar, and devised schemes of conquest at Cook's Strait which might not only place him at a distance from the Ngapuhi, but enable him to barter successfully for powder and shot.
At the same time the savage Hongi was hungering for yet more weapons, and told Cruise “he should die if he did not go to England;”for there he would procure at least twelve muskets and a double-barrelled gun.
Another chief, about to become a great warrior, was keenly observing the course of events, and plotting for the aggrandisement of his tribe, a section of the Waikato people. Te Waharoa, the Ngatihaua leader, was the son of Taiporutu. Taiporutu in the act of attacking a pah, had been slain in the Waharoa, or principal gateway, and when his widow brought forth a son soon afterwards, she called him Te Waharoa in memory of the father's deeds.
Carried away captive to Rotorua, when two years old, he had
Established upon the streams were the Ngatimaru and their kindred; and the brain of Te Waharoa devised schemes for expelling them, and seizing the rich lands on the upper portions of the Piako, the Waitoa, and the Thames, as well as securing possession of a portion of the east coast at Tauranga by conquest, or by negotiation with the occupying Ngaiterangi, and obtaining, by traffic with European flax-buyers, the fire-arms which in Maori eyes were the only safeguards against death or slavery.
Active, subtle, and ferocious, distinguished for address and reckless bravery in single combat, he obtained, in spite of the taint of slavery in childhood, undisputed leadership of his tribe. He succeeded in allying himself with the Ngaiterangi, and with their aid inflicted severe loss upon the Ngatimaru.
It has been asserted that Te Waharoa's subtle schemes and alliances with the Ngatimaniapoto branch of the Waikato people drove Rauparaha from the home of his ancestors. It seems more probable that Rauparaha elected his new career for the reasons previously stated. ‘
About 1812 he had visited the Ngatiwhatua, the harassed holders of the lands near Auckland.
But fire-arms were as yet held only in the districts frequented
There the wily Rauparaha, conceiving a design to possess the land, thought it useful to conciliate the occupying Ngatiapa, and friendly relations were established, though a tribute of cherished green-stone implements was extorted.
Again the war-party proceeded to Cape Terawiti, whence the Ngatikahungunu had fled, warned by rumours of the slaying and devouring which had marked the path of the invaders.
Pursued to their pah at Tawhare Nikau the fugitives saw it stormed with great slaughter; and, scattered amongst the hills, fled in terror from the death-dealing fire-arms with which they could not cope. Slaying and capturing, Rauparaha and his friends chased the unhappy flyers as far as Porangahau, north of Cape Turnagain, before they retraced their steps to gorge their warriors upon the bodies left at Tawhare Nikau.
As they finally departed homewards the sagacious Waka Nene, seeing a European vessel in Cook's Straits, said: “Rauparaha, see you those people sailing on the sea? They are a good people. If you subdue this land and traffic with them for fire-arms you will become very great.”
Rauparaha hardly needed the hint. On his return he cultivated the friendly feeling already established with the Ngatiapa. The chief of that powerful tribe had avoided the general ruin as Rauparaha and his friends passed down the coast. He led his people into the mountains, and the scourge passed on leaving
Thus were the powerful Ngatiapa ingratiated, In ascribing importance to Rauparaha's negotiations and alliance with the Ngatiapa I do not follow Mr. Travers' paper. But I agree with the judgment of the Native Lands Court in the Rangitiki-Manawatu case in 1869, when scores of Maori witnesses were examined. It is better to be right with the Chief Judge (Fenton), and Mr.
To his Ngapuhi companions Rauparaha showed no distrust on the return to Kawhia. They passed on loaded with slaves and other spoils to their homes in the north.
But Rauparaha took no rest. The power of fire-arms, proved in his recent bloody campaign, and the ambition of Hongi, who did not conceal his intention to carry fire and slaughter among the tribes south of Auckland, told too surely the probable fate of a small tribe like the Ngatitoa assailable either by warcanoes coastwise, or by land.
Yet the veneration of the Maori for the homes and burialplaces of his forefathers presented a serious obstacle. Rauparaha devoted all his energy to overcome it. He visited his kindred the Ngatiraukawa at Maungatautari to induce them to join in his migration to his southern conquests.
The Ngatiraukawa leader, Hape Tuarangi, the “Ariki”of the tribe, was at the point of death before the assembled people. The dying man asked if his successor could tread in his steps, lead the tribe to victory, and thus keep up their honour. His sons were silent. After a pause Rauparaha rose and said:
“I am able to tread in your steps, and do more than even you.”
No other chief spoke; the superstitious chiefs accepted the omen, and thenceforward Rauparaha was accepted as a leader of the warlike Ngatiraukawa.
The adoption was not unnatural, for both the Ngatiraukawa and the Ngatitoa tribes traced their descent from a common ancestor, and Rauparaha's mother Parekowhatu was a Ngatiraukawa chieftainess.
Fortified by his new dignity, Rauparaha in frequent visits impressed upon the Ngatiraukawa the necessity of detaching a portion of the tribe to obtain new territory with a coast line which would enable them by traffic with ships to procure the one thing needful—fire-arms—to save them from the incursions of the well-armed men of the north. Gradually he prevailed, and in 1828 a large section of them joined him. Nor was this all, The powerful Ngatiawa tribe which held the land between Mokau and Mount Egmont was largely connected by marriage with the Ngatitoa. He induced many of them also to follow the example of the Ngatiraukawa.
Further diplomacy was needful. His principal successes in war in his youth had been achieved against the Waikato tribes. If the whole tribe of Ngatitoa should be in movement a war-party from Waikato might wreak vengeance for past disgraces. The women and children could not escape the Waikato wrath.
Rauparaha through agency of friendly chiefs of
All these arrangements were concluded before the dreaded Hongi sailed to England to procure fire-arms. Provisions for the aged and infirm were sedulously stored, and in 1819 the farewell of the tribe was spoken. Although these facts have been ascertained after full inquiry in courts of law, I observe that in ‘Reminiscences’ published in a New Zealand newspaper in 1882, Rauparaha's departure is absurdly post-dated to a period long subsequent to the time in which it occurred. He migrated before the invasion of Waikato by Hongi. But the author of the ‘Reminiscences’ attributes his flight to a subsequent invasion at Taranaki by
The main body passed on to Taranaki. In spite of entreaties Rauparaha refused to take back more than twenty chosen warriors to escort the women who had been left behind. He lost no time, for he shared the dread of his people. The Waikato, or the Ngatimaniapoto, might be unable to resist the temptation to destroy the small Ngatitoa band.
Rauparaha himself carried his new-born son. His wife, Akau, of commanding stature, arrayed like a chief with feathers in her hair, and brandishing a war-club, strode in the van with twenty other women similarly attired. As the custom was for women to wear the upper mat over one shoulder, and for men to wear it over the other, the deception was convincing. The weaker people followed, and Rauparaha with his chosen warriors occupied the post of danger.
His precautions were necessary. A band of Ngatimaniapoto had prepared to destroy the travellers; but, deceived by the apparent numbers of Ngatitoa warriors, shrunk from the encounter. The sagacious Rauparaha, having espied them, dashed upon them and slew five. Arriving at the Mokau river he found it swollen by rain and by a high tide. He was constrained to encamp. Again his wiles deceived the enemy. He caused many large fires to be made, and at each were women disguised as warriors. Only one man was at each fire. The rest, with Rauparaha, acted as scouts throughout the night. The men at the fires were ordered to call loudly to one another, saying— “Be strong, ye people, to fight on the morrow if the enemy should return. Think not of life. Consider the valour of our tribe.”
In that night, so awful for the women, a terrible incident occurred. Tangahoe, a chief's wife, had her infant at one of the fires. It began to cry. Rauparaha saw that his stratagem might be exposed. He said to the mother in oracular sternness—“I am that child.”She understood him, and with Roman rigour strangled her babe to save the lives of others.
By these arts and horrors the Ngatimaniapoto were deceived,
Leaving the women safe in a friendly pah he returned for the bodies of the slain, amongst whom was a notable chief, and the disgusting orgies of cannibalism were revelled in by Rauparaha and his Ngatiawa friends.
The enraged Ngatimaniapoto procured the aid of
But the star of Rauparaha was in the ascendant; and, availing himself of a favourable position, with the aid of the Ngatiawa warriors he fell upon the assailants and inflicted a loss of more than a hundred men, who were devoured with the usual atrocities.
Thus freed from danger in the rear, Rauparaha travelled to Tuhua, on the Wanganui, where Te Heu Heu promised assistance in taking possession of Kapiti, but no more. Confident in his own resources he required no new territories.
Thence Rauparaha went to a gathering of the Ngatiraukawa under the authority of the chief Whatanui. Earnestly and eloquently Rauparaha pleaded that the only safety for the Ngatiraukawa was in obtaining fire-arms, and that at Kapiti they could be obtained.
The tribe would not be persuaded. Rauparaha passed on to Rotorua (and even, it was rumoured, to Tauranga), to obtain recruits, but failed.
Months, even years, were consumed before he procured the aid he thought sufficient to ensure safe possession of the lands he had so easily overrun with Waka Nene and Patuone.
The details need not be dwelt upon. It is enough to say that he obtained some Ngapuhi auxiliaries from Pomārĕ, a Ngapuhi chief; that in 1827 he persuaded Te Rangitake, the Ngatiawa chief at Waitara (whose father Reretawhangawhanga accompanied his son), and a large body of Ngatiawa to follow him; that a band of Ngatiraukawa under Ahu Karamu joined him, that Whatanui himself, in company with Te Heu Heu, travelled down the Rangitiki river to see the promised land, and that the result was that, in 1828, a large section of the powerful Ngatiraukawa tribe migrated to share the territory with the successful Rauparaha and his people.
The hairbreadth escapes of Rauparaha, the ferocity with which he pursued the remnants of the conquered tribes, the disputes amongst the conquerors about the conquered land, it would be tedious to relate.
There were battles in which
Once, while he was on the mainland, a combination of the Rangitane, the Muaupoko, the Ngatikahungunu, and others, attacked the Ngatitoa on Kapiti, and hemmed them in at Waiorua. A truce was agreed upon, but it was rudely broken by the arrival of Rauparaha and his warriors, and two hundred of the allied tribes were destroyed.
By a rough rule of rapine, in accordance with Maori law, the land was appropriated by the Ngatitoa, the Ngatiawa, and the Ngatiraukawa. The Ngatiapa, by reason of their alliance with Rauparaha, retained their possessions on the north of the Rangitiki river. At one time there was fighting between the conquerors about the land, but at the suggestion of Rangihaieta's mother, backed by the command of Rauparaha, the Ngatiawa took possession of Waikanae, leaving the Horowhenua country to the Ngatiraukawa. The hapless expelled tribes, pursued by the wrath of Rauparaha (who never forgot or forgave an attempt to murder him at night in a Muaupoko pah, to which he had been inveigled by an offer of canoes; Rauparaha being the only one who escaped), sought refuge in mountain fastnesses, or with their friends at Wanganui and Patea. Some were received as accessions to the Ngatiapa tribe; and Whatanui the Ngatiraukawa leader was kind to them.
As soon as possible, Rauparaha encouraged flax cultivation and other means of bartering for the coveted fire-arms; and vessels calling at Kapiti supplied his wants. Obtaining these, the immigrating Ngatiraukawa were content with their lot, and roving bands of their countrymen joined them occasionally, passing through the friendly territory of “the king of men,”as they esteemed him,—the high-born and gigantic Te Heu Heu.
Some of these events occurred after the bloodthirsty designs of Hongi had been matured and were deluging the north with
I have been assured (1881) by the Bishop of Wellington, Dr. Hadfield, that when in 1840, and subsequently, Rauparaha, then secure in his island home Kapiti, used to discourse on native affairs with him, he could not but reflect, as he saw how the old man guided the movements of the tribes and weighed the consequences of events, that there was before him a man equal in sagacity and eloquence to such personages as Talleyrand or Metternich.
The large migration of many hundreds of the Ngatiawa under Te Rangitake in 1827, strengthened the Ngatitoa position, but it left the remaining Ngatiawa at Waitara a prey to incursions of the Ngapuhi and of
How the ferocious Rauparaha carried to the Middle Island the horrors from which he himself had fled is told elsewhere.
The savage exploits of Hongi, foolishly assisted by high personages, in England and elsewhere, in spite of the imploring voice of Marsden, fill the next page of blood in this story.
The changes in the disposition of the tribes, as above narrated, were chiefly effected by Maori modes of warfare, the fire-arms possessed being mainly confined to the north of Auckland, and few in number, as well as inferior in kind.
Enough has been said to show the state in which the Maori lived before Europeans discovered him, and though some of the foregoing pages have dealt with a condition partly due to the introduction of gunpowder amongst a warlike people, the description of that condition has been confined to the intertribal relations over which no Europeans exercised control.
Up to the date of Rauparaha's conquests no white man could reside in New Zealand except on sufferance. An armed ship might destroy canoes or even villages, but on the land the Maori was undisputed master. Though he traded with white men and appreciated their manufactures, he neither owned nor felt a personal inferiority.
It may be convenient now to cast a hasty glance at the nature of the land of the Maoris, and at some of its productions.
It is a land of mountain and of flood, of everlasting snow, of glaciers, lakes, hot springs, and steep-down precipices outrivalling Norwegian fiords. It is essentially the land of fern. No part of the islands is far enough from the sea to deprive it of moist influences even in the hottest weather, and the nights are cool.
Containing about a hundred thousand square miles, the three islands stretch nearly from the thirty-third to the forty-fifth parallel of south latitude, trending westward from the thirty-sixth.
Cook's Straits divide the Northern (Te Ika o Maui) from the Middle Island (Te wai Pounamu, the water of the green-stone), at the thirty-ninth parallel, while the small Southern (Stewart's) Island (Rakiura), is separated by Foveaux Straits from the south end of the Middle Island. The Northern Island contains about forty-six thousand square miles, the Middle about fifty-seven thousand, while Rakiura is limited to less than sixteen hundred.
Mountains rib the Middle Island from north to south, frowning precipitously on the west coast, and declining more gradually to the east. In the Northern Island Mount Egmont, near Taranaki, towers more than eight thousand feet, while in the Middle Island numerous peaks shoot higher far, and Mount Cook rears his hoary head more than thirteen thousand feet in air.
Frowning towards the west coast in steep-down precipices the mountain range, which includes the granite masses of Mount Cook, forms fiords which have been pronounced equal to those of Norway in grandeur and surpassing them in beauty. Milford Sound, the most celebrated of them, was early chosen as a place of call by steamers carrying pleasure-seekers.
The tourist who wanders inland to see the attendant glories of Mount Cook, arrives at the glaciers of which he may, at one time, count many, and at the same time see towering above and unintercepted by surrounding hills the gleaming snows of the monarch mountain forming a grander solitary peak than European Alps can show. From a cavern in the terminal moraine of the
At times an apparently tropical vegetation of ferns and tangled vines may be seen almost overhanging a glacier of purest ice. And the mountain scenery extends far to the north of Mount Cook. Great lakes are found on the eastern watershed. The rivers run eastward principally, and on the east are the most level and inviting lands for colonization. Treeless plains or undulating prairies were found at Christchurch, but the high lands are clothed with dense woods. On most of the open ground fern grew extensively, but was not so luxuriant and had not such exclusive possession in the Middle as in the Northern Island.
Only in the Middle Island, and in few places there, was found the valued green-stone. More than three-fourths of the Middle Island are occupied by mountains. In the North Island about one-tenth of the surface is similarly formed.
Yet the Northern Island is neither tame nor wonderless. From the central plateau, elevated two thousand feet, rise two giant peaks Tongariro and Ruapehu, surrounded by smaller hills called by the Maoris the children of the mountain pair. The fires of Ruapehu, which rises more than nine thousand feet above the sea, and is covered for three thousand feet with snow, are now extinct; but the cinder cone of Tongariro is ever capped with the cloud of steam issuing from active craters near its summit. Beneath the cone thus devoured by fire the cooler shoulders of the mountain sometimes put on their garb of snow.
Lake Taupo, covering more than five hundred square miles, lies at the north, and is fed by the streams which flow from the watershed of the great hills. From the lake flows the Waikato river, towards Orakeikorako, a hot-spring district, and after curving westwards, runs northwards through the great Waikato plain. In a line between Lake Taupo and the ever-active White Island, in the Bay of Plenty, is the Lake district, whither travellers resort to gratify their wonder or restore their health.
The boiling water sends up jets of steam, which are so numerous at Rotomahana (or warm lake), that they heat the waters of the whole lake. From a sulphur pool a hot muddy
But the terraces of Rotomahana are its glory. The waters coursing downwards to Rotomahana from their boiling pools, have deposited a fretwork of stone in terraces, on one side of the lake white, and on the other pink. At each the water is of vivid blue. At Tarata, the White Terrace, basins as of alabaster, which enclose the pools in terraces widening as the water descends towards the lake, invite the bather to luxury if he has not been sent there for the medicinal favours they afford. From the rims of the terraces hang delicate stalactites. The rock of silica thus created assumes all forms. The most delicate twig or fibre thrown upon the terrace is petrified in marvellous fretwork. The solid rim which forms the ledge of the pools seems like flint corded in gigantic coils to contain the blue water. Some parts of the terraces are solid, and the traveller pauses, fearful of marring the delicate tracery under his foot. At the Pink Terrace (Tukapuarangi, The Clouded Sky), the colour is not all-pervading, but blushing through the white ground-work. Yet as approached by the lake the colour seems general to the eye.
The charm of so rare a colour in rock extorts the admiration of all beholders, but the more symmetrical widening of each concentric terrace, as the geyser overflow descends to the lake, gives the White Terrace the palm in general effect.
Whatever toil the wanderer encountered in journeying to Rotomahana, even when travelling was attended with difficulty, was amply repaid. At the Pink Terrace the fretwork on which the bather treads is not harsh but soft to the touch, and the sourest valetudinarian is compelled to join in admiration.
The Arawa tribe were proud of their heritage in Nature's freaks of beauty and of wonder, for each of which there was a special and descriptive name.
Travellers from afar did not admire Nature less, but more, because the guides to the lakes were the Maoris.
But ever and anon might be heard, as the European population multiplied, muttered complaints that so rare a treasure
Some diplomacy was needed. The Government (Mr. Hall's) in 1881 passed a law based on an arrangement made by Chief Judge Fenton (of the Native Land Court), with the Arawa chiefs. A block of land was appropriated for a township at Lake Rotorua, which Mr. Rolleston, the member in charge of the bill, predicted, “would become the sanatorium of the world.” The passage of the bill afforded a proof of Maori honour. The Arawa had stipulated that the existing private leases granted by them should be respected. As prepared by the Government the bill did not give effect to the stipulation. The Lower House passed the bill; the Upper House amended it so as to confirm existing leases, and the Lower House was fain to accept the amendment.
It is not only at Rotomahana and Rotorua that the earth sends forth its steam and geysers. A slightly curving line from Tongariro to White Island in the Bay of Plenty, passes a steams-pouting district, at Orakeikorako, before, extending by Rotomahana and Rotorua, it trends to the bay. The Maori story connects the fires of Whakare (White Island) with those of Tongariro. At Whakare sulphur is found in great quantities.
Westward of the Horotiu or Waikato river is the valley of its confluent, the Waipa, and amongst its mountain feeders are stalactite caves in regions once haunted by the moa.
Volcanic action has not been confined to Tongariro, the isthmus of Auckland being studded with its works, and the land on both sides of Cook's Straits at times throbs with earthquakes. The wide valley through which the Waikato now flows presents in most places a level or slightly undulating sea of pumice. The subsidence of the ashy material in places has created fissures or clefts of various depths at the bottom of which flow running streams, or else is seen a winding narrow swamp through which water sluggishly oozes to join the nearest watercourse.
Volcanic action has left its traces in the south, but it was in times long past, and geologists generally agree that a process of gradual upheaval is taking place throughout the islands.
With a coast-line of three thousand miles, it is not to be wondered at that looking forward to naval pre-eminence the
The harbours of the Northern Island could accommodate the fleets of nations. The
The climate of the islands is favourably modified by the ocean. In the north the mean average temperature is said to be 57°, in the south 52°; but a difference of more than 10° of mean temperature exists between Dunedin and the Bay of Islands.
The indigenous animals were not numerous. The gigantic moa (dinornis), more than twelve feet high, has never been seen since the English settled in New Zealand, but the Maoris spoke of its having been hunted in recent times. At first their stories were doubted. Some so-called natural philosophers, having committed themselves to the opinion that the moa must have become extinct in times anterior to modern man, have striven to rebut the evidence of facts. But Maori middens abounding with moa remnants; bones with integuments still clinging to them; feathers and egg-shells; Maori traditions of the habits of the bird, and of the mode in which it was hunted; and Maori memories that even in the 18th century its feathers were worn as ornaments, have commended themselves as satisfactory to common sense. There may be doubters remaining. There is a class of men sceptical as to everything but their own sufficiency to expound how the world ought to have been made. A philosopher of different order, the truly great but unassuming professor, Richard Owen, was jeered at when in 1839 he deduced from a thigh-bone of a moa a correct idea of the bird. Subsequent discoveries awarded the palm of merit where it was due. Though often told the story may be mentioned. In 1838 a man called upon the professor with a bone which a Maori had told him was the bone of a bird. The man thought it must be an eagle. Astounding as the conclusion appeared, and little as others could credit it, Owen firmly believed that, hitherto unreported, there had been in the small islands of New Zealand a larger bird than the ostrich. In 1839 he published a paper in the ‘Transactions of the Zoological Society.’ Copies were sent to New Zealand. The good Chief Justice Martin (a friend of Owen's) promoted search. The missionaries aided in it, and in 1842 various bones were sent to England by William Williams (afterwards Bishop of Waiapu). Before long Professor Owen had completely restored fifteen species of the Dinornis. Vide ‘Royal Colonial Institute Proceedings,’ 1878-9.
New Zealand was meagre in its fauna. Fish were abundant, and the enormous quantities of pipi (bivalve) shells, scattered wherever Maoris have dwelt, attest the extent to which the Maori was sustained by shellfish.
Assuming the truth of the Maori tradition that the dog and rat were imported by the Arawa and her sister canoes—and in this instance the pretensions of speculators agree with tradition—the only indigenous mammals in New Zealand were two kinds of bat. Of these one is said to be allied to a bat in Australia, the other to be of a genus peculiar to Maoria, but related to bats in South America.
The gigantic moa was not the only apteryx in the islands. The kiwi, of which there are several varieties, was found in both. Though the bird is not larger than a common fowl, the egg is five inches long and nine in circumference.
A gigantic rail, the weka, is nearly as large as the kiwi. There are two migratory cuckoos, whose path through air philosophers find it as difficult to account for as that of the Maori by water. There are owls of a kind not elsewhere found. There are parrots and honey-suckers. There are, of course, various wild ducks and cormorants, but there were no swans. The huia, of which the chiefs wore the feathers, was found only in special districts, and was of the order called ‘Transactions of New Zealand Institute,’ 1873 vol. v., p. 206.Upupidæ. The tui, or parson-bird of Captain
The existence at Norfolk Island of more than one species of bird found in New Zealand has given rise to conjectures
Of reptiles there was a scarcity in New Zealand. No snake of any kind was found. There were a few species of lizard. One of them ( Various naturalists have given various names to this lizard. I have quoted a name to which two learned men have agreed.sphenodon punctatumNaultinus elegans, a small, green lizard) was a prognostic of death. An Atua, or spirit, was supposed to dwell in or to actuate it. If the animal emitted its usual sound the native felt that death was in the air. A carving on a Maori tomb has borne the effigy of the dreaded reptile. For a long time it was supposed that frogs were not indigenous, but in 1852 some were exposed by gold-miners at Coromandel.
Eels were abundant, and, with the numerous fish of the sea, entered largely into the diet of the people. Cray-fish abounded both in fresh and sea-waters. The frost fish, prized as a delicacy by colonists, was a favourite with the Maori. Not caught with net or line it often makes for the shore in winter, and, with head erect, flings itself upon the beach, where it is picked up by watchers or passers-by.
The flora of New Zealand, like the fauna, presented a distinctive character, though estimated to contain about two thousand species. More than five hundred are peculiar to the
Dammara Australis), of which shameful waste has been made, not only by destroying without planting but by reckless burning. The procurement of spars of this tree was one of the earliest motives for visits of European ships. It abounded in the North Island, but was not found south of the Bay of Plenty on the east nor of Kawhia on the west coast. The exuding gum became an article of commerce, and, hardened into a substance like amber, was dug up in great quantities on the sites of perished forests. The kahikatea, or white pine (podocarpus excelsus), was more widely distributed throughout the islands, and has supplied the saw-mills of Europeans in both. The rimu, or red pine (dacrydium cupressinum), is one of the most beautiful of trees. Its pendulous delicate foliage arrests the wonder of the dullest observer. All these trees attain a height of nearly two hundred feet. The tōtără (podocarpus totara), of less height, furnishes most valuable timber, and the Maoris made their war-canoes of the largest specimens in olden time.
The Rata (metrosideros robusta) is, however, the apparent monarch of the forest; an honour which it attains by the arts of the parasite, who supplants his benefactor. At first a tender climbing thing, it attaches itself to the rīmū or some other tree, and sends down trailing cords, which root themselves at the base. Then it clasps the doomed stem with bonds which strengthen with years and at last envelope the hidden trunk. Exalted in air it spreads its leaves on high, and spangles the forest with a blaze of red flowers. Another tree of the same genus, the Pohutukaua (metrosideros tomentosa), stands on its own merits. It is called the Christmas Tree by colonists, as its red luxuriance flushes its ample boughs at the end of December. Gnarled alike in root and trunk and branch, it affords hospitable shade on the rocky shore of the sea, and thence derives its Maori name, which means “spray-sprinkled.”It abounds only in the Northern Island, and its strong timber is of value for the knees of ships. The fact that it grows on the shores of Lake Tarawera has persuaded one scientific person that the sea once made incursions to that spot.
The puriri (vitex littoralis), allied to the teak of the East
It was not only from trees of the forest that the Maori derived assistance. They supplied him with gigantic trunks, of which his canoes were made; with the solid posts of his houses and of his fortifications. The raupo (typha angustifolia), a great bulrush, and other rushes, furnished material for the sides and roof of his whare. The root of the raupo supplied a substance of which he made a rough kind of bread.
To diversify the scene, shrubs, such as Veronica, Pittosporum, Clianthus, and many others, as well as fern-trees, and a palm tree (areca sapida), and several racænæ, were scattered widely in the belts of forest which skirted the rivers, hung thickly on the hills, filled most of the gorges and ravines, and were occasionally found in patches amidst great plains or rolling downs, where common fern held almost undisputed sway.
The Hărăkĕkĕ (Phormium tenax), or New Zealand flax, which was indigenous only in New Zealand, Norfolk Island, and the Chatham Islands, was almost as useful to the Maori as the edible fern. With it he made the ropes which bound the walls and roof of his dwelling. Of it he made his garments and baskets. From its flowers he obtained a liquid like honey. The dried flower-stems he used for fuel when, as was often the case amid undulating fern-plains or swamps, no wood could be procured. The root provided a purgative medicine.
The plant most infamous in the eyes of colonists was the Kărĕăo, or supplejack (Ripogonum parviflorum). Trailing widely, and climbing to the tops of shrubs and trees, it made a passage through the forest almost impossible for a European. The unclothed Maori found it easier to escape its toils; and in binding together his palisading and fences it was invaluable.
It is unnecessary to describe further the productions of the islands. The reader who desires more information may obtain it in works on natural history, or in Taylor's ‘New Zealand and its Inhabitants,’ where the assiduous investigations of a life are gathered together.
Chapter ii.
European Discoveries.
European Discoveries.
The land which has been described, and its warlike inhabitants, were unknown to Europeans until a Dutchman,
Claims of prior discovery have been put forward on behalf of French and Spaniards, but they do not stand the test of inquiry, and may be dismissed. The claims which were only made by their countrymen long after the death of the pretended discoverers, were fortified by no more definite statements than that a Frenchman, De Gonneville, De Gonneville took back to France the son of a chief, and was robbed in the British Channel. That he had not been to Australia or New Zealand was deducible from his own tale. According to it the natives used the sound of the letter s, and had bows and arrows, both of which statements were (with others) inapplicable. Kerguelen, who was sent to confirm De Gonneville's tale, thought he must have been at Madagascar!
Still exploring eastward he reached the Middle Island, Te Wai Pounamu, in September, 1642, and anchored in what now appears on maps as Golden Bay.
Two war-canoes approached the ships, and a blast like that of a Moorish trumpet saluted the wondering Dutchman.
He sent no boats to the shore on that day. On the following day a canoe with thirteen men was paddled near his vessel, the ‘Zeehaan.’ He could not tempt the Maoris on board though he invited them with presents. The solitary canoe returned to the shore whence seven other double canoes went straight to the ‘Heemskirk,’ and the Maoris scaled the vessel's side.
The navigator, despairing of obtaining refreshments from such a race, sailed northwards, and called the northwest cape of the North Island, Maria Van Diemen.
He was about to land on one of the islands he named the Three Kings, near the Cape, when he was deterred by seeing thirty-five gigantic natives, “taking prodigious long strides with clubs in their hands.”
He had discovered but not landed on the islands, and he did not ascertain that a strait divided his enemies at Murderer's Bay from the land which he coasted on his way to Cape Maria Van Diemen. He declared that the natives were bloodthirsty, and that their attack on him was unprovoked.
His countrymen could scarcely lay claim to the territory on which he did not set foot, and where he did not even endeavour to plant his country's flag,—the cheap pretence recognized by Europeans as giving them titles to foreign lands.
The celebrated English navigator, Captain
Inducing a native named
He anchored at Turanga, on Sunday the 8th of October, and landed with Sir
Brown, but not very dark, in complexion, tattooed on one side of the face, clad in a mat of fine texture, the victim lay dead, shot through the heart.
In the morning
A musket was fired wide of them. The ball struck the water. “They saw the effect and desisted from their threats; but we thought it prudent to retreat till the marines could be landed.”The marines being drawn up,
They said they would trade, and invited the Englishmen to cross the river.
One of them snatched an officer's hanger and waved it in exultation, while his comrades became more insolent than before. Sir
He waylaid two canoes with his boats, but one escaped by rapid paddling. The other sailed unwarned into the midst of
“Four,”he says, “were unhappily killed, and the other three who were boys, the eldest about nineteen and the youngest about eleven, instantly leaped into the water.… I am conscious that the feeling of every reader of humanity will censure me for having fired upon these unhappy people, and it is impossible that upon a calm review I should approve it myself.”He pleaded that the nature of his services required him to obtain a knowledge of the country and that his intentions were not criminal; that he did not expect such a contest, and that when the command to fire has been given no man can restrain its excess or prescribe its effect.
The three boys when dragged into the boat sat down expecting death. Treated kindly they became cheerful and accepted food. At night, however, they were heard to sigh “often and loud.”
In the morning they were well fed, dressed in European clothes and adorned with bracelets and necklaces. They seemed overjoyed at the prospect of being restored to their friends, but when
The Maoris mustered to the number of two hundred.
The boys were still with him, and one of them cried out that he saw his uncle among the Maoris.
Near
To Cook's surprise the boys still clung to his party as they returned on board.
Maragovete's uncle was then seen to pluck another branch, and with much ceremony to approach the dead body covered with the boys' clothes. The branch was thrown to the body, and the thrower returned to his companions who were seated on the sand. After an hour's conference the body was removed. In the afternoon
From the ship
On the 11th October
With the brave Rongowhakaata tribe he had failed in establishing satisfactory relations.
Sailing southwards he coasted the territory of the Ngatikahungunu. He often named places after those who first espied them, and as Nicholas Young, a boy, first descried New Zealand,
Occasionally Maoris were induced to go on board the ‘Endeavour,’ and
Once three Maoris were left on board, apparently by accident, and were not disconcerted, but “danced and sang, eat their suppers, and went quietly to bed.”When the warriors in the canoes appeared to threaten,
While traffic was going on,
The scene of Tayeto's escape was called Cape Kidnappers to commemorate it. Hawke's Bay was named after the First Lord of the Admiralty.
On the 17th of October
His dealings with the Ngatikahungunu had been less disastrous than with their countrymen, but no real confidence had been established.
The Maoris seemed ever prone to war. One chief who went on board at Terakako attracted Cook's admiration by his frank and engaging manners. He remained on board, self-invited and fearless, a whole night, with another chief and three servants.
“We found,”
At Gable End Foreland two chiefs went on board, and their friendly manner induced
At Tolago Bay, within the confines of the Ngatiporou tribes,
On the 30th October
On the 1st November forty-five canoes surrounded the ship, and,
On the 4th November
While This occurrence was the means of proving beyond doubt the occasional longevity of the Maoris. When Colonel Mundy was in New Zealand, in 1848, he saw an old chief, Taniwha, who spoke of Captain Taniwha said that when, after the man was shot, the Maoris landed, they consulted over the body, and decided that as the dead man “commenced the quarrel by the theft of the calico, his death should not be revenged, but he should be buried in the cloth which he had paid for with his life.” The old chief Taniwha was ever friendly to the English, and fond of repeating that Captain If, as was supposed, Taniwha was at least ten years old in 1769, he was ninety-three when he gave his narrative to Colonel Wynyard; yet the latter said “his faculties were little impaired, and his great age perceptible more from a stoop and grey hairs than any other infirmity.” Colonel Mundy, in 1848, saw Taniwha excited by the sight of singlestick exercise. He capered round the combatants, and hobbled away to procure a staff about six feet long. With this he undertook to contend with one of the Englishmen. “The octogenarian gladiator commenced operations by a most grotesque war-dance, accompanying his movements by a monotonous, croaking song, wielding his staff in exact measure with his chant, and gradually nearing his opponent, who on his part stood firm, with his eye fixed on that of his adversary, but with a careless guard. From the manner in which the old man held his staff we all imagined that his visitation would be in the shape of the broad-sword exercise, when suddenly, and with a vigour of which he seemed quite incapable, old Taniwha, elongating his left arm and sliding the hani through the same hand, gave his opponent the point, the stoccato alighting on his ribs with an emphasis quite sufficient to prove that had the tourney occurred twenty years ago and been à outrance the white knight would have been done brown and supped upon.”—‘Our Antipodes,’ by Lieutenant-Colonel G. C. Mundy. London, 1855 (Bentley).
During the remainder of his stay at Mercury Bay
Before leaving the bay
With similar results, continually firing small shot at the Maoris when they were inclined to be insolent, and by means of
At the Bay of Islands he saw the great Ngapuhi tribe, whom he found and whom he treated like the rest of their countrymen. He thought their appearance superior. Their canoes were well carved, the chiefs wore the best mat cloth he had seen, and the tattooing seemed of the highest order. As usual, the final solution of a trading difficulty was a shot. But
In the Rarawa territory
He then bore off until he saw the northern end of the Middle Island, near the spot where
On the 30th January, 1770, the inlet at which the ‘Endeavour’ was anchored was called Queen Charlotte's Sound. The Union flag was hoisted, and
He observed the appearance of a strait between the North and Middle Islands, and an old chief told him that it existed; the name of the North Island being Eaheinomaue;1 or “the water of green talc.”With his small ship
Captain
The land rose perpendicularly from the sea to a stupendous height; the mountain summits were covered with snow.
Cascade Point was named on the 16th March, Rock's Point on the 23rd. On the 27th
On the 31st he sailed from Admiralty Bay, “giving the name of Cape Stephens to the north-west point, and of Cape Jackson to the south-east, after the two gentlemen who at this time were secretaries to the Board”(of Admiralty).
As he left the coast finally he named Cape Farewell. Noticing the scanty population of Tavai Pounamu, as compared with that of Eaheinomaue, he concluded that it must be barren. “If,”he wrote, “the settling of this country should ever be thought an object worthy the attention of Great Britain, the best place for establishing a colony would be either on the banks of the Thames or in the country bordering on the Bay of Islands.”He lauded the timber of the forests as excellent for all kinds of building.
Captain I observe in the ‘Transactions of the New Zealand Institute’ (vol. ix.) a paper by the learned Mr. The fact is that by giving up to the artist's relatives what was usually retained, the Government and Sir Joseph (then Mr. Banks) relaxed the usual rule, and the accusations of meanness charged against the editor of ‘Cook's Voyages’ (Dr. Hawkesworth) and Banks, though not unnatural in one jealous for the reputation of his brother, have no real foundation. Had Sydney Parkinson lived, he would have had no property in his Journal so far as it related to the voyage. But a Journal contains much which is treasured by friends, and it was a humane act to give Parkinson's to his brother. According to Stanfield Parkinson it was an act unwillingly performed. In spite of the obstacles encountered he published it in 1773, and it is doubtless to be found in that storehouse of letters, the British Museum.
After leaving the islands, in 1770,
The next navigator who visited Maoria was a Frenchman, De Surville, commanding the ‘St. Jean Baptiste.’ He indeed arrived while
The treatment of the Maoris by Oui, oui), as the French were called by the Maoris. But when the storm passed away a boat was missing. De Surville thought the Maoris had stolen it. He inveigled the hospitable Naginoui on board, put him in irons, destroyed the village, and carried off the chief, who pined away and died on board, weeping only because he would no more see his children. The kidnapper was himself drowned in the surf at Callao a few days after Naginoui's death.
Another Frenchman was the next visitor in Maori-land.
The Ngapuhi were kind, and the French were plunged in Cytherean delights. Mutual confidence endured for a month. The French commander was treated with the utmost respect. Then, as Crozet, the second in command, alleged, without provocation or warning Du Fresne, with sixteen others, was brutally murdered, and the Maoris ate their victims. Crozet had previously entreated Du Fresne not to confide in the Islanders. He now inflicted condign punishment upon them. He was on
In 1851 Sir ‘Story of New Zealand,’
Crozet left on record a high testimony to Cook's accuracy. As soon as he procured Cook's chart he compared it with his own. “I found it to possess an exactness and minuteness which astonished me beyond all expression. I doubt whether our own coasts of France have been delineated with more precision.”
Again Captain
Ice-barriers blocked his course in lat. 67.15 south. He bore away to New Zealand, and entered Dusky Bay in March, 1773, having been one hundred and seventeen days out of sight of land. In the ‘Endeavour’ he had lost many persons. By scrupulous care he had in the ‘Resolution’ averted the scourge of navigation—scurvy. Sweet wort and sour krout, ventilation and fumigation, were amongst the weapons with which
He sailed northwards, and on the 18th May found the ‘Adventure’ at Queen Charlotte's Sound. Captain Furneaux, having vainly endeavoured to rejoin the ‘Resolution,’ had borne up for Van Diemen's Land, had obtained wood and water, explored the east coast from Adventure Bay to the Sisters (north of Flinder's Island) without discovering Banks's Strait or Bass's Strait, and then sailed for the rendezvous at New Zealand.
The Maoris were inquisitive about
Captain Furneaux had avoided quarrels. During the several weeks he had been at New Zealand he had made gardens on shore.
Erroneously concluding that Furneaux's examination of Van Diemen's Land had proved it to be a part of New Holland
At Black Head, between Cape Kidnappers and Cape Turn-again,
A great change had been wrought in three years. The value of iron had been learned. Nails, formerly despised, were greedily clutched at. The guns of the English had inspired respect. The Maoris now said, “We are afraid of the guns.”
In stormy weather the ships were again parted.
Before he sailed away on the 23rd November he and his comrades endured a moral lesson from Heete Heete,
It was well that Heete Heete was on board to teach such a lesson. He had not at first been able to converse as freely as
Burying a bottle to inform Captain Furneaux of his movements,
On the lurid horrors of Maori cannibalism the conduct of the untutored lad from Bora Bora casts a gleam which justifies a glance at his portraiture by
Many of the great navigator's numerous discoveries in the Pacific, inclusive of New Caledonia and Norfolk Island (“named in honour of the noble family of Howard”) were made before he returned to New Zealand in October, 1774.
Meantime the consort ship, the ‘Adventure,’ under Captain Furneaux, had been in perils of the sea, and her commander had suffered a fatal collision with the Maoris, in which he lost the whole of a boat's crew. The ‘Adventure’ was run on shore near Cape Palliser, on the 4th of November, 1773, while
He saw a direction to dig under a carved stump of a tree, and in a buried bottle he found a letter telling him that
On the 17th December, having refitted and taken in wood and water, he sent his large cutter on shore at Grass Cove with a boat's crew under a midshipman named Rowe, to “gather wild greens,”and return the same evening. On the 18th the ‘Adventure’ was to sail.
The boat did not return. In the morning Mr. Burney, second lieutenant, with a boat's crew and ten marines, went in search of their comrades — two midshipmen, a quarter-master, four forecastle men, two men of the after-guard, and the captain's man.
Late at night Mr. Burney returned with a tale of horror. Maoris had waved to him to depart; but he continued searching from cove to cove, firing guns to attract the attention of the
Burney advanced. In Grass Cove he saw several canoes, and a crowd of Maoris retreated to a small hill, hallooing to the Englishmen to land. Burney reserved his fire until near the natives. “The first volley did not seem to affect them much; but on the second they began to scramble away as fast as they could, some of them howling. We continued firing as long as we could see any glimpse of them through the bushes. Amongst the Indians were two very stout men, who never offered to move till they found themselves forsaken by their companions, and then they marched away with great composure and deliberation; their pride not suffering them to run.”Burney thought there were from 1500 to 2000 Maoris gathered together for their inhuman feast or triumph.
On the beach were the remnants of the carnage of the previous day. Fragments of flesh were scattered about, and dogs were gnawing them. Horror-struck, Burney, enraged as he was, reflected that “killing some more of the savages”was “poor satisfaction,”and returned to the ship carrying with him the head of the captain's servant, and three recognized hands of the midshipmen. These, with other remains, were duly buried after the manner of sailors.
Furneaux was “not inclined to think there was a premeditated plan of these savages.… It might probably happen from some quarrel which was decided on the spot.”
Conjecturing that none of the missing men could be left alive, Furneaux In a narrative, usually accurate, the loss of the boat's crew has been erroneously described as having happened to Captain
On the 26th October “our good friends the natives having brought us a plentiful supply of fish, afterwards went on shore to the tents and informed our people that a ship like ours had been lately lost in the Strait; that some of the people got on shore; and that the natives stole their clothes, for which several were shot; and afterwards when they could fire no longer, the natives having got the better killed them with their Patoo-patoos and ate them; but they themselves had no hand in the affair, which happened on the other side of the Strait.”
These and other stories alarmed
He had not now his former faithful interpreters, but many Maori words were known to himself.
Subsequently a chief, Matahouah (called Pedro by the sailors)—“of fine person and good presence,”told
The immediate cause of the slaughter of the ‘Adventure's’ men was not then discovered.
The fact observed by
Great honour was paid to him at home for having (as was stated in a paper before the Royal Society, 30 Nov., 1776) “under Divine favour, with a company of 118 men, performed a voyage of three years and eighteen days throughout all the climates from 52° North to 71° South with the loss of only one man by sickness.”
He received Sir Godfrey Copley's “medal, with his unperishing name engraved upon it.”… “If Rome”(said
He was instructed to search for islands in 48° South latitude, said to have been discovered by the French, and to proceed (touching at New Zealand if he thought fit to do so) by Tahiti or the Society Islands, and thence northwards to latitude 65° North to find, if possible, a passage from the Pacific Ocean to the North or Atlantic Sea.
In July, 1776, he sailed. In December he examined Kerguelen's Land, discovered by Kerguelen in 1772.
On the 24th January he sighted Van Diemen's Land, and
On the 12th February he anchored at his old station, Queen Charlotte's Sound, in New Zealand. He had with him Omai, a native of the Society Islands, who had been taken to England by Captain Furneaux in the ‘Adventure,’ and was returning with He had been introduced by Lord Sandwich to the King at Kew. He was highly esteemed by Sir
At first the Maoris would not go on board
The sailors had conceived a dislike to the Maoris, and on this occasion did not visit their houses. A chief, Kahoora, was pointed out to
One day he visited Grass Cove and saw his old friend the chief Matahouah there. Many natives kept aloof, but
Kahoora several times went on board Cook's ship. Omai
From Taweiharooa on the voyage
Whether the Maori youth was accurate or not cannot be decided. If any ship did touch at such a time at Terawiti (near Wellington) it is probable that she was afterwards lost, as no record of her visit was given to Europe.
The Maori lad and boy, in the affliction of sea-sickness, repented their expatriation and made their moan in song commemorating the charms of Maoria. No consolation soothed them for many days; but at length they accepted their situation and became firmly attached to their new friends, and eventually remained with Omai at Huaheine. In 1788, Captain Sever, in the ‘Lady Penrhyn’ transport, touched at Huaheine. He saw Heete Heete and other friends of
On this voyage
At Tahiti
In bidding farewell (2nd November 1777), Cowper wrote of Omai, and his portrait, painted by Sir
How
The publication of Cook's narrative, and the mutual slaughter of Maoris and Frenchmen, gave bad eminence to the race which gloried in its cannibalism. Sailors recoiled in horror from it.
Captain Vancouver was at Dusky Bay in 1791, but not at
The bad faith which characterized the next transaction of the English with the Maoris, was calculated to arouse bitter hatred.
Governor Phillip had, on the 26th January, 1788, founded the settlement at Sydney. He sent his friend King to form a settlement at Norfolk Island in the same year. It was desirable to cultivate and manufacture the New Zealand flax found there by
King, having gone on a special mission to England on leave, besought the discoverer, Vancouver, at the Cape of Good Hope, to obtain by friendly means two Maoris, to teach at Norfolk Island the art of manufacturing the flax.
Vancouver, in 1793, sent a storeship from Nootka Sound, under Lieutenant Hanson, who was instructed to comply with King's request, on the voyage to Sydney.
It was not difficult to obtain the consent of the inquiring and adventurous Maori; but Hanson did not strive to obtain it. Two young chiefs, Tookee and Woodoo, boarded his vessel, and Hanson kidnapped them.
The acting Governor (Grose), at Sydney, unlike the just Phillip, did not condemn the act, but shipped the chiefs to Norfolk Island, whither, fortunately for the fair fame of Englishmen in the Pacific, King had returned.
Grose's order was, that the captives were to be “victualled and clothed,”and he hoped they might be of use.
The chiefs were sullen and sad. King said, “They often in an affecting manner lament their separation from their friends, which they express by mournful songs.”At first they condescended to give no information about flax. They haughtily declared that they were well-born chiefs, unskilled in menial service. King strove to soothe their wounded feelings, and entertained them as guests at his own table. He promised to return them to their homes, and by degrees won their confidence. They told all they knew. They became attached to him. They recognized the “stone axes”dug up in the island as exactly like their own.
King kept his promise, and to ensure its fulfilment went with his friends in November, 1793, and restored them to their people, amongst whom it was plain that the kidnapped chiefs held honourable estimation. The absence from Norfolk Island was only of ten days' duration. Grose upbraided King for his “unwarrantable proceedings”in delaying a ship for such a “trifling purpose.”He hoped it would meet the “highest disapprobation”in England.
One of the chiefs took the name of his restorer, Kawana Kingi, The Maori mode of expressing the words “Governor King.”Long years afterwards, at the request of King's widow, the Rev.
King, after he became Governor of New South Wales (1800), in order to confirm relations which were of importance to mariners, directed the commandant at Norfolk Island to send some breeding stock to Ti-pa-he. The chief, desirous to see the author of the gifts, sailed with four sons in H.M.S. ‘Buffalo,’ by way of Hobart Town to Sydney, in 1806. Governor Collins, at Hobart Town, sent gifts on board.
In King to Lord Camden, 15th March, 1806. It would seem from this contemporary evidence that the Bay of Islands was not one of the places at which
There was one grievance also. A blow was an insult which a Maori must wipe out, if need be, by blood.
“He complained that in one instance a New Zealander had been flogged by the master of a whaler, and hoped that I would give orders that no such act would be committed in future, and very liberally observed, that he supposed the master must be a bad character in his own country to commit such violence on a stranger, whose countrymen were relieving his wants.
“I assured him that I would give strict directions that nothing of the kind should happen again, but if, unfortunately, it should recur, every pains should be taken to bring the offender to justice.…”
“That he might receive no unpleasant impressions, he ate at my table, and was with his four sons comfortably lodged.”
King sent him home in H.M. colonial vessel, the ‘Lady Nelson,’ with gifts of fruit-trees. There was a project to procure Maoris to serve as shepherds in Australia. Ti-pa-he discountenanced the idea of obtaining the “emoki, or lower class, who were too idle and vicious.”The middle-class would “be more expert and tractable.”That a high-born chief should perform menial service was not to be contemplated.
Ti-pa-he received a silver medal with a suitable inscription, and bearing on the obverse: “In the reign of George III., by the grace of God King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.”
The commander of the ‘Lady Nelson’ reported on his return, that it was “evident that Ti-pa-he is a chief of considerable authority.”
The roving spirit which took Ti-pa-he and his sons to Sydney gave
By some writers Marsden's first acquaintance with the Maoris for whom he was to do so much, was ascribed to his having seen Tookee and Woodoo in Norfolk Island, but they had returned to their homes before I may perhaps be permitted to cite this case as a proof of the care with which he who would compile a truthful history must guard against repeating the unintentional errors of others. The Rev. V. Taylor, of unimpeachable veracity, and “a missionary in New Zealand for more than thirty years,”as his title-page informs us, says (p. 396), in ‘New Zealand and its Inhabitants’:—“On such apparently trifling circumstances do the greatest events often depend! Mr.
The rascally conduct of Hanson was promptly remedied by King; but other adventurers, less careful of the good name of England, encountered various fortunes on New Zealand shores.
Chapter iii.
Traffic with Maoris.
Traffic with Maoris.
Though cannibalism had given a bad odour to the Maori name, roving Englishmen were not repelled from the islands. In 1792, Mr. Raven, sailing in the ‘Britannia’ from Sydney, in quest of live stock and provisions, left at Dusky Bay his second mate, Mr. Leith, with some men, to occupy themselves in sealing, while he went to the coast of Brazil and thence to the Cape of Good Hope before returning to Sydney in 1793. It was not until October, 1793, that Raven went to look for Leith and his companions. They had procured 4500 seal-skins, but had been chiefly engaged in building a vessel of New Zealand pine to aid their escape in case of need. The vessel was of sixty-five tons burden. The natives had not molested, but avoided them. Presents which were left for the Maoris were left untouched. The English had procured abundance of fish and game. The vessel they had built was left in the bay.
More than two years afterwards, Mr. Bampton, in the ‘Endeavour,’ found his ship dangerously leaky, and by common consent of all on board ran her on shore at Dusky Bay. The small vessel built by Mr. Leith and his carpenter was found in good order, launched, and named the ‘Providence.’ All whom she could contain went in her; others remained to sail in a vessel which one Hatherleigh, a carpenter's mate, volunteered to construct out of the long-boat of the abandoned ‘Endeavour.’ The new vessel was called ‘The Assistance,’ and in a few months she carried to Sydney as many passengers as could be supplied with food, leaving others for a future opportunity.
At Dusky Bay there were few Maoris, and visitors were in no danger. But Mr. Dell, the commander of the “snow”‘Fancy,’
Collins' ‘New South Wales,’ p. 390.
In three months Mr. Dell cut down more than 200 fine trees, for the uses of the East India Company. He bartered bits of iron for flax. He was compelled to fire on the natives, he said, because some axes were stolen. Two Maori men and one woman were killed.
Such was the commencement of the unlicensed traffic which was to make the north-east coast of New Zealand a disgrace to the European name. From this period many Maoris went in European ships to various countries; and, after a time, runaway convicts and reckless adventurers found their way to New Zealand.
In 1800 the Rev.
A story is told of one who, when scorned for missing one whale, sprung on the body of the next that appeared, and having struck home, vanished in a whirlpool of blood and foam, emerging coolly with his hand on the gunwale; and being hauled on board as the boat was dragged into speed by the wounded whale.
The Vikings from Hawaii scattered themselves freely amongst the crews of foreign ships. One or two went to England. Some were anxious to see the king of the nation which carried thunder and lightning, and blew its foes to atoms. They were disappointed when they found he was not a great warrior and was an old man. One who vainly sought to see the king saw, without seeking him, the future apostle of the Maori race.
The Maoris could not gauge the relative importance of Europeans, and appear to have supposed that the commander of a ship was a leader of men who could easily introduce his friends to the king of England. Unscrupulous rogues took advantage of this credulity and inveigled many Maoris to enter upon such vain voyages. Ruatara was one such chief. A casual meeting with him The name has been spelt in many ways, such as Duaterra, &c. I use the spelling adopted by the first Bishop of Waiapu (William Williams). The name of Hongi, sometimes called Shonghi, has been similarly treated. Vide ‘Christianity amonng the New Zealanders,’ by Right Rev. W. Williams D.C.L., Bishop of Waiapu. London, 1867.
Ruatara's story may serve as a type of the Maori sea-rover. He, was nephew of the great warrior-murderer Hongi, the Ngapuhi conqueror, the introducer of fire-arms on a large scale. The nobility of Ruatara was unquestionable. He could trace his pedigree to the chieftains who led the people from Hawaii. He was a relative of King's friend Ti-pa-he.
In 1805 he embarked in a whaler, the ‘Argo,’ at the Bay of Islands. He worked on board as a sailor, fond of the life of adventure, and stipulating that he should be landed at Sydney. The master of the ship cheated him of his earnings and abandoned him there. Another captain (of the whaler ‘Albion’), Richardson by name, treated him honourably, paid him his earnings during a six months' cruise, and landed him at the Bay of Islands.
The spirit of a rover was upon him, and again he shipped with others in a vessel, the ‘Santa Anna,’ cruising for seal-skins in the Pacific. At the head of a sealing party put on shore upon an island while their vessel returned to New Zealand for pork and potatoes, he underwent much privation. Three of the sailors died. Ruatara was fired with a desire to see King George, and the captain took him to England in 1809, promising to gratify him. In London he was ill-used. He did not see the king, was hardly allowed to go on shore, and in extreme illness, without wages and in rags, was put on board the ‘Ann,’ a convict transport bound for Sydney.
He had received that deadly insult to a Maori chief—he had
Kindly treated, he recovered, and on reaching Sydney found a home and a friend in the house of
His travels and narrative made him the first missionary to his countrymen. The web of European life was not all bad. Some good was mingled with it. The examples of Governor King and of
But at this juncture
While
He dissembled afterwards, and persuaded Thompson to enter the harbour of Whangaroa, his native place. There he showed his stripes to his friends. The back of a chief is peculiarly sacred in Maori belief. Vengeance was vowed. The captain and several of the crew went on shore to select timber. They were all murdered. Dressing themselves in their victims' clothes, the triumphant savages at dusk went to the ship, scaled its side, and slaughtered all they could seize except one woman and two children, and a boy, who, having shown some kindness to George on the voyage, was spared. Others who appealed to George for mercy were brained by his club. Five sailors had fled to the rigging, where they remained all night. Ti-pa-he, in the morning, being on a visit to Whangaroa to trade for dried fish, saw their situation and invited them into his canoe. He landed them safely, but the Whangaroans pursued and killed them.
The vessel was plundered and burnt. Gloating over the firearms, the father of George snapped a musket over an opened cask of gunpowder, ‘The New Zealanders.’ Library of Entertaining Knowledge, 1830.
The white women and children were gallantly rescued at some risk by Mr. Alexander Berry (an early and influential colonist in New South Wales), who was at New Zealand for trading purposes in the ship ‘City of Edinburgh.’ Leaving his vessel at the Bay of Islands, Mr. Berry went with three
Five whaling ships met soon afterwards at the Bay of Islands. Believing or presuming that Ti-pa-he was an accomplice in the destruction of the ‘Boyd,’ the captains attacked his village by night, slew nearly all the inmates, and burned the village and the growing crops. Ti-pa-he escaped, wounded, but was soon afterwards killed by the men of Whangaroa, who were incensed with him for endeavouring to save the lives of the sailors who had taken refuge in the rigging of the ‘Boyd.’
The consequences which Ti-pa-he had predicted to Governor King fell upon himself and his tribe through the act of the brutal Thompson. Some of his countrymen, soon after the destruction of Ti-pa-he's village, murdered and ate three sailors belonging to a whaling ship. Though anxious to intervene,
The circumstances of the massacre of Thompson and his crew were revolting in themselves, and distorted in narration. It was not until after many years that collation of evidence enabled Englishmen to form a correct judgment.
Justice requires that it should be recorded that Macquarie afterwards endeavoured to stay the horrors which were rife. He and others had learned that breach of the tapu would be followed by vengeance in order to satisfy an offended God, or a superstition exercising unquestioned control over Polynesians. In 1813 he proclaimed that ill-usage of the natives at New Zealand, Tahiti, and other islands, caused danger of retaliation. He extorted bonds for a thousand pounds from every vessel clearing from the territory of New South Wales. All on board were to behave well to the natives. There was to be no trespass on their lands or burial-grounds. No natives were to be shipped without their free consent and that of their friends, and no female native was to be shipped without written permission of the Governor of New South Wales.
This Proclamation seems to have been fruitless; for in 1814 Macquarie found it necessary to issue another denouncing the insulting and injurious practice of carrying off New Zealanders, male and female, by commanders and sailors. Many a Maori Helen was the cause of deeds of blood, and coarse abductions by violence were followed by revenge. Macquarie now invested Ruatara (
The zeal of
Messrs. Hall and Kendall sailed in the ‘Active,’ carrying a message from
He wrote to England: “They are as noble a race of men as are to be met with in any part of the world. I trust I shall be able in some measure to put a stop to those dreadful murders which have been committed upon the island for some years past both by the Europeans and the natives. They are a much-injured people notwithstanding all that has been advanced against them.”
In November, 1814,
There was amongst the Whangaroans a chief who had sailed in an English ship. He interpreted.
“The night was clear, the stars shone bright, and the sea in our front was smooth. Around us were innumerable spears stuck upright in the ground, and groups of natives lying in all directions, like a flock of sheep upon the grass, as there were neither tents nor huts to cover them. I viewed our present situation with sensations and feelings that I cannot express, surrounded by cannibals who had massacred and devoured our countrymen. I wondered much at the mysteries of Providence, and ho these things could be. Never did I behold the blessed advantage of civilization in a more grateful light than now.”
In the morning
After breakfast the chiefs sat in the cabin to receive presents which
The chiefs promised in future to protect the missionaries and European traders. The horses and cattle excited the wonder of the natives, and one of the chiefs in turn excited
On that memorable Sunday, 25th December, 1814, the English flag was hoisted, to
“About ten o'clock we prepared to go ashore, to publish for the first time the glad tidings of the gospel. I was under no apprehension for the safety of the vessel, and therefore ordered all on board to go on shore to attend Divine Service, except the master and one man. When we landed, we found Koro Koro, Ruatara, and Hongi dressed in regimentals which Governor Macquarie had given them, with their men drawn up, ready to be marched into the enclosure to attend Divine Service. They had their swords by their sides and switches in their hands. We entered the enclosure, and were placed on the seats on each side of the pulpit. Koro Koro marched his men and placed them on my right hand in the rear of the Europeans, and Ruatara placed his men on the left. The inhabitants of the town, with the women and children, and a number of other chiefs, formed a circle round the whole. A very solemn silence prevailed— the sight was truly impressive. I rose up and began the service by singing the Old Hundreth Psalm, and felt my very soul melt within me when I viewed my congregation, and considered the state they were in. After reading the service,—during which the natives stood up and sat down at the signals given by Koro Koro's switch, which was regulated by the movements of the Europeans,—it being Christmas Day, I preached from the 2nd chapter of St. Luke's Gospel, ver. 10: ‘Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy,’ &c. The natives told Ruatara that they could not understand what I meant. He replied that they were not to mind that now, for they would understand by-and-by; and that he would explain my meaning as far as he could. When I had done preaching he informed them what I had been talking about… . In this manner the gospel has been introduced into New Zealand; and I fervently pray
Ruatara was as proud as
A coasting voyage was undertaken. Twenty-eight armed New Zealanders went in the ‘Active,’ manned by only seven Europeans. Mr. Nicholas wrote: “I do not believe that a similar instance can be shown of such unlimited confidence placed in a race of savages known to be cannibals. We are wholly in their power, and what is there to hinder them from abusing it? Next to the over-ruling providence of God, there is nothing but the character of the ship, which seems to have something almost sacred in their eyes, and the influence of Mr. Marsden's name, which acts as a talisman amongst them. They feel convinced that he is sacrificing his own ease and comfort to promote their welfare.”
One thing
Thus was New Zealand first drawn within the vortex of wholesome Western influence. Well would it have been if all Marsden's countrymen had been imbued with his spirit!
This narrative cannot embrace the minute details of later occurrences. But Marsden's singular encounter with Ruatara; his daring confidence at Whangaroa; the scene, worthy of a national picture, of the celebration of Divine Service under the guidance of the chiefs; and the rapidity with which Marsden's mission of peace was accomplished, throw a singular air of romance about this portion of New Zealand story.
Marsden's safe return with his companions to Sydney was unexpected, and Macquarie congratulated them upon it. The little colony at Rangheehoo (or Rangihoua) numbered twenty-five Europeans.
Ruatara died soon after the ‘Active’ sailed. He had said with triumph to
The English Government, stimulated by reports from Governor Macquarie, and the representations made by the missionaries and their friends, took occasion to pass an Act (57 Geo. III. cap. 53; 27 June, 1817), for the more effectual punishment of murders and manslaughters not committed within His Majesty's dominions.
The preamble declared that murders at Honduras, “and like offences committed… as well on the high seas as on land, in the islands of New Zealand and Otah eite, and in other places . . not within His Majesty's dominions, by the masters and crews of British ships and other persons,”necessitated the enactment. It was provided that all such crimes “committed, or that shall be committed, in the said islands of New Zealand and Otaheite… not within His Majesty's dominions… shall and may be tried, adjudged, and punished in any of His Majesty's islands, plantations, colonies, by virtue of the King's Commission…
This Act was afterwards supplemented by Acts to provide for “the better administration of justice in New South Wales,”&c. Section iii. of 4 Geo. IV. cap. 96, gave power to the Supreme Courts of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land to inquire, hear, and determine all treasons… piracies, felonies, murders on the sea or in the islands of New Zealand, Otaheite, or any other place “in the Indian or Pacific Oceans, and not subject to His Majesty,”and to punish the criminals, “any law, statute, or usage to the contrary notwithstanding.”Section iv. of 9 Geo. IV. cap. 83 (25th July, 1828), made similar provisions.
The death of Ruatara did not abate Marsden's zeal. He sent two New Zealand youths, “not to be idle,”but to aid in preparing a vocabulary. If they could not be useful in that way he asked that they might be “put into a rope-walk and be kept to close labour while they remain in England.”They returned safely, and accompanied
It is needless to narrate his proceedings in detail. They were like his past doings. He commanded the respect and enjoyed the affection of all.
His congregation assembled on the beach, there being “no place sufficiently spacious to hold the people.”He saw one of the New Zealanders to whom Governor King had been kind, and who now spoke gratefully of King.
Hongi was still ferocious to his enemies and faithful to his friends.
In 1820
The natives had determined to do no work, and exchange no article, except for muskets and powder.
“I think it much more to the honour of religion and the good of New Zealand, even to give up the mission for the present than to trade with the natives on these terms.”
But no dissuasion could restrain Hongi's thirst for guns.
The small body of settlers collected at the Bay of Islands received casual accessions of a more or less equivocal nature, and Kororarika through their means was soon to obtain unenviable notoriety, as the gathering-ground of the reckless, the debauched, and the murderous.
It was bootless for
Temorenga, a Ngapuhi chief, to avenge the death of a niece (who after being carried away by a Sydney vessel had been landed at Mercury Bay, treated as a slave, and finally killed and eaten by Te Waru, a Tauranga chief), went with many men in war-canoes to Tauranga about 1818. He had thirty-five muskets. Te Waru had none. Hundreds of the Tauranga men were slain. The great pah at Maunganui was taken. In a second battle two hundred and sixty men were made prisoners. The astonished Te Waru fled to the woods. One day Te Whareumu, a Ngapuhi chief, was pounced upon not far from Temorenga's camp. “Who are you?”said the assailant. The prisoner equivocated. “I must know your name. I will not kill you. I am Te Waru, and I wish for peace.”Te Whareumu gave his name. Finding the importance of his captive, Te Waru gave him a mat and said: “Lead me to Temorenga.”Temorenga's people would have slain Te Waru on the spot, but Whareumu motioned them away and told the story of his own capture by the self-risking chief. Peace was made. Te Waru declared he could not have conceived that muskets would prove so deadly. He asked for his wife and children, and Temorenga released them. He sorely lamented his slain father. Temorenga gave him a musket to console him; and he departed. Three days the victors remained to feast upon the slain, and then took away their prisoners and a fleet of captured canoes.
Hongi saw his way to bad eminence. He would better the example of Temorenga. “There is but one king in England,”he said, “and there shall be but one in New Zealand.”
He had been in
Kendall had previously compiled and
In 1832 the Rev.
In 1833 William Williams translated the Gospel of St. Luke.
In 1834 the Church Mission Society sent a printing-press to New Zealand, under charge of Mr.
In 1835 the Rev.
In 1844 In 1843, Mr. Maunsell's house was burnt, and his MS. Dictionary, Translations, and Notes were lost. Nothing daunted, before his hands were healed from scorches he was at work again, and efforts of friends supplied him with books to replace his library.
Two Wesleyan missionaries, Messrs. Hobbs and Buddle, assisted in a revision. In 1847 William Williams, his son Leonard Williams, and Maunsell, with the aid of Hobbs, Reid,
In 1867 William Williams, his son Leonard, and Maunsell, again revised the New Testament. Mrs. Colenso, an excellent Maori scholar (a daughter of Mr. Fairburn, missionary catechist), prepared the last revision by writing the corrections on a printed copy, and the final work, promulgated under the sanction of
Although Hongi in 1820 condescended to assist Professor Lee, his own affections were riveted to muntions of war. The soldiers, the arms in the Tower of London, were ever in his mind. The king presented him with a suit of armour. Loaded with presents he returned to Sydney; and there converted his treasures into weapons of war, with which to destroy his countrymen and demoralize himself. He saw
He said to Hinaki, one of his fellow-guests at Marsden's table, “Hasten home, and prepare for war. I shall soon attack you.”He sold in Sydney all ordinary presents and gathered together about three hundred stand of fire-arms. With a great fleet of war-canoes he descended upon the gulf of
Hongi's dreams were realized. None could stand before him.
When Hongi's conquering canoes returned the missionaries were witnesses of the slaughter of several of the captives by the widows of Ngapuhi chiefs who had been killed by the Ngatimaru. They retreated horror-struck, but were afterwards told that the savage Hongi himself slew five victims with his own hand. The brave Hinaki was amongst those who were eaten. More slaughters occurred before Hongi fitted out in 1822 another expedition. It was asserted that some Waikato people had been in alliance with the Ngatimaru, and Hongi went to punis them. He sailed into the Tamaki; The narrative in the text is compiled from various statements, in ‘vide N. Z. P. P., 1861. G. 2 A.
Again the deadly fire-arms destroyed the owners of wooden weapons; and again the cannibal conquerors glutted themselves on the bodies of the slain Ngatipaoa.
But Hongi thirsted for more sweeping vengeance. He drew his war canoes across the isthmus at Otahuhu, crossed the Manŭkau harbour, and again hauled his canoes overland to the Waiaroa, which he descended,—straightening the channel where its curves where too sharp to allow his canoes to pass. Reaching the Waikato river the fleet moved up the stream. The Waikato tribes, aghast at the ruin of their Northern neighbours, had mustered in a great pah at Matakitaki (look-out, or place
On a narrow neck of land, with precipitous banks on each side, under which the rivers ran, the pah was raised. A deep ditch and an enormous bank formed the inland barrier, and ran from the top of one river-bank to the other. Two other banks and ditches within the pah crossed the neck of land; and, where the high land terminated suddenly, leaving a low tongue between the angle of the meeting rivers, the final fortification was made steep as a cliff, at the foot of which was a deep ditch, on the outer side of which was a large glacis sloping downwards to the low tongue of land between the converging rivers. The Maori palisades were of vast strength. The portion of the pah nearest the river junction was held by the men of Waikato. The name of this pah had been Taurakohea originally. The inland part was called Mangapiko. The whole was spoken of as Matakitaki Some confusion has been caused by reference to the different names.
Hongi landed at the point of low land. The Waikato warriors dashed forward to dispute his landing. Long afterwards they told how one daring warrior slew four of the Ngapuhi before he was shot. But valour was vain. Two hundred muskets mowed down the Waikati, and the terrified survivors fled. Their steep glacis, ditch, and earth cliff, impeded their escape. Their narrow gateway was choked by the fliers. They were shot and slaughtered like sheep. They clambered round the bank in hopeless confusion. A panic seized the inmates of the pah. The inland gateway for egress was too narrow for the crowd of men, women, and children. They rolled in heaps into the deep ditch, and were suffocated before the Ngapuhi men arrived to deal death to the strugglers.
More than a thousand had been killed. Hongi revelled in his ferocity, and boasted that he had slaughtered fifteen hundred fellow-creatures at Matakitaki.
The dispersion of the tribes from the Thames to the Waipa seemed complete. Men, women, and children, enslaved by hundreds, were carried to the Bay of Islands. The missionaries thought all their past efforts had been annihilated by Hongi's fell designs. It is one proof of the sagacity of Rauparaha that at this period he had though with difficulty, persuaded his tribe to abandon their homes at Kawhia and seek other lands, under his guidance, at the south.
But Hongi was still unsatiated. In 1823 he took his warcanoes down the east coast and sacked the Arawa stronghold at
The pah was on a plateau overlooking the lake, on the south side of the hill which forms the island. Higher ground in the centre of the island overlooked it. The Arawa rushed to the water's edge to confront the enemy with spears and stones. They fell in heaps before the Ngapuhi fire-arms. Some fled over the spur of the hill to the pah. The pursuing Hongi, from the height above the pah, poured a murderous fire on the defenders. The pah was quickly stormed, and again a thousand Maoris were slaughtered by their countrymen. The miserable survivors escaped in canoes. This was the last of Hongi's great successes, but he never ceased to war upon the weak or the strong.
Another war-party of Ngapuhi, led by Tareha, besieged Waharoa at Matamata; but that wily chief, having stores of food, kept within his fort, until, when the Ngapuhi became
The dragon's teeth of civilization had been sown, and the Maoris had reaped the consequences. Ere long the fiery and astute Waharoa was known to be plotting to drive the weakened Ngatimaru from their settlements on the upper part of the Thames valley. The land seemed given up to slaughter. Rauparaha had escaped the evil at Kawhia but he had carried it southwards. From Cook's Strait to Waitemata there was wailing and gnashing of teeth.
The missionaries were almost in despair. Their previous labours had not produced much apparent effect, and it seemed that all their efforts had been neutralized. If
In 1823 he took another Christian soldier into the field.
In August, 1823,
When Williams arrived the war-party of 1823 was absent on the east coast. Not long afterwards peace was made between the Waikato and Ngapuhi tribes. Te Kati and other chiefs visited the ferocious Hongi at the Bay of Islands. A chief woman of the Ngapuhi was given in marriage to Te Kati, who was brother of
The reconciliation of the great tribes of Waikato and of the Bay of Islands removed one stumbling-block from the path of the missionaries, who then dwelt at the Bay of Islands, and relieved the isthmus of Auckland from some of the horrors which had converted a pleasant land into a waste, where, in the language of a Maori witness (Warena Hengia, in 1869), “all the men were wandering about the face of the earth.”“All that men then thought of”(said Hori Tauroa) “was to save their lives and to get guns.”The procurement of guns was the one thing in which the missionaries would not assist. But without stern efforts on the part of the British Government no check could be imposed.
It was perhaps fortunate that the wreck of Marsden's vessel detained him two months at the Bay of Islands, and enabled him to acquire “great confidence”in
Mrs. Williams required heroic virtues for her post as wife of a missionary. She gratefully saw the loving estimation in which
Occasional outbreaks marred their peace. It was Maori law that if a man were hurt, or lost anything, he might make reprisals against any of the tribe of him who robbed or injured in the first instance. A rude chief determined to take something by force, leaped the fence of the mission-house, and, with all the savageness of his race, demanded payment for an injury done to his foot against the fence. For more than two days he indulged in frantic exhibitions, threatening to burn the house. He was quiet while the family were at prayers. Mrs. Wiliiams sent him some tea in the morning, and “hoped it might prove a quieting draught, but before long he was again prancing about in the yard with others, hideous figures armed with spears and hatchets, and some few with muskets.”
Notwithstanding these freaks the worthy Christians (said the Bishop of Waiapu, W. Williams, the brother of Henry) “were able to lie down in peace every night, without fear of molestation, the windows not secured, and in a raupo (rush) hut, which would burn to the ground in less than ten minutes.”They trusted in God and were instant in prayer.
The first-fruits which they had reason to believe had been yielded to their Master were shown by a chief, who had been
In 1824 Rangi, a chief from Bream Bay, went with his people to live near Paihia. He was an ally of Hongi, but retired from Bream Bay to avoid surprise in case the incensed natives of the Thames should plan a murderous revenge on Hongi's friends. He inclined seriously to hear the Gospel. He induced his followers to respect the Sunday. He became a true disciple, humble, yet hopeful. Before his death in 1825 he said: “I have prayed to God and to
Reflecting that angels rejoice over the repentant,
About 1825 Some accounts place this battle in 1826, but if Rutherford escaped (as he said) in January, 1826, the battle must have been fought as early as 1825. He was not intelligent, and cannot, I think, be relied upon, though his narrative is interesting, and probably written in good faith. “They have at this time many thousand stand of arms among them, both in the Bay and at the river Thames.”Davis, missionary (‘Missionary Register,’ 1827).
Such was Rutherford's narrative, which is partially confirmed by other accounts. But whether the sequel was known to him or not, it was fatal to his friends. Hongi speedily avenged the temporary defeat of his forces, and drove the Ngatiwhatua and their remaining friends to Waikato.
There are conflicting accounts of subsequent events, but it is said by the Ngapuhi, that Hongi with a small but daring band traversed Waikato in pursuit of the flying Ngatiwhatua, and finally wreaked his wrath by slaughtering the fugitives at a pah in the Waikato district, after warning the Ngatipaoa hosts of the Ngatiwhatua not to interfere between him and his prey. It is stated that in storming the pah Hongi was aided by Waharoa's tribe the Ngatihaua.
This was the culmination of his successful ferocity. His countrymen, goaded by fear and revenge, imitated his example. When soon afterwards a Ngapuhi war-party led by
Hongi, to vent his spleen or satisfy his lust for blood, attacked his own friends at Whangaroa in January, 1827, and while pursuing was wounded by a bullet which pierced his lungs. His death was expected, and as he had been in his peculiar manner a patron of the missionaries, they might, by Maori usage, be pillaged by any of the tribe. Even his wound would justify such conduct. In effect a marauding band plundered and burnt, on the 9th January, 1827, the Wesleyan Mission station at Whangaroa. The Maori servants had fled beforehand. No life was taken, but the missionaries and their families went forth terrified and destitute to seek Kerikeri, the Church of England station twenty miles distant.
At that station, and at Paihia, another trouble was at the
Recently, 1880, under the title ‘Scenes from the Life of John Marmon’ —an erroneous version of the capture of the Wellington, as of many other events, has been published.
Mrs.
Hongi's wound embittered his wrath. He captured a pah, and ordered indiscriminate slaughter of man, woman, and child. Only slaves were to be spared. He sent for William Williams, who found him encamped in a pah he had captured. He was dejected only lest his wound should incapacitate him for further conquests. He was courteous to Williams, and a few weeks afterwards visited Paihia with a hope to benefit his health. Returning to Whangaroa while he brooded over future wars as ‘utu,’ or satisfaction for his wound, he died on the 6th March, 1828, exhorting his followers to be bold in resisting any force, however great.
He was asked, by an attending savage, “who should be killed
“Utu”was a comprehensive word. It might mean a return, a payment, a ransom, satisfaction for injury, a compensation: and was so closely allied to “utu”or revenge, that the satisfaction for injury was almost synonymous with the hatred which demanded it.
Though he never professed Christianity, he sent his children to mission schools, and he would not permit the priests to perform the Maori incantations before his death. He commanded that no slaves should be sacrificed upon his grave; and he urged his followers to be kind to the missionaries, who were “doers of good.”
Had he died soon after his wound it seemed almost certain that the Church of England Mission stations would have been destroyed like the Wesleyan, but Hongi's transfer of his residence from Kerikeri to Whangaroa contributed to a different result. Because his immediate connection with the missionaries had been for a time broken, it was by Maori custom less incumbent upon Maoris to rob his friends.
Thus the Church of England Mission stations were saved, when the great Hongi died as he had lived—in blood. His deeds can best explain his character. Though he was of the class “conqueror”there is no reason to suppose that he was as corrupt as Julius Cæsar. He bribed no Curio, but he would have been proud to eat Pompey.
On the other hand, he was no lawgiver. He sent his children to school because, like many Maoris, he valued mental training.
To secure European tact, the New Zealanders had created a singular institution already alluded to in the first chapter. Many white men had taken up their abode amongst them. Masters of whaling vessels obtained Maori wives with facility, and sometimes abandoned them, without remorse, at a different part of New Zealand, or even on foreign shores. Some white men took Maori wives and cherished them as lovingly, and were loved in return as dearly, as if the partners had been of one race. Runaway sailors, desperadoes of every kind, were among the white clients of the Maori patron. Many a daring deed was
Hongi's plans diminished the value of a common Pakeha as the possessor of fire-arms, but the white man of intelligence and education was valued as the channel for trade, and the purveyor of luxuries; the greatest of which was a gun. Not Hongi alone, but the wily Rauparaha at Cook's Straits accumulated ammunition and supplies.
One craving passion ruled the Maori mind. Power to conquer, power to defend, could only be found in fire-arms. The quantity obtainable for a given amount of native products depended on the intelligence and honesty of the Pakeha friend.
Many Europeans had been treated as slaves before Hongi's campaigns. Afterwards, the Pakeha Maoris increased twenty-fold. In 1840 there were said to be 150 of them. In that year the establishment of English settlements at Wellington, and in the north, palsied their importance, and their number rapidly dwindled away.
One English witness saw on the Upper Wanganui river, a ‘Shakspeare’ and a ‘Classical Dictionary,’ which the Rangatira said had belonged to his deceased Pakeha Maori. The wit and wisdom which might belong to such a man were shown in the celebrated
Shrewdness and honour induced respect for some of the Pakeha Maoris, but as a rule they exercised no wholesome influence, and rather injured than promoted the aims of “Cannibal Jack.”Born of convict blood he was himself a criminal. His ‘Reminiscences’ were published in 1880 as those of “John Marmon.”
There was one of them who had no choice when he was adopted.
John Rutherford, an Englishman, after various marine adventures, shipped on board the ‘Agnes,’ an American brig,
On the following day six more white men were killed and eaten, after being cooked in Maori ovens before the eyes of Rutherford and the survivors. Atrocious as were these deeds, the surprise in England was qualified by the fact that, within a few years, at least a hundred Maoris were murdered by Europeans at the Bay of Islands. ‘Proceedings of Church Missionary Society,’ vol. v., p. 465.
Loaded with plunder the natives took Rutherford and his remaining comrades to the interior. The captives were stripped and held on the ground for four hours while they were tattooed. Nearly the whole of Rutherford's face, the lower part of his arms, his breast, and part of his body, were deeply scarred and coloured with dark pigment. For three days the victims were in a state of “tapu,”and not allowed to touch food with their hands, but were fed by women who treated them kindly.
The six tattooed captives were gradually dispersed in the possession of different sections of the tribe. Rutherford and another were left with the chief Aimy. They acquired the use of the language, and went out fishing and shooting. Their lives appeared safe. One of them lent his knife to a slave to cut rushes for repairing a house. He afterwards peeled potatoes with it, and gave some of them when cooked to an old woman (the mother of the chief Aimy), who was ill, and who ate them in the presence of the Maori doctor. She died on the following morning, and funeral obsequies showed that she was a notable person. On the third day some hundreds of the assembly cut themselves and wept, and the ordinary occupants of the village, including the white men, sat down to feast upon provisions brought by the numerous visitors. On the fourth morning only
The old woman's doctor strode up and down within the circle and explained the course of her illness to the questioning chiefs. Rutherford and his companion understood the dialogue. The doctor retired, and a chief of importance, adorned with the feathers of the “huia,”and striding up and down in the circle, declared that in his opinion the woman's death was caused by eating potatoes peeled by a white man's knife after it was used for cutting rushes to repair a house. The man to whom the knife belonged ought therefore to be killed in honour of the old woman.
The proposition was favourably accepted, and Rutherford went into the circle to argue against it; pleading that even if the act of his comrade was wrong, ignorance of their customs might excuse it. He besought Aimy to spare his friend, but Aimy sat motionless mourning for his mother, and while Rutherford was yet speaking the chief with the huia feathers smote the white man dead with a mĕrĕ. Aimy did not allow the man's body to be eaten, and Rutherford caused it to be buried.
Some time afterwards Aimy, commending Rutherford's activity in shooting and fishing, proposed to make him a chief. Rutherford consented. His hair was cut in front with an oyster shell. Mats were presented to him, and a green-stone mĕrĕ. Having to choose wives he took Aimy's two daughters. In Rutherford's wanderings with the tribe he met an Englishman in like circumstances to his own, but not, like him, desirous to escape. In 1825 or 1826 he was with his tribe at Kaipara and saw Hongi's temporary defeat, as already described.
He had not long returned to the east coast when signal fires announced that a vessel had arrived at Tokomaru. Preparations were made to capture her, and Rutherford was deputed to decoy her people. With the son of a chief and four slaves he went in chiefs attire in a canoe to the ship, not yet at anchor.
The ship was American. Rutherford warned the captain of the plot. The chief's son was flogged upon a charge of stealing, and put back into the canoe, and Rutherford was carried away and landed at Tahiti.
He worked there as a labourer for the British Consul, went
A detailed account of Rutherford is to be found in ‘The New Zealanders,’ published in the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, in 1830.
As a record of New Zealand after the introduction of firearms his personal observations deserve mention.
Local differences in New South Wales had deprived
These differences somewhat marred missionary labours in New Zealand, where Macquarie exercised a quasi authority, and whither
The influence which
In spite of his ferocity Hongi himself submitted to decisions duly arrived at. He was amenable to Maori law like the meanest of his brethren. The Rev.
On one point only did
But war still raged, and when in 1827 the Wesleyan Mission premises at Whangaroa were destroyed and Marsden's own friends were in danger he hastened to them. The storm had passed away and he remained but a few days at the Bay of Islands. Soon afterwards he circulated translations of portions of the Bible into the Maori tongue; but much as he hoped for from the Sacred Word he was constrained to admit that the tide of events necessitated some European (therefore some English) interference.
Weakened by wars, the tribes, nevertheless, would not or could not unite under an Egbert. Hongi had failed in his subjugation schemes and was dead. It was surmised, though doubtless with exaggeration, that fire-arms and new diseases had, in twenty years, swept away one hundred thousand natives.
Kororarika had become the gathering-ground of scoundrels of every dye. Beyond the control of law, their orgies were such as would defile the page of history.
In 1826 some of the company's emigrants actually reached New Zealand, intending to take up lands on the Thames and at Hokianga. They did not remain long in the land. It was said that what they saw of a war-dance, and what they heard of cannibalism, cured them of their colonization scheme.
The agent, one Captain Herd, professed to buy land on behalf of the company, and without doubt some Maoris were willing to sell and to adhere to their bargains. The titles, such as they were, were bought up by the more important New Zealand Company, formed in 1839, of which Lord Durham was called the Governor, and amongst the directors of which were other names included in the unprosperous company of 1825.
One of the settlers who remained at Hokianga lived to a green old age.
A singular attempt to form a colony, French or English, or to found a sovereignty in his own name, was made by one Baron de Thierry in 1822. The son of French parents, he had been partly educated in England. He had held a minor diplomatic appointment, and had been in an English regiment. He appeared to think that, if the English Government were slow to recognize him, he would cast off his English skin and become a Frenchman whom France was bound to support. He had seen Hongi and Waikato with Mr. Kendall at Cambridge in
I have used in this sketch a MS. autograph, by De Thierry, with the necessary precaution where corroborating evidence is required.
Kendall did something for him. He bought, through three chiefs, about 200 acres of land at Hokianga for a few axes. Waka Nene, and his brother Patuone, were among the contracting Maoris, and their version of the sale is more worthy of credence than De Thierry's.
He bemoaned his hard fate in obtaining what he chose to call 40,000 acres for 36 axes, but recorded in his Diary a regret that his payment was so small.
Kendall could only say, “I have done as well as I could for you.”The result was 200 acres, bought for less than 30 axes. But the purchaser determined to erect a sovereignty on such a foundation. He applied at once to Earl Bathurst for recognition. The Under-Secretary, Wilmot Horton, replied (Dec. 1823), that New Zealand was “not a possession of the Crown.”He applied to the French Government without success. He endeavoured to “assemble a colony”in London. He failed. He rushed to France to plead his rights in person. He found his countrymen offended because he had in the first instance applied to England.
In 1826 he opened an office in London and received applications from intending colonists who might have been impressed by Falstaff.
To add bitterness to failure, he saw what he called a “rival scheme,”Lord Durham's Company, send out their expedition under Herd. In due time he learned the failure of his rivals.
He went to America, still thinking of his “Hokianga property,”but also revolving schemes for cutting the Isthmus of Panama, and colonizing on a scale which the world had never seen. He found sympathizers, but they were not monied men, or they would not devote their money to his objects. He roamed from city to city. He was at Guadaloupe in 1834, on
The failure of the English Company in 1826, and the frustration of De Thierry's early schemes, left the missionaries to fight the battle as they best might against the evil passions of the Maoris and the lawlessness of the abandoned Europeans.
They did, after Hongi's death, prevail upon offended tribes to lower their weapons. A Bay of Islands chief had been shot in a quarrel. A Ngapuhi chief Whareumu went with an armed band to examine the case. There had been much discussion, and peace seemed assured, when excitable spirits brought on a battle. Whareumu was killed and his friends were driven off. Maori law demanded revenge for Whareumu's death. Maori armies were gathering in March, 1828, to extort it, although the injured and the injurers were in many cases close blood-relations. Some Ngapuhi chiefs, already influenced by Christian teaching or example, invited the missionaries to accompany their war-party and strive for peace.
After several days, during which Sunday (as “ra tapu”or sacred day) intervened peacefully, the tribes separated without fighting. On the Sunday a congregation of 500 listened attentively to Divine Service. Seven hundred men, the greater part armed with muskets, paraded on the 24th March, danced in their savage manner, and by mutual arrangement fired volleys in the air. Then Rewa spoke for the Bay of Islands tribe in favour of peace. Patuone followed on the part of the men of Hokianga, and the missionaries were escorted to the Hokianga pah. Bullets, not intended to do harm, but as ebullitions of joy, were flying about in all directions until the missionaries entered the pah, when the chiefs succeeded in checking the demonstrations of their people. Thus, for the first time, the gospel of peace prevailed in the mouths of the grateful missionaries.
Having once acted as peace-makers they used their vantage-ground on other occasions.
In the end of 1828 they ventured to hold at Paihia a public
The proceedings were opened with the Church of England Liturgy in the Maori tongue, and greatly gratified the relatives of the 170 pupils assembled.
An examination was held in 1829 at Kerikeri with similar results. Early in 1830 Taiwhanga, a great warrior in Hongi's wars, was publicly baptized, and the missionaries entertained hopes of other conversions.
Mrs.
The conduct of a master of a whaler dashed the high hopes of the missionaries. He had cohabited with a Maori woman of Kawa Kawa, and had abandoned her for a daughter of a chief at Kerikeri. Maori law demanded reparation. The friends of the injured woman determined to avenge her wrongs. The tribes mustered. Eight hundred men opposed six hundred. Vainly the missionaries raised their voices on the field of battle.
When a conference was at last brought about, it was rendered null by a casual shot, and in the consequent resumption of battle (6th March) the fall of a great chief, Hengi, who had rushed between the combatants to stay them, seemed to make peace impossible. A hundred lives were lost. The native houses at Kororarika were in flames. The deck of a vessel in the harbour was covered with the wounded Kororarika warriors. The enemy, from Whangaroa, had withdrawn but a short space from the field of battle.
At this juncture
On the following day, Sunday,
The peace was unconcluded. On Tuesday thirty-six war-canoes came upon the scene. The women were left behind. None but fighting men were on board.
“The whole day was spent in deliberation: at night, after a long oration, the great chief on one side clove a stick in two to signify that his anger was broken. The terms of peace were ratified, and both sides joined in a hideous war-dance together, repeatedly firing their muskets. We then took our departure from these savage scenes with much satisfaction, as we had attained the object we were labouring for.” The sons of the slain Hengi, dissatisfied with the peace, but prevented by tribal honour from breaking it, led a war-party to the south to avenge by the spilling of blood the death of their father. They slew many Maoris with whom they had no quarrel, and sowed the seeds of a long war with the men of Tauranga.
Other and less discouraging scenes followed. He married some converts, and at an earnest service, at which the widow of the great Hongi was present, she could but ejaculate “Astonishing!”as she saw the fervour of her country-folk.
In the end of 1830, the tribes which had been recently arrayed against one another in war were represented by peaceful delegates to the Maori school examination at Paihia. Two hundred pupils were collected.
Early in 1831 the sons of Hengi having feasted on the slain in the south at Mayor and Motiti islands, in revenge for their father's death elsewhere, were themselves surprised and slaughtered by the enraged enemies, and a general war to avenge so much noble blood seemed impending.
The missionaries devised an embassy to the south, whence an ambassador from Rotorua had already been sent to ask for a missionary. When at Paihia, in 1828, the Rotorua chief, Pango, had been saved by Mr. Williams. A plot had been laid to massacre Pango and his friends. Williams took them on board ship, and sailed away with them in the night. Hence the embassy from Rotorua in 1831. The Rev. H. Williams and Mr. Chapman went to Ohinemutu at Rotorua, preached, conversed, and prayed.
The Maoris were greedy to learn letters, and to read and write the language of their forefathers. In half-an-hour one young man had learned the alphabet and was teaching it to his eager comrades.
The efforts of the missionaries to restrain the Ngapuhi from avenging the sons of Hengi were not successful. The future Bishop of Waiapu, William Williams, in vain aided his brother. The Ngapuhi led a war-party to the Bay of Plenty; and though the missionaries were allowed to cross from camp to camp in peace, neither the Ngatiawa nor the Ngapuhi would accept their counsel.
In 1833 the Rarawa from the north plunged into the fray, and the missionaries, in despair, left the murderous work which they were unable to arrest.
An event occurred at the same period which led to important results. A whale-ship becalmed at the East Cape received on board twelve Ngatiporou. As they slept on board, a breeze carried the vessel northwards. The master, whether ignorant or reckless of Maori usage, landed his unwilling guests at the Bay of Islands. The Ngapuhi distributed them amongst their chiefs as slaves. The missionaries pleaded against the injustice of enslaving those who had been brought against their will to the place, and a sense of right induced the chiefs to consent that the Ngatiporou should reside at the mission station until they could be returned to their homes in the mission schooner. After eight months they went home with the future Bishop of Waiapu. Other Maoris, released from slavery, swelled the number of returned exiles to thirty, who were returned to their friends in January, 1834.
Nothing had been heard of them by those friends since their departure. Their joy was unbounded. Their gratitude to William Williams was wild. They had been assembled for war when the schooner arrived, but they said: “Give us missionaries to teach us and we will cease to war. We like what you tell us; but when you are gone who shall teach us?”
He preached to five hundred of them on the site of his future bishopric, and fixed upon it in his own mind as a mission station. He saw the ruins of pahs, sacked by the Ngapuhi in years bygone, and extending his researches to Table Cape, he heard that thither had been gathered the Maoris, hunted by Rauparaha from Wairarapa, near Cook's Straits. They were protected by Te Wera, a Ngapuhi chief, who, having under Hongi's banner conquered and enslaved at Table Cape, after a time enfranchised his prisoners, went with them to their home, and was received as their own chief. With him Rauparaha had no desire to be at feud, and under his Ngapuhi “mana”the land had rest. The long strife between the Ngapuhi and the men of Tauranga also came to an end without signal defeat of either party, the wearied invaders finally abandoning the feud which the sons of Hengi had so wantonly originated.
Shocked at one form of atrocity which was encouraged by Europeans, Governor Darling, in 1831, made it known that the English Government reprobated and would punish it. The heads
The Pakeha Maori (‘Old New Zealand’) tells of an instance in which a fine head was coveted, and its owner was killed to gratify this horrid lust of the trader—for the usual consideration.
Brutal traders added heads to their ordinary exports. One of their transactions aroused the wrath of Darling, and relegated the trade to secrecy, if it did not destroy it. In one of the Ngapuhi raids upon the Ngatirangi at Tauranga in 1830 some of their men were killed, and the heads were prepared for sale. A debauched ruffian named Jack, the master of a schooner (the ‘Prince of Denmark’), bought them. Touching at Kororarika on his way to Sydney, while many of the Ngapuhi had boarded his vessel, the brutal trader brought upon deck a sack from which he rolled out a number of heads which the Ngapuhi recognized as those of their lost friends. Terror, weeping, and rage broke forth, and the Maoris fled to the shore. The trader, alarmed lest they should return in vengeance, fled to sea. Rumour accompanied him. When he arrived in Sydney Governor Darling promptly proclaimed that such atrocities would be severely punished. He demanded the restoration of the heads to the friends of those “to whom they belonged.”He imposed a fine of forty pounds for each infringement of his order, and determined to publish as marks for detestation the names of all engaged in the inhuman traffic. It was, he said, his “imperative duty to take strong measures for totally suppressing the inhuman traffic which the masters and crews of vessels trading between New South Wales and New Zealand”were pursuing.
The word of a governor was potent in those days, and it served to strengthen the missionaries in their contest with the evil agencies of their countrymen. When he issued his edict to stay the traffic in heads (April, 1831) he had already commanded that the master of a trading vessel should be prosecuted for
But the career of Waharoa the Ngatihaua for many years had boded ill for missionary influence. As ferocious as Hongi, he was more astute, and knew how to obtain power without the crushing superiority of weapons possessed by the Ngapuhi chief.
The Ngatimaru held Matamata while Waharoa was young. He had expelled them from it. His own stronghold had been Maungakawa, near the sources of the Piako. Between Maun-gakawa and Tauranga, Matamata was held by the Ngatimaru, whose territory also extended by way of the Piako swamp to the Waikato river, where Cambridge and Hamilton are now situated. Much of this territory they appear to have occupied peacefully after their flight from Hongi, but in process of time strife arose between them and the Ngatihaua. Until 1825 the Ngatimaru leader, Takurua, maintained his ground, although his tribe had been much weakened by the massacre at the Totara pah at the Thames. Waharoa proposed terms of friendship and joint occupation at Matamata. They were accepted. For two years the tribes lived like Romans and Sabines—geminata urbe. Then the Maori Romulus profited by the murder of his rival which he was thought to have contrived. He was on a journey to Tauranga when at midnight the Ngatihaua treacherously rose and murdered the Ngatimaru Tatius and most of his people at Matamata.
Thus Waharoa secured control of the upper Waiho, or Thames. He was nevertheless grieved to see the Ngatimaru assembled at many strong pahs, especially Haowhenua The name “Hao”gathering as in a net, “whenua “the land, challenged the suspicion and animosity of the Ngatihaua.
Haowhenua was not only a stronghold of the Ngatimaru. It intercepted Waharoa's communication with the Waikato people under Vide ‘Story of Te Waharoa,’ by
In 1871, when English rule had been set up in the land, and Judges of the Native Lands Court pronounced upon Maori titles, the Pakeha Maori, Judge
The Ngatihaua asserted a right to the Aroha, a tract of land on both sides of the Waihou river, where the Aroha mountain stood pre-eminent as an object of beauty seen from far and near, and was sometimes confronted and sometimes apparently left behind by voyagers towards it on the sinuous waters of the river. The tract in dispute was about two hundred thousand acres. The Ngatihaua claimed it by conquest, and the terms of the evacuation of Haowhenua, followed by sufficient occupation to establish a right.
The Ngatimaru denied the defeat of their forefathers, and declared that the terms of the evacuation gave no title to the Aroha, which had been in their possession subsequently. For both claims there was colourable evidence, for after the expulsion of the Ngatimaru from Haowhenua the Aroha was comparatively tenantless.
Witnesses on both sides admitted that the space which intervened between the abodes of the hostile tribes was unsafe, and that the Aroha was more often traversed by war-parties than occupied in peace.
Waharoa himself was said to have gone in person to take formal possession of Aroha, and allotted, with his chiefs, the eelweirs and the lands to their people. If he had devoted his attention to the north it was thought that he would have put the matter beyond doubt; but war with the Arawa in the south engrossed him. As it was, he left a law-suit to his descendants.
When the Court sat in 1871, Ngatihaua chiefs who fought at Taumatawiwi gave evidence. At night, they said, Waharoa burned his own dead to prevent their bodies from falling into the hands of enemies, and was proceeding to attack Haowhenua in the morning when a humble deputation of unarmed Ngatimaru besought an audience. Among them were Taharoku and Tupua, of high rank.
“If you had beaten me,”said Waharoa, “you would have taken my land. As you are beaten, my land returns to me, and you must go back to the Thames.”
“How (said Taharoku) am I to get away?” The laconic question was understood on both sides. How could hundreds of women and children pass safely through a hostile country? One witness said that Tuhua, who was distantly related to Waharoa, seeing the burning bodies of the Ngatihaua (which if he had been a conqueror Tuhua would have joined in eating), gruffly said to Waharoa, “Why do you spoil my provisions?”
“You shall be led out,”was the brief reply.
Peace was agreed upon. By the Ngatimaru account they retired within three months. The Ngatihaua witnesses said the evacuation was completed within three weeks. A Ngatihaua chief, Pakeraheke, and two chief women accompanied their enemies. Good faith was kept, and in three separate bands, by the Waikato, the Waihou, and the Piako rivers, the Ngatimaru retired without molestation. The death of Hongi, who had slaughtered the Ngatimaru at Totara, relieved them from fear of the Ngapuhi, amongst whom the missionaries were already obtaining much influence.
Amidst the conflicting evidence as to the Aroha land the Court determined that the Ngatimaru were never dispossessed to such an extent, and the Ngatihaua never occupied in such a manner, as to give the latter a good claim. On the contrary, it was held that the Ngatimaru had for twelve years after the battle of Taumatawiwi made incursions into Ngatihaua territory, and thus rendered it impossible for the Ngatihaua to occupy permanently the disputed land. The diversion of the savage abilities of Waharoa to his southern wars saved the Aroha district for one or two generations of the Ngatimaru. The death of Hongi had relieved them from fear of the Ngapuhi. But decimation as rapid as that of the tomahawk or the musket was to follow the advent of new enemies. Ten years after the battle of Taumatawiwi the sovereignty of the Queen was proclaimed. Though justice was the object of England, the destruction of the tribes has been more rapid under her sway than under the internecine strife of former years. In 1880 the coveted Aroha block was parcelled out for sale to English settlers.
It may be well to describe the condition of Waharoa's allies, the Waikato people, after the battle of Taumatawiwi in 1830.
After the crushing defeat at Matakitaki, which did not affect Waharoa, there were raids in which the Ngatipaoa, claiming the same ancestor as the Ngatimaru, carried war into Ngapuhi territory.
But the land of the Ngatiwhatua, about Auckland, had become a waste. The solitude which the Romans called peace, prevailed where, once, every hill had swarmed with men. It has been seen that in 1826 the Ngatiwhatua, after their defeat by Hongi, fled for aid to the Waikato, with whom Hongi had already concluded peace; and there, according to Maori tradition, Hongi entered into friendly relations with Waharoa, in order more completely to destroy the Ngatiwhatua, after their Ngatipaoa hosts had been induced to abandon their cause.
It is difficult to trace the fortunes of each hunted tribe. It is clear that peace was established between The man who had the moral courage to assist the missionaries in averting war at Hokianga in 1828.
But the pestilent lust for blood worked in the minds of the Waikato tribes. Before returning to the hereditary domain restored to his tribe, and taking up his abode near Auckland,
The Ngatiawa of the west coast, weakened by the loss of the band which in hundreds had, in 1827, followed Rauparaha to southern territories at Waikanae and Cook's Straits, were the unhappy victims.
At Pukerangiora, on an abrupt promontory, steeply scarped on the bank of the Waitara river, stood the Ngatiawa stronghold, in which the bulk of their people were collected. Towards the shore they looked upon their rich cultivations. Inland was a dense forest, and Mount Egmont reared its snowy cone in the south-east.
At Ngamotu stood another pah, opposite the Sugar-loaf Islands, near the site of the modern town, Taranaki. With the Maoris at Ngamotu were eleven Europeans, dissipated Pakeha-
In December, 1831, an immense war-party, under
Human flesh was feasted upon; and, not yet satiated, the inhuman horde passed on to Ngamotu. There three hundred and fifty Ngatiawa, aided by their Pakehas and carronades, were prepared to receive them. The carronades were respected, and a parley ensued. Skirmishes were followed by persuasion. The Waikato were willing to embrace as friends; but all the Europeans and many Maoris would not trust them.
More fighting ensued. Firebrands were thrown into the pah, but active exertions prevented conflagration. The invaders, confronted for the first time by cannon, speedily invented a method to avoid the effects, and approached the pah by sap. A schooner from Sydney arrived during the siege and supplied provisions to Ngamotu. The master had a conference with the Maori leader, but distrusted his promises. At intervals communication between besieged and besiegers took place; and the European defenders were permitted to buy ammunition from the enemy.
At last the Waikato army, in want of food, sent word that on the following morning they would storm Ngamotu. At dawn of day a storming party cut through the palisading, and fighting was carried on within the entrenchments. The Ngatiawa fought with desperation. The carronades hurled a hail of stones among the invaders. At last they gave up their task. The native garrison dashed out to wreak their savage
Ngamotu was saved. The Waikato did not repeat their attack on any important scale, nor consummate their conquest by occupation. But, apprehensive of invasion, many of the Ngatiawa followed their countryman,
Murderous as had been the Waikato war-party many Ngatiawa and Taranaki captives were nevertheless carried away, and (as in the case of the victims of Hongi), some of them were permitted to live as servants in the mission houses. There they were brought under immediate Christian influence. The seed sown in reflective minds brought forth fruit. The fleeting nature of earthly success lost its charm in the eyes of men so lately fast-bound in misery and iron. The zeal and kindness of the missionaries prompted inquiry as to the probable cause of a demeanour which appeared more than human. Yearnings for something better and more enduring were created and strengthened.
Released by the missionaries and conveyed to their former homes, the enfranchised victims of war carried back a knowledge of the Gospel, and taught their countrymen what they had learned of letters and of religion. In time the conquering chiefs themselves followed the missionary example, and manumitted not only their captives but their hereditary slaves
Thus the droves of victims, whose sad fate had appalled the missionaries when they saw them dragged to death or slavery by ruthless masters, supplied active agents in humanizing their far-off countrymen, and William Williams took comfort ‘
The application of the chief Pango for a missionary at Rotorua induced others to follow his example. A trader in flax named Tapsell, a Pakeha Maori, residing at
In 1833 he had changed his mind. He wrote to
In November, 1833,
At the Thames the natives received them cordially near the picturesque but ill-fated site of the Totara pah, destroyed by Hongi. There “human bones lay scattered about in all directions,”the remains of Hongi's repulsive feast.
Ascending the river to Turua, the missionaries held Divine Service there. To their amazement the hymns and responses were correctly and musically uttered by a congregation of more than 150 Maoris. Three boys educated at Paihia had been the teachers, but the people prayed that a missionary might be sent to them.
The missionaries went on to Matamata and saw the dreaded Waharoa, the foe of the men of Turua. He “was sitting in state in the midst of his nobles,”and “welcomed the travellers graciously.”The wily savage was probably intent on obtaining material wealth and the means of procuring fire-arms. But whatever their motives were, he and his chiefs “pleaded hard for a missionary.”
“Waharoa (
The old man's petition could not then be complied with, but a mission station under the care of Messrs. Wilson and Fairburn was formed at Puriri. At this time missionaries could pass freely everywhere.
Although there was feud between the natives at the Lower Thames and those of the Waikato, William Williams (who with the Rev.
The Waikato river was ascended; Matakitaki and Te Rore were seen; the events of former time were described, and a site for a mission station was chosen at Mangapouri.
The young chief, Awarahi, who had authority there, said: “If you wish to remain I will have your house built for you; but for me, I am a man of war, and must be at war directly. Perhaps you may find one little boy to believe you now, and by and by we may all believe.”
Williams selected a site, and in five minutes forty men were employed in clearing it for the erection of a mission-house.
Thence Williams went to Matamata (2d Sept. 1834) and said: “Waharoa was one of the finest specimens of a native I had yet seen. He was of middle stature with small features well-formed; his head was grey, and his hair, which was partially so, was exceedingly neat, while his dress and general deportment marked him out among the multitude as a superior chief. He had long been celebrated as a warrior, but his manners were mild, and the expression of his countenance pleasing. Waharoa's deeds soon afterwards belied his gentle appearance. As to his ability, his biographer Mr. Wilson (‘
The missionary gave him hopes, and saw the old man go to his potato fields where a hundred young men were at work. When food was served, five hundred and fifty men, women, and children partook of the hospitality of the Maori baron.
Williams went to Tauranga, and on his return was again entreated by Waharoa to send missionaries to Matamata.
In April, 1835, the Rev. Mr. Brown arrived there and encountered various difficulties from the quarrelsome dispositions of his pupils.
Waharoa had procured ammunition by barter for flax, which was manufactured in large quantities by his people. He threatened to fire upon a party of Waikato people who were supposed to be about to interfere with his traffic at Tauranga; and did not conceal his disgust when, after an interview with Mr. Brown, the intruding traffickers by turning homewards deprived him of the pleasure of waylaying them.
In the same year the missionaries, Wilson and Fairburn, performed an act of heroism only to be appreciated by those whe knew the revengeful lust of the Maori.
A party of Waikato people were flax-scraping, while a larger party of their countrymen had proceeded in formal manner to discuss terms of peace between the Ngatimaru and their own people. An unreconciled section of the Ngatimaru fitted out
He did not enter in straight manner, but, tomahawk in hand, leapt obliquely through the doorway, making a defensive ward as he sprung. Finding no prey, he emerged, and met Mr. Wilson, who confronted his passionate gaze with calmness.
The disappointed warriors kept sullen silence for two hours. Sheltered from the rain under the same roof with the missionary party, they neither ate nor spoke. Silence was broken by prayers commencing with a Maori hymn:
“O Jesus! give to me a heart made new by Thee.”
The stern features relented. When the service was ended the thwarted war-party became courteous. All wended their way homewards on the morrow, Mr. Fairburn from exhaustion and excitement fainting repeatedly by the way.
Koinaki, struck by the manner in which the Christians had risked their lives for peace' sake, said, “If Waharoa will cease fighting, so will I.”He kept his word. But Waharoa's thoughts were in the end of the year diverted to troubles at Rotorua, where already a missionary, Mr. Chapman, was placed.
The cause of war illustrated the condition of the Maori mind under the influence of greed.
About the same date, war between the Waikato tribes and those of the Thames was averted by the efforts of the Rev. H. Williams and his brethren. It will not be needful to dwell upon details. It will suffice to say that in February, 1835 (after seeing Waharoa at Matamata), H. Williams passed across to the Waikato river where tribal war had broken out.
He noticed a field of more than a hundred acres of corn. He descended the river from Mangapouri, saw Matakitaki near the noble mountain Pirongia, and at Horo reached the seat of war. The numerous Maoris whom he passed recognized him as an ambassador of peace. But a skirmishing party (19th March, 1835) brought back dead and wounded to the camp at Horo. His efforts resulted in a truce for a few months, after which he was to return to make permanent peace. At Ngaruawahia he saw for the first time
Tapsell, the trader at
At Rotorua lived Hunga, a cousin of Te Waharoa the Ngatihaua. On Christmas day, 1835,
The Arawa people did not think of appeasing Te Waharoa by punishing
Mr. Chapman, the missionary at Rotorua, obtained the sacred (tapu) head of the murdered man, and gave it to his relatives. Te Waharoa sent him word that he would burn his house down. To the Arawa he sent no message. At that time the Rev. Mr. Maunsell had joined Mr. Brown at Matamata. All knew that Waharoa would avenge himself, but he deceived both enemies and missionaries as to the manner. Affecting consideration for Mr. Brown he refused to let him visit Mr. Chapman at Rotorua. He told him to go to
In March, 1836, with a thousand men, Ngatihaua, Ngatimaniapoto, and others, he had passed Tauranga on his way to
It was a lurking belief among the Maoris that the Atua, or God of the white man, was mysteriously connected with the
On the 29th March, the pah at
At the intercession of the missionaries, Tapsell and his Maori wife were permitted by Te Waharoa to depart in safety. Tapsell died peaceably at
The fiendish conquerors, drunk with blood, scorned the remonstrances of the missionaries. Te Waharoa, who as usual had led the storming party, and had first cut the palisadelashings, went home triumphant, and savagely retorted to Mr. Brown, “If you are angry with me I will kill and eat all the missionaries.”
The Arawa retaliated a few weeks afterwards by storming, though with much loss, the Tumu pah (near
In the disastrous flight of those who broke through their beleaguerers when the pah was stormed many were slaughtered. Where an old chief fell, and a savage foe tore out his liver, and ate it reeking hot, in revenge for the death of a grandfather, the future boundary between the tribes of the pursuers and the fugitives was made.
Despair for a time overwhelmed the missionaries, so lately grateful for the extension of their sphere to places which had now become human shambles.
From Rotorua and Matamata Mr. Chapman, Mr. Brown, and others withdrew. War-parties were prowling everywhere. A young girl, Tarore,—the child of Ngakuku, a Ngatihaua chief travelling to Tauranga with his daughter, whom he had committed to Mrs. Brown's care,—was murdered by a band of Arawa, who had been guided to the father's camp by the light of a fire incautiously made.
The murder elicited some of the brighter parts of Maori
‘
Yet again did sparks from heaven light up the darkness around Tarore's fate.
She had the Maori Gospel of St. Luke with her. Her murderers carried it off, and used part of it for cartridge paper.
Amongst the Ngapuhi some years before had been a boy slave, Ripahau, He was called Matahau at Otaki, and as he signed his name thus to the Treaty of Waitangi, it is well to retain it.
Rauparaha's son was sent by his father with a cousin to implore that a missionary might be sent to Otaki.
When, eventually (1839), the Rev. Mr. Hadfield went thither with his introducer, the Rev. ‘Life of
The close of Te Waharoa's career may fitly follow his last war. Four months after he had led the storming party at
It was not the size but the valour of Waharoa's army that made the Arawa take shelter in their fort, which was on the south shore of the lake, by means of which provisions could be brought from the island Mokoia or elsewhere.
Waharoa resorted to stratagem. He sent a chosen few to make a feigned attack. The beguiled Arawa rushed in pursuit of the fliers, who, unalarmed, enticed them to an ambuscade. Breathless, they encountered fresh men, and would have been utterly destroyed in their own retreat, if the leading chief, concealed on one side while Waharoa was hidden on the other, had not committed a blunder which would have made Waharoa's two bands pour their fire upon each other.
The Arawa availed themselves of the blunder, but many were laid low by the tomahawk as they fled into their pah, and closed the gate upon their following foes.
Mr. Chapman's mission-station (from which he was absent) was outside of the pah, and was ruthlessly plundered.
Mr. Knight, who lived there, went to Waharoa's camp to complain. The successful warriors had just returned laden with their booty, and with sixty bodies for their feast. But for the humane intervention of Waharoa's son, Tarapipipi (afterwards
When the Ngatihaua had robbed the mission-station, the Arawa completed the destruction by burning the buildings.
Waharoa was so enraged at the partial failure of his stratagem that he challenged his blundering lieutenant. The fight with long tomahawks had been commenced, when the surrounding chiefs burst in between the combatants.
After the usual feasting of several days, Waharoa returned with the preserved heads of his victims.
Messrs. Chapman and Wilson visited the deserted camp in the end of the month, and described it as “a valley of bones, the bones of men still green with flesh, hideous to look upon.”
Fighting was afterwards carried on between the tribes, but the conversion of some of the people to Christianity retarded the war. At Tauranga Waharoa was seized with erysipelas. The missionaries, Wilson and Brown, visited him and found him still implacable. He was carried to Matamata, and died there in 1839.
It was palpable that in asking for missionaries, the bloodthirsty Waharoa had in view the material advantages which might follow education. The Rev.
Tarapipipi, the son of Waharoa, was to be an example to governors and to legislators. As the Warwick or king-maker of New Zealand, his name will ever live in Maori history, and will frequently appear in these pages. At present it is sufficient to say, that though he accompanied his father in the expedition to Rotorua in 1836, he nevertheless saved the terrified Mr. Knight from bodily harm. When the missionaries withdrew from
Before these events occurred the first apostle of the Maoris had passed away.
In 1837
The captain of the ship which landed him at Hokianga recorded, in a letter which has been made public, the calm cheerfulness with which he bore intense suffering and displayed unabated “pious zeal in his Master's cause.”
The Maoris thronged around him with fervent affection. At Waimate a thousand were gathered together. One chief was rebuked by a bystander for his persistent and fixed gaze upon the old man's face. “Suffer me,”he said. “Let me take a last look. I shall never see him again.”
He could no longer ride on horseback, and the Maoris, proud of their office, bore him long distances in a litter. When he would have striven to ride a horse prepared for him, Waka Nene opposed the idea, declaring that he would leave the party unless
Again with
Titore was making war upon
But within the mission sphere (Mrs. Williams wrote in her Diary) “the dear old gentleman was delighted”with what he saw.
Captain Hobson, of H.M.S. ‘Rattlesnake,’ calling at Kororarika, gave him a passage in his ship, and he left some days before Williams succeeded in making the peace of which the tidings reached him in Sydney. Soon afterwards he passed away, in his seventy-fourth year, amidst the veneration of all who knew him, and was buried at Paramatta, a place familiar to the many Maoris who at various times had been his guests.
The Church Missionary Society recorded their “deep respect for his personal character, and gratitude to the great Head of the Church who raised, and who so long preserved, this distinguished man for the good of his own and of future generations. … While he omitted no duty of his proper ministerial calling, his comprehensive mind quickly embraced the vast spiritual interests, till then well-nigh entirely unheeded, of the innumerable islands of the Pacific Ocean…. It is to his visits to New Zealand, begun twenty-five years ago and often since repeated, and to his earnest appeals on behalf of that people, that the commencement and consolidation of the Society's missions in the Northern Island are to be attributed.”
Such was the witness borne to the character of the “good and faithful servant,”the apostle of New Zealand. Among other tributes to his memory, a few Maoris, who had never seen
In 1838 the Maori mission had advanced to the stage of having Maori teachers; and the first Bishop of Australia, Dr.
The differences of opinion between
Letter from Rev. H. Williams to Rev. E. G. Marsh, 4th September, 1831. ‘Life of
Each had reason on his side, but not all reason. Both were constrained to acknowledge the marvellous manner in which distant communities had been drawn to Christianity by the labours of the boy-slave, Matahau, the once unconsidered pupil at Paihia.
The acquisition of land by the missionaries, which was to give rise in later time to much ill-feeling between them and the
The condition of a married missionary may be gathered from the foregoing pages. He had gone without scrip or purse to cast his lot amongst his hoped-for pupils.
Savage as were the Maoris in some respects, there was yet a nobility amongst them less corrupting than the vices of the abandoned white men gathered at Kororarika.
The children of a missionary, if they were to be brought up with a view to intellectual culture, would need provision. The Society, to avert absolute want, contributed the sum of £10 a year with food for each child until the age of fifteen years, when a final gift of £50 was to determine the obligation.
The missionaries proposed that the Society should, to secure for each child the means of living, purchase for it two hundred acres. In 1830 the Society resolved to do so on condition that if the beneficiary child should die without attaining the age of twenty-five years the land should revert to the Society, but otherwise be the absolute property of the child.
The missionaries shrunk from the risk. Labour on land liable to forfeiture might be the ploughing of sand. The sweat of their children might fertilize the field of the stranger. They preferred to buy from their own resources on behalf of their children, and to place them on the land as they became capable of using it.
The Society did not discountenance the proceeding, and between the years 1833 and 1837,
The sagacious Bishop of Australia, Dr. Broughton, warned the missionaries, at the time, of the necessity for caution in their procedure. He did not condemn the acquisition of land for their children. “It was not only a natural feeling, but your bounden duty to provide for them as the country itself should enable you. This was a part of that support which the foresight and goodness of God had placed within your reach, and a man who did not avail himself of it fairly and to a reasonable extent
Sir An exception may perhaps be made with regard to Dr. J. D. Lang, whose assertions are never to be believed because he makes them. Sailing to England he touched at New Zealand in January, 1839. Arriving in England he found the New Zealand Land Company actively at work. The ‘Tory’ had sailed with the first expeditionary band. Lang addressed four letters to Lord Durham as Chairman of the Company. He urged that the Company ought to make way for a national Colony. He animadverted upon Marsden's plan of civilizing before evangelizing; and upon the “inefficiency and moral worthlessness”of the mission. He declared that the Church missionaries had actually been the “principals in the grand conspiracy of the European inhabitants to rob and plunder the natives of their land,”and that their abuse of their position constituted “one of the grossest breaches of trust witnessed for a century past.”The letters were published by Lang in London. One singular fact Williams could not be aware of in 1840. Dr. Lang, in his second letter (to prove his moral worth to Lord Durham) said of himself: “I deemed it my bounden duty as a minister of the Gospel, whose own hands must be clean in bearing the vessels of the Lord, never to become the owner of a single head”of sheep or cattle. It became public in 1841 that some time previously the Presbyterian body desired to effect an exchange of land with Sir John Jamison in Sydney; Jamison agreed. Lang succeeded in getting the conveyance made, not to the church of which he was the minister and trustee, but to himself. He obtained loans of public money for building a college, and erected the buildings on the land thus wrongfully conveyed to himself. He was living in 1841 in one of the houses built on the land. This transaction by one who told Lord Durham in 1839 that he knew it was his duty to keep his own hands clean was brought to light by a Select Committee of the New South Wales Legislative Council in 1841. It is amusing to observe that he volunteered an opinion that if New Zealand were colonized “there would be no necessity for a body of troops to protect the colonists.”Ungenerous himself, he was unable to see why the lives of the missionaries were safe in New Zealand.
Two large claims excited much unfavourable comment. The Rev.
This exceptional purchase was made in 1836, when
Having consulted Patuone, the Ngapuhi chief, he and Mr. Fairburn made overtures to the men of Waikato. After interviews with the great
The magnitude of the purchase was pointed at as proving the mercenary character of the missionaries, but the man who made the bargain derived no profit from it. When it was impugned Fairburn offered to retain a third of the land, and give the other two-thirds in equal portions to the Church Missionary Society, and in trust for Maori purposes. The Government declined the offer. They held that the land did not belong to the Maoris, who had sold it; and that it could not remain with the buyer except upon such terms as the Government thought fit to impose. Commissioners cut the claim down to less than four thousand acres, and the Government, without payment, appropriated the remainder. The other claims were not put forward as made upon necessity to prevent war, and were for the most part made for children of missionaries; but they were impugned and defended in a manner hereafter to be told.
When Dr. Broughton, Bishop of Australia visited New Zealand in 1838, in H.M.S. ‘Pelorus,’ he was accompanied by
Before describing those important events it will be well to state briefly the condition of the missions of the Church of England and other bodies.
The Wesleyans, having been driven from Whangaroa in 1827, soon afterwards formed a station at Hokianga. There was no antagonism between them and The kindly feeling was reciprocal. When
In 1838, the arrival of a Roman Catholic Bishop, Dr. Pompallier, fluttered the Protestant bodies, who saw in the invocations and images of the Romish Church a dangerous similarity to the Maori cult of various deities and the venerated heitiki or green-stone image which was worn on the breast or suspended on the carved ancestors of the Maoris in their tribal “whārĕs”or great houses.
Moreover, he followed closely on the heels of De Thierry, who was believed to have designs of establishing a French settlement; and as all Pompallier's aiding priests were French the suspicion increased on his arrival.
The Frenchmen also hotly plunged into polemics. They denounced the English missionaries as wolves, and adulterers (because they had wives); and confident in their logical adroitness invited open discussion, from which, when they encountered
A summary of the results of the English missions is to be found in words addressed to the Church Mission Society in 1841, by
William Williams, writing from Turanga, was able to say that the idols were cast away, swords converted into ploughshares, animosities between distant tribes abandoned, and local quarrels settled by arbitration.
Mr. Hadfield, on the west coast, reported in 1840 that on the field of Matahau's labour if he had five thousand Maori Testaments he could not keep one of them a fortnight.
Lest the witness of workmen in the field should be ascribed to
Here also may be stated conspicuously that the manumission of slaves, at first special, soon became general; and all the chiefs of the land left themselves shorn of that forced labour by which their forefathers had cultivated it.
Unlike the abolition of slavery in England and America, where slave-owners lost by compulsion all property in their fellowcreatures, the emancipation of Maoria was voluntary on the part of every hereditary master. Such an act of self-sacrifice may be almost called sublime, and will perhaps outweigh in the judgment of the All-wise the memory of many Maori sins to which a fellow-creature would refuse forgiveness. It was an act fruitful in effects upon the emancipated, for by Maori law, as by the Roman jus postliminium, he who returned, by whatsoever manner, to his former home was invested with all his former rights.
Chapter iv.
Te Pehi.
Te Pehi.
Though as a people the Maoris had welcomed the Gospel of peace, there was no abatement of the corruption which they suffered from the lawless Europeans congregated at Kororarika, and other parts of the coast.
In 1836, a Select Committee of the House of Commons reported upon the horrors revealed to it. One of them involved not only the chief Rauparaha but the master of a British vessel.
Te Pehi, the uncle of Rauparaha, soon after Hongi's revolting successes with his fire-arms, thirsted to emulate them. Seeing a vessel in Cook's Straits he approached her with three canoes. The crew prepared to encounter the savages. Te Pehi rose, and in broken English tried to show that his aim was peaceful. He sprung upon the deck of the ‘Urania,’ and ordered his countrymen to retire. He demanded fire-arms. When they were refused, he said he would go to England to see King George. The captain ordered men to throw him overboard, but Te Pehi clung so tightly to two ring-bolts that without such violence as the captain was loth to use, it was impossible to tear Te Pehi from his hold. When the struggle was over Te Pehi motioned to his followers and they returned to the shore. Though the captain afterwards strove to land Te Pehi he was unable to do so.
The Maori became popular in the ‘Urania,’ and at Monte Video plunged into the sea and rescued the drowning captain, who had fallen overboard. The rescued man was kind, and when Te Pehi was ill at Liverpool, called in a physician. Dr. Traill was much struck by the chief's intelligence, and succeeded
In 1830, Rauparaha, thirsting for revenge, hired a scoundrel named Stewart, commanding the brig ‘Elizabeth,’ 236 tons, to convey Raupahara and several scores of armed followers to Banks' Peninsula. Some difficulty in tracing the occurrence arises from the fact that in 1831 there were three or four vessels named ‘Elizabeth’ trading at Sydney.
There is reason to believe that Stewart's villainy required little solicitation from Rauparaha.
The ‘Elizabeth’ arrived at Sydney in July, and in August Stewart sailed for New Zealand with a cargo adapted to his future deeds. A newspaper described it as “four cases and eighteen muskets; two kegs flints and bullets; two bales slops, two kegs gunpowders, one bundle hardware, five baskets tobacco and stores.”The ‘Elizabeth’ carried eight guns, two swivels, and an ample supply of small arms. Parliamentary Papers, 1838.
Stewart's hire was a few tons of flax. Attempts have been made to exculpate Stewart and charge Rauparaha with deceiving him. In 1880 under the title of ‘Scenes from the Life of John Marmon,’ a low Pakeha Maori, who was living in the North Island in 1830, a very garbled account was given of Stewart's exploit. But the facts can be drawn incontrovertibly from authentic sources. Marmon was a convicted thief before he went to New Zealand. It was one of the weak points in the Maori character that many such ruffians were patronized by chiefs. As Pakeha Maoris, the clients bred infinite mischief. They shrunk from no atrocity.
Arriving at Pigeon Bay, in Banks' Peninsula, Rauparaha remained in the hold of the vessel with his men, and sent Stewart on shore to beguile the principal chief Maranui. Anticipating danger from Rauparaha, and knowing that the ‘Elizabeth’ had been at Kapiti, Maranui asked whether any Maoris were on board. Stewart lied to him; and at last, on promise of
In the cabin Maranui was suddenly seized, with the active assistance of Stewart, his mate, and crew. Most of the visitors, with others who subsequently arrived on board, were slaughtered.
Maranui, his wife, and daughter were reserved for a severer fate. He was ironed and so brutally bound that wounds and mortification ensued.
At night, Rauparaha emerged with his army from the womb of the fatal ship, which, like another Sinon, the perjured Stewart had persuaded the Ngaitahu to trust.
Maranui's village, unprepared for resistance, was surprised, its inmates were indiscriminately slaughtered, and their dwellings burnt. It was rumoured that Stewart and his men aided Rauparaha even in this atrocity. The white ruffian allowed the dark savage to carry the remains of the victims on board, and the orgies of cannibalism were perpetrated in the ship. Human flesh was in baskets, and was cooked, with the white savage's permission, in the vessel's galley. Maranui not only knew what was done, but endured the insulting mockery of his captors. Defiant of any pain to himself he rescued his child from torture. At a sign from him the wife (whose hands were free) strangled her willing daughter to save her from worse evils. For this Maranui was made the victim of terrible torture in Stewart's presence; but he gave none of his tormentors satisfaction by showing sign of pain. There was a rugged triumph in his scorn. His daughter was rescued from shame. His fortitude baffled his torturers. The unhappy wife survived to suffer all that savage hatred could inflict upon her at Kapiti. Three of Maranui's brothers were among the slain.
When the ‘Elizabeth’ returned to Kapiti, Mr. Montefiore, a merchant, was there in a vessel of his own with which he had intended to visit the coast. Montefiore gave evidence before a Select Committee. “Expecting that the whites would be slaughtered”(in revenge for Stewart's brutality), Montefiore “was obliged to take refuge”in the ‘Elizabeth,’ in order to return in her to Sydney. Maranui was on board, Stewart retaining him as a hostage “until the charter-party was finally arranged.”Montefiore testified that when the promised flax was not paid
It is permissible to check Montefiore's evidence by other facts. “On my arrival in Sydney (he says) I related the circumstances, and they tried, the captain.”Governor Darling wrote to Lord Goderich (13th April) that Mr. Gordon Browne “first brought the matter under notice.”Moreover, the captain was never tried, though Montefiore may have left Sydney under the impression that he would be tried. The many conflicting and erroneous statements as to the prosecution of Stewart, made it necessary for me to trace the facts carefully, and to be satisfied with nothing less than a record made by an officer of the Supreme Court. Montefiore avers that Stewart did not receive his hire. This may be true; or although false it may have been asserted by Stewart. It is absolutely true that the ‘Australian’ newspaper recorded the arrival of the ‘Elizabeth’ in Sydney, 14th January, 1831, with thirty tons of flax, Stewart being master, and Montefiore a passenger. It is probable that Maranui was held as security only till the flax was procured. In some narratives the chief is called Tamaiharanui. I have adhered to the name used in Governor Darling's despatches, and by Montefiore, who saw the chief surrendered to torture.afraid of our own lives while he was on board after his treatment.”Stewart “gave up Maranui
With his flax, and Montefiore, and another passenger, Stewart arrived in Sydney in January, 1831, and it was not from Montefiore that the Governor heard what had been done.
Mr. Gordon Browne brought the facts under notice early in February, and the Governor wrote (13th April): “I lost not
Stewart was detained on bail, and retained the able Dr. Wardell to defend him. All witnesses were spirited away, and it was vainly hoped that the Governor would release Stewart.
In the end of March another white ruffian, master of the ‘Prince of Denmark,’ arrived with human heads for sale, and Darling, who was warned by Mr. Gordon Browne of the new atrocity, was in no humour to make the ways easy for such criminals. He fulminated (16th April) his order declaring that it was his “imperative duty to take strong measures for totally suppressing the inhuman traffic”which masters and crews of vessels were promoting.
Stewart's vessel went to sea under another master. Darling feared that the legal proceedings would be ineffectual in the absence of witnesses, but he kept Stewart in suspense as long as possible. Dr. Wardell complained bitterly of the detention. Had Stewart been tried, the counsel for the Crown might have contrasted the mildness of his treatment with that he inflicted upon the fettered chief.
On the 13th April a chief, accompanied by a nephew of Maranui, waited on the Governor to urge that something should be done by England to stay the hands of her unworthy sons.
The well-disposed English in New Zealand also informed the Governor that they feared “that their lives would be made answerable for the proceedings of their countrymen.”
Darling, still holding the ruffian Stewart to bail, told the Secretary of State that he would “immediately send a person to New Zealand in the character of resident, On the 4th June Governor Darling wrote: “It is my intention to employ Captain Sturt at New Zealand, should there be no objection on his part.… It is an object to conciliate and keep the New Zealanders in good humour, and Captain Sturt's disposition and character gave him the best chance of succeeding with them.”On the 7th September, 1831, Darling having heard of the appointment of his successor (gazetted in London in April) wrote: “I shall not venture to proceed with the arrangements notified in my despatch with respect to New Zealand.”Captain Sturt devoted his energies and fine disposition to the cause of exploration in Australia. It is possible that if Darling had remained, and Sturt had been put in authority at New Zealand some evils might have been averted.
The “barbarous traffic”in heads, the Governor designated as an incentive to war. It was “infinitely more disgusting than slavery, which may be considered a branch of it, and which it would certainly have the effect of promoting;… (it would increase) the desire to obtain prisoners, who, instead of being kept as slaves to be employed in the service of their captors, would, to a certain extent, be immolated as victims to this new and detestable commerce.”
While the Governor's gallant despatch was on the way to England, his term of office was closing, and his successor was appointed.
It would seem that the law officers were remiss in permitting witnesses to leave the colony. The Imperial statute constituting the Supreme Court of the colony (9 Geo. IV. cap. 83) gave express power to deal with such offences as that of Stewart. His trial was to take place in May. The Sydney ‘Gazette’ spoke of the case as peculiar, because it involved “the question of the liability of British subjects for offences committed against the natives of New Zealand.”The ‘Australian’ (controlled by Dr. Wardell) could not “divine the justice of denouncing Stewart as amenable to laws, which, however strict and necessary under certain circumstances, were
No criminal was ever without a criminal apologist, and the Governor was almost alone in seeking to wipe off the foul blot with which Stewart's immunity could not but stain the English name.
When the case, Rex v. Stewart, was called (on the 21st May), the law officer was not ready to proceed on the original information, but intended to proceed upon another for a misdemeanour (on the 23rd May). Wardell at once applied for the discharge of Stewart's recognizances, but the Court refused. On the 23rd May the Crown Solicitor announced that he abandoned the charge of misdemeanour and intended to proceed on the information already filed as soon as the witnesses should be forthcoming.
Dr. Wardell protested against the hardship of “holding Stewart to bail in the sum of £2000 for an indefinite period,”and again strove to withdraw the recognizances. He objected to “skipping first from a charge of murder to a misdemeanour, and then to murder back again;”but the Court refused to discharge the bail, allowing the matter to be brought forward for reconsideration.
Accordingly a rule was granted for hearing Wardell's application. The law officers did not satisfy the Court that the criminal ought to be detained, and on the 20th June, 1831, he was “discharged on his own recognizance in the sum of £1000.”
Various works, usually trustworthy, have repeated an erroneous statement made to a Select Committee in 1836—viz. that Stewart was tried in Sydney. Evidence before House of Commons Select Committee, 12th February, 1836. “On the trial there was no evidence which could convict the captain.', “He was tried before the Supreme Court in Sydney.”‘Story of New Zealand’: Dr. Thomson. As to Stewart's fate Montefiore told the Committee that he understood that Stewart “met his death by being washed off his ship coming round Cape Horn.”Dr. Thomson records as the result of personal inquiry “that he dropped dead reeking of rum”off Cape Horn, and was “pitched overboard by his own crew with little ceremony and no regret.”Of the release of Stewart in Sydney it was difficult to trace the facts as no newspaper recorded it, and the order of the Court could not be found at the Law Offices in 1881. The kindness of Mr. John Gurner, who not only kept the official records of the Court in 1831, but retained a rough copy made by himself at the time, put me in possession of the best possible evidence. Though ninety years old when applied to, Mr. Gurner was as quick and intelligent as ordinary men twenty-five years younger, and his courtesy was as signal.
It is some relief to know that, with the sanction of the missionary Hadfield (Bishop of Wellington in 1881), the son of Rauparaha went upon an expedition, eighteen years after the death of Maranui, to carry the Gospel to his decimated people.
Rife as were atrocities amongst the base English in 1831, the conduct of Stewart in making his ship a human shambles was deemed disgraceful. Archdeacon Broughton besought the Government to avert the cruel injury to which the aborigines in Australia and the islands were exposed.
The Committee of the House of Commons reported that through unexplained difficulties neither Stewart nor his accomplices were brought to justice. Those “who might have been witnesses were suffered to leave the country. Thus, then, we see that an atrocious crime, involving the murder of many individuals, has been perpetrated through the instrumentality of a British subject, and that yet neither he nor any of his accomplices have suffered any punishment.”
In 1832 Lord Goderich, the Secretary of State, wrote to Governor Bourke (who had succeeded Darling): “It is impossible to read without shame and indignation these details. The unfortunate natives of New Zealand, unless some decisive measures of prevention be adopted, will, I fear, be shortly added to the number of those barbarous tribes who in different parts of the globe have fallen a sacrifice to their intercourse with civilized men, who bear and disgrace the name of Christians.… There can be no more sacred duty than that of using every possible method to rescue the natives of these extensive islands from the further evils which impend over them, and to deliver
A Bill was introduced by Lord Howick into the House of Commons in 1832, to subject British stragglers to the restraints of law, “in islands situate in the Southern or Pacific Ocean, and not being within His Majesty's dominion;”but the House could not devise a satisfactory scheme, and the Bill lapsed after passing through committee. Mr. Burge pithily warned Lord Howick, on its introduction, that if the islands were within the king's dominions the Government could act without the new law, and that if they were not, the House could not legislate with respect to them. Lord Howick pleaded that Stewart's crimes in assisting murder and cannibalism on board a British ship had “escaped all punishment from the defect in the law.”Mr. Croker asked why crimes committed on board a British ship could not be punished, and Lord Howick could only repeat that there was no power to bring such miscreants before the New South Wales Courts. Lord Howick appears to have been ignorant that the English statute, 57 Geo. III. cap. 53, was passed in 1817 to meet such cases (New Zealand being specially mentioned in the statute), and that two statutes (4 Geo. IV. cap. 96, 1823; and 9 Geo. IV. cap. 83, 1828), gave special power to the Supreme Courts of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land to try such cases, New Zealand being named in each of the statutes.
Lord Howick's ineptitude about New Zealand affairs was tasked by Lord Granville Somerset in the same year. Asked what security there was for the person of the British Resident, the noble lord replied: “I understand there is a very amicable intercourse between New South Wales and New Zealand.”
The intention of Governor Darling to appoint a Resident was not lost upon the British Government, whose proceedings were
The Maoris preferred the friendship of the English, and thus petitioned the king, while a French man-of-war was cruising on their coast:
“We have heard that the tribe of Marion is at hand, coming to take away our land; therefore we pray thee to become our friend and the guardian of these islands, lest the annoyances of other tribes should touch us, and lest strangers should come and take away our land. And if any of thy people should be troublesome or vicious towards us (for some persons are living here who have run away from ships), we pray thee to be angry with them that they may be obedient, lest the anger of the people of this land fall upon them.”
Lord Goderich, in reply, did not allude to the French, but, in 1832, Despatch, Lord Glenelg, December, 1832, to Foreign Office.
An elaborate letter of instructions from Sir Richard Bourke to Busby, in 1833, proves that the British Government shrunk from proper responsibility. “You are aware,”he wrote, “that you cannot be clothed with any legal power or jurisdiction by virtue of which you might be enabled to arrest British subjects offending against British or Colonial law in New Zealand.”Circumstances had prevented an enactment to supply the defect. “You can therefore rely but little on the force of law, and must lay the foundation of your measures upon the influence you shall obtain over the native chiefs.”
Bourke expatiated upon the enormities committed by Europeans, especially commenting on the conduct of Stewart. He recommended Busby to confer with the missionaries as to his measures. Two things had been asked for by the chiefs:—the assumption of guardianship, and the coercion of lawless British vagabonds. With neither of these did Lord Goderich or Sir
Busby went to New Zealand in a man-of-war, and was not to blame for doing nothing, after having been officially told that there was nothing that he could do. In 1834 he purposed to establish a national flag for the New Zealanders. Sir R. Bourke sent three patterns. The chiefs selected one, which was publicly hoisted, and was saluted with twenty-one guns by H.M.S. ‘Alligator,’ on the 20th March, 1834.
Lord Aberdeen, as Secretary of State, approved of these proceedings. The chiefs sent an address to the King of England, thanking him for the acknowledgment of their flag, and asking for further recognition in return for the aid they always afforded to British subjects.
The English Government temporized, as though they hoped that the difficulty, if let alone, would settle itself. By some acts they had treated New Zealand as part of the British Empire. Governor Phillip's commission had always been interpreted as including New Zealand. In 1814, when
Soon after the saluting of the Maori flag It is described in W. B. Marshall's ‘Personal Narrative.’ London, 1836. It was white, with a St. George's cross; and in the upper corner on the left hand, a blue field with a red cross, and four white stars. Before the chiefs voted, one of them consulted Mr. Marshall, and took his advice as to his vote. The chosen flag received twelve votes; another ten; the third six. Two chiefs abstained from voting, apprehensive that some hidden danger lurked in the adoption of a flag.
Crossing to Port Nicholson, Guard took a passage thence to Sydney in the ‘Joseph Weller.’ and appealed to Sir R. Bourke to rescue the captives at Taranaki. The Moturoa chiefs were with him. It had been intended to call at Moturoa for Guard's brother and the eight surviving men, but the wind was adverse. Guard said, “The chiefs did not object to being brought to Port Jackson, but they would, I think, have preferred being landed at Moturoa.”He declared that while at the latter place he was several times “offered some of our own people's flesh to eat, which had been brought from the wreck in baskets.”
Guard was at once examined by Sir Richard Bourke and his Council. One of them (the Treasurer, Mr. C. D. Riddell) shrewdly suspected that the fighting between the crew and the natives had arisen from licentious quarrels, which the desertion of two of the crew implied, and which were afterwards ascertained. But the horror of the tale overbore Riddell's averment
Captain Lambert, on the 12th September, put an interpreter, with a companion, on shore at the Numa, a Ngatiruanui pah. They were instructed to say that he wished to avoid hostilities, but would give no ransom, and would employ force if necessary to recover the captives. Foul winds prevented the emissaries from regaining the ship until the 16th September. They had been in fear for their lives, and they had promised a cask of gunpowder as ransom for the woman and children.
The ‘Alligator’ proceeded to Moturoa, landed the Ngatiawa chiefs, and received all the shipwrecked sailors, with the exception of two who had absconded, and one of whom had been drowned in attempting to cross a river, while the other succeeded in reaching a missionary station at Kawhia. Captain Lambert refused to give the cask of gunpowder promised by Guard to the Ngatiawa.
On the 28th a military force was landed to attack the Numa pah. Two unarmed Maoris met the military. One of them addressed Guard familiarly and told him that the captives were well and would be surrendered for the promised ransom. The officer, who for the time represented the majesty of England, seized upon the astonished chief, O-o-hit, and, with assistance from Guard and others, dragged him to the boat, buffeting and pricking him with bayonets on the way. O-o-hit sprung overboard, was shot at, wounded, recaptured, and taken to the ship. The surgeon found ten wounds on the head, inflicted by armed men on an unarmed man who had met them confidingly on the strength of the promises of the interpreter.
Captain Lambert's account of the transaction was brief: “We fortunately secured the chief who had charge of Mrs. Guard; he was severely wounded in trying to make his escape from the boat.”
The natives fled from the Numa pah, and the military
During these events one of the Maoris, who had gone on board the ‘Alligator’ soon after her arrival, preserved a quiet demeanour. He was landed on the 30th at Waimate, in order that he might inform the tribe that O-o-hit's life was safe, but that he would “never be given up until Mrs. Guard and her children were restored.”
The Ngatiruanui were seen in great numbers, listening to harangues from their chiefs. On the 31st two boats were sent to the shore, and O-o-hit from one of them addressed his people, who, with signs of joy, conveyed Mrs. Guard and the youngest child in a canoe to the ‘Alligator's’ boat. Captain Lambert reported that as the wounded chief “had no power over the tribe who possessed the boy, I sent him on shore as I had promised.”There was much rejoicing and dancing on the shore in welcome of O-o-hit.
Lambert sent a lieutenant to ask for the other child, but he was “fired at from one of the pahs while waiting patiently outside the surf. Such treachery could not be borne, and I immediately commenced firing at them from the ship.”The Maoris hoisted a white flag, but the cannonade was continued for three hours. A chief was seen with the boy in one hand and waving a white flag with the other, but the fire was not slackened, and all the canoes within sight were destroyed. A westerly wind drove the ‘Alligator’ away, and she anchored in Port Hardy until the 5th October, when she bore off for Waimate. On the 6th the child was seen on the shore with his keepers. On the 7th a Maori went on board the ‘Alligator,’ and a message was sent to the effect that the holder of the child would take it on board if any of the officers would remain on shore as hostage for the chief's return. An officer volunteered, but Captain Lambert would not permit him to undertake a service deemed dangerous.
On the 8th a party of soldiers and marines were landed with Guard and his crew, and a six-pound carronade to bombard the pahs. While it was being drawn into position Maoris advanced.
A chief—carrying the child on his shoulders and followed by others, O-o-hit walking in the rear—came forward; while flags of truce were flying on both sides. Of the treatment he received there were various versions. The official narrative of the soldier indicated that the chief, being told that no ransom would be given, turned to go; that a sailor shot him; that the marines first, and then the soldiers from the height, poured a general fire upon the startled Maoris, without any order from Captain Johnson, who commanded the party. Afterwards, Johnson, thinking the natives hostile, advanced upon them and captured their pahs, one of which contained, in his opinion, about 200 huts
Captain Lambert reported to Governor Bourke that by four p.m. both pahs were taken, and the child on board, “without sustaining any loss, while that of the natives has been considerable,”and all their canoes were destroyed.
He did not report that the chief's head was cut off, and that on the following day the triumphant soldiers and marines amused themselves by kicking it to and fro.” Surgeon Marshall, who tells this tale, adds that the head was afterwards buried by himself and Lieutenants Clarke and Gunton, and that they “heaped over it a cairn of stones.”
“Thus, by their cruelty and obstinacy have these guilty tribes been most justly and severely punished,”was Captain Lambert's final commentary on the transactions, for their share in which he praised all concerned. He thought that “twenty to thirty natives”had been killed.
Sailing to Kapiti he found Rauparaha's followers “in considerable alarm,”and issued a notification (11 Oct.) that he had only avenged the “horrid murder of part of the crew of the ‘Harriet,’ and that the King of England was friendly to Maoris, but would punish offenders.”
He had, however, given an ill-name to his countrymen, not so much on the ground that he had taken life, as because the natives believed that he had broken his word as a “Rangatira,”or gentleman. They who cherished hatred against the French for generations, on account of the deeds of
When the facts became known in Sydney, the aged
The blood-stain at Taranaki roused horror at the Colonial Office. Mr. Marshall, A ‘Personal Narrative of Two Visits to New Zealand in His Majesty's ship “Alligator,”A. D. 1835.’ By
The breach of promise of ransom, the conversion of the head of the chief into a “tennis ball for the sport of private soldiers,”“the savage cannonading of two villages, crowded with a mixed multitude of men, women, and children,”… “the gratuitous and crowning cruelty of burning the habitations and consuming the provisions and fuel laid by in store for many coming months,”were told with horror.
The one redeeming feature was that when the child was seized while the English flag of truce was flying, and indiscriminate slaughter was commenced, “Ensign Wright Mr. Wright eventually left the army, and died more than forty years afterwards while holding the office of Sheriff at Melbourne. His numerous friends in Victoria may be gratified to read that in his youth he proved his humane disposition at personal risk. The man Guard remained in New Zealand, and acted as volunteer pilot in Cook's Straits for some years.
“Nothing,”Mr. Marshall wrote, “can justify so foul a deed of blood.”
When the ‘Alligator’ called at the Bay of Islands after her exploits at Taranaki, and when Mr. Marshall saw Maori congregations gathered to hear the preaching of the missionaries, he declared his inability to describe his feelings.
The contrast between what he had seen at Taranaki and what he saw at Paihia spurred him to cry out to his countrymen to aid the missionary work.
At the latter place he said, a “spectacle of greatest sublimity and most affecting interest is to be seen, week after week, of whole multitudes met together to make known their wants and weaknesses unto the God of the whole earth, and ‘laying aside all malice, and all guile and hypocrisies and envies, and all evil speakings.’”… These effects have, it is undeniable, been introduced by the introduction of Christianity among the savages of New Zealand.”
His concluding words were an appeal to Christian Englishmen to send a pastor to the western tribes, amongst whom he had seen a king's ship inflicting the wrongs he had described.
The publication of Marshall's narrative took place in the same year (1836) that the Select Committee Captain Lambert was examined by the Committee. He was unable to tell how the scuffle originated when the chief was wounded and dragged on board. He concluded that, when the other chief brought the child down one of the sailors fired the first shot, and then the general firing began' but he was not on shore himself. One man seized the child, and simultaneously another shot the chief. Lambert was shocked (he said) at the cutting off of the chief's head; but he did not explain his reticence on the subject in his report to Governor Bourke. Marshall also gave evidence before the Committee.
In 1838, the popular author William Howitt ‘Colonization and Christianity.’ William Howitt: London, 1838. ‘British Colonization of New Zealand’ (p. 42). Published for the New Zealand Association. London, 1837.
Mr. Busby availed himself of the presence of the ‘Alligator’ at the Bay of Islands in October, 1834, to enforce a decision against the chief Pomārĕ, who was alleged to have defrauded a runaway trader.
The man had a small schooner, and contracted for flax and timber with Pomārĕ. He sold the articles to ship-masters without paying Pomārĕ for them; and then, selling his schooner, decamped. Pomārĕ seized the schooner as security. The purchaser from the runaway urged Mr. Busby to resume the schooner under the ‘Alligator's’ guns. Busby without due inquiry demanded the schooner, and Pomārĕ laughed at him.
The ‘Alligator’ moved up the harbour to the promontory on which stood Pomārĕ's pah. Before opening fire upon the place negotiation was thought prudent.
The Revds. W. Williams and
On board, after a moment's hesitation, he went into the cabin undauntedly, and proved his case so clearly that the captain and Busby had no doubt about it. Pomārĕ agreed to leave it to the missionaries to decide what compensation he was to receive, and undertook to deliver the schooner on neceiving the amount.
It was found that he had been robbed of twenty pounds. Evidence before House of Commons of Rev.
Although Lord Howick had wished the House of Commons to believe that the British Resident would be in security at the Bay of the Islands, because there was a very amicable intercourse between New South Wales and New Zealand, Busby was to learn hard facts of a different kind.
In May, 1834, his house was attacked at night. Furniture was stolen. Shots were fired, and he was wounded by a splinter from his doorway. Armed men from ships in the harbour rushed to the scene, but the robbers had decamped.
Ten European residents in a written document demanded, for the future safety of their wives and families, that Busby would “bring the natives to a proper sense”by the fulfilment of a punishment “justly due to the crime committed.”If Busby should “decline from the character of the station”he occupied, he would cause them to “doubt the intention of the Government”in appointing him.
Busby informed them that the “extraordinary character”of their letter rendered it impossible to take further notice of it than to observe that the chiefs had “shown no want of a proper sense of the treatment to be observed to the representative government,”but had “hastened to express their abhorrence of the attack,”and promised to “use every means to bring to punishment the guilty parties.” After several years' residence in New Zealand, Busby seems to have misunderstood the warlike capability of the Maoris. He wrote (1837), “With regard to the number of troops which it might be necessary to maintain, I think it would require but little knowledge of military tactics to satisfy any one who has witnessed anything of the warfare of the natives, that one hundred soldiers would be an overmatch for the united force of the whole islands.”There was probably no Maori who had such “little knowledge of military tactics”as Busby (‘N. Z. P. P., F. No. 3’, p. 66).
In October the offender, Reti, was discovered. With a guard of seventy armed men Titore brought him forward to stand his
H.M.S. ‘Alligator’ was at the Bay of Islands (after her exploits at Taranaki), and Captain Lambert attended at a meeting of chiefs and others in front of Busby's house, which lasted three hours. Lambert complimented the missionaries on their endeavours, and left them to settle the business.
The chiefs declared that they could not punish Reti unless he confessed his crime. When he did so, some suggested that he should be shot on the spot, but eventually—the counsels of Titore prevailing—the proposal of the missionaries was adopted.
In 1835, Busby felt called upon to denounce the project of De Thierry, who had arrived at Tahiti in August, and had issued a proclamation styling himself “Charles, Baron de Thierry, Sovereign Chief of New Zealand, and King of Nuhuheva,”one of the Marquesas Islands. The pretender promised to be gracious to the missionaries and others under his sway.
Busby called a meeting of the chiefs to consider the crisis. It is probable that Captain Lambert's exploits at Taranaki conduced to persuade them. Several assembled. With Busby's concurrence they declared (28 October) their independence, under the name of the United Tribes of New Zealand; declared that within their territory all sovereign power and authority resided entirely and exclusively in the hereditary chiefs and heads of tribes collectively, and that a Congress should meet in each autumn to make laws; invited the southern tribes to join their confederation; and entreated the King of England to be their Protector against all attempts upon their independence, promising friendly offices towards all British subjects. With Busby's aid it was understood that laws would be made. In rural districts a chief and a European sheriff were to administer the laws, and a mixed force of Maoris and Pakehas was to be formed to support authority.
Thus fortified, Busby wrote (30 October) to De Thierry to “defeat his enterprise.”He denied De Thierry's title, and sent
The pretender replied (in 1836) that New Zealand was not a British possession, that
Of this letter he sent a copy to the Governor (Bourke) in New South Wales. In 1837 he found his way to Sydney, and offered to lay down his sovereign title if Bourke would guarantee “protection”to him. Bourke declined. Would Bourke like to see him protected under the French or American flags? Certainly not.
Such was De Thierry's record in his autobiography. Bourke wrote in September, 1837, to Lord Glenelg: “I have not considered it my duty to interpose any obstacle to his proceeding to New Zealand, of which country he claims to be a chief by right of purchase. He denies all intention of prejudicing the interests of Great Britain, and professes a reliance upon moral influence alone for the authority he expects to acquire.”
Nevertheless, De Thierry issued a bombastic “Address to the white residents”at New Zealand, saying: “I go to govern,… but I neither go as an invader or a despot.”He gathered a motley crew in Sydney, and (leaving his tutor there suffering from delirium trcmens) landed in his own delirium at Hokianga, 4th November, 1837, to ascend his throne, having ninety-three followers. He found one European who was willing to vacate his premises on receiving £2000. The Baron had not the money. The white residents at Hokianga sneered at his pretensions. The Maoris called him a pretender—King Pukanoa —a king unauthorized. But they took pity on him, while they smiled at his claims. They consulted with the missionaries as to what should be done to rescue his ragged crew from want.
Waka Nene and other chiefs met him at Otararau. They acknowledged the receipt of a few axes from Kendall, and pointed out a section of two or three hundred acres as the equivalent. His retinue joined in jeering him. There seemed
Captain Fitzroy, R.N., was examined before a Committee of the House of Lords in 1838, and scouted De Thierry's claim. Nevertheless, when the French Bishop, Pompallier, arrived at Hokianga, in 1838, there was an uneasy feeling amongst European residents lest the frail flag of the Baron should be changed for the lilies of France.
Other French ships were soon seen in New Zealand waters, and public opinion gravitated to a belief that unless England should anticipate her, France would lay claim to the islands.
The distressed Baron meanwhile eked out a miserable subsistence, nursing his hopes, and occasionally receiving letters from France which he described as flattering but long delayed.
While his wild and weak scheme was exhaling into the air a more serious effort demanded the attention of the English Government. One of the most subtle brains of the time was busy to compel colonization. Dr. Thomson, in his ‘Story of New Zealand,’ calls him “the notorious
The shadow of a social disgrace had been upon him, and when he propounded his ideas in his ‘Letter from Sydney’ (edited by Robert Gouger), he kept his name from view. In 1830 he caused the formation of a Colonization Society, but still he laid no claim to the parentage of his theories. In 1831 and 1834 he formed associations for colonizing South
By degrees the founder of the new philosophy was recognized, and privately and publicly his powerful voice and pen prevailed.
In 1837 a New Zealand Association was formed. Mr. Francis Baring was chairman. Lord Durham, Mr. Hawes, Sir
Lord Glenelg was not unwilling to grant to such an Association a charter of colonization, which would protect the inhabitants or chiefs whose “free consent”was requisite. The charter was to be for a limited term, and the Queen was to have a right to disallow all local enactments, and a veto on the nomination of all functionaries. The area of the settlement was to be limited. No contract for land was to be valid unless sanctioned by the Crown, and ample participation of the proceeds of land-sales was in all contracts to be secured for religious and scholastic instruction of the Maoris. Certain subscribed capital, with a definite paid proportion, was to precede the assumption of any authority under the charter.
Lord Durham took exception to the last condition. The Association wished “neither to run any pecuniary risk nor reap any pecuniary advantage.”
On this and other grounds the negotiations were abandoned. The Association asked whether the Government would oppose
At this juncture Lord Durham withdrew his own and
The New Zealand Association was not idle although its high-priest was for a time withdrawn. Out of the efforts the time grew also a small Company (the Manukau and Waitemata) whose course and termination may be told hereafter.
A Select Committee of the House of Lords took evidence on New Zealand affairs. In April, 1838, Neti, a Maori who had gone to France in a French whaler with the hope (ungratified) of seeing Louis Philippe, gave evidence. Vanity perhaps made him profess to be of higher rank as a chief than he was entitled to. In England he lived with Mr.
In June, 1838, Mr. Francis Baring obtained leave to bring in a bill for founding a British colony in New Zealand. The first reading was carried by seventy-four votes against twenty-three, the Government not opposing it.
On the 20th June, Sir
The bill was thrown out by ninety-two votes against thirty-two, but the promoters worked unceasingly to effect their purpose, and
The secretary of the Church Missionary Society, Mr. Dandeson Coates, also incurred the wrath of the Association by opposing their scheme as fraught with danger to the Maori race.
The disallowance of Lord Durham's Ordinance in Canada, and his abandonment by the Melbourne Ministry, terminated his Canadian career, and
Though Lord Glenelg was not a man to initiate a decided policy, Wakefield drove him onward step by step.
In December, 1838, he consulted the Foreign Office. Busby's appointment as Resident under the control of the Government of New South Wales had proved inoperative. The objects of the chiefs who, as united tribes, had sought England's protection when alarmed at De Thierry's pretensions, had not been attained. The autumnal meetings of chiefs had not been held. Lord Glenelg was of opinion that order might be “more effectually attained by the appointment of a British Consul to reside at New Zealand.”Lord Palmerston, Foreign Secretary, concurred, but it was not until August, 1839, that the appointment was made.
Captain Hobson, R.N., who had been sent by Governor Bourke to New Zealand in 1837, with H.M.S. ‘Rattlesnake,’ had suggested, with the approval of Sir Richard Bourke, that
Mr. Busby, in 1836 and 1837, had officially advocated a British protectorate, and a Commission to settle titles to land, and to “declare void all purchases”of which sufficient notice had not been given to the Government, “in order that the real proprietors of the land might be ascertained.”Busby's letter, and Captain Hobson's, were published in London in 1838, with ‘Introductory Observations, by S. Hinds, D.D.,’ “one of the Council of the New Zealand Association.”
The resourceful Wakefield, early in 1839, constructed a new engine. He formed a New Zealand Company, of which he made Lord Durham Governor, and Mr. Joseph Somes Deputy-Governor. Members of Parliament were among the Directors, and, though Wakefield's name did not appear, it was well understood that many documents signed by Somes were written by Wakefield. For him the opposition of the Colonial Office and of the Church Mission Society had no terrors.
The Government position was illogical. It had claimed New Zealand through Cook's discoveries, and had saluted a Maori national flag. It had appointed magistrates at the Bay of Islands in 1814, and had subsequently declared that New Zealand was “not within His Majesty's dominions.”It passed a law in 1817 to punish crimes committed in New Zealand. It had in 1832 appointed a Resident without power, and in 1838 had resolved to appoint a Consul.
The omission of New Zealand from the islands under the
Lord Memorandum sent to Lord Palmerston. Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons, 1840, vol. xxxiii. Lord John accepted a contrary opinion afterwards, but he was ever ready to modify an opinion for a party purpose.
It was to no purpose that Lord Normanby declined to receive a deputation from the new company if the “rejected offer of 1838”was to be claimed as a pledge. With the names of the men he had put in front of him, Wakefield could afford to be bold. He scorned the dilatory tricks of officialism. The new company assumed to combine the interests of its predecessors in 1825 and 1837. Presumptive titles to land bought in the former year might be used as a fulcrum or a stand-point. A capital of £100,000 was paid up, and a hundred thousand acres of land in New Zealand were sold in London before a title to one had been acquired. They who paid money drew lots for sections unknown of lands which the company was about to seek.
In April, 1839, the ship ‘Tory’ was prepared to sail with the first instalment of the company's settlers. Colonel Wakefield a brother, and
Introductory letters to Governors of colonies were solicited at the Colonial Office. Lord Normanby was taken by surprise. He would neither give the letters nor sanction, directly or indirectly, any effort to buy lands and establish a system of government independent of the authority of the Crown. He wished it to be “further understood that no pledge can be given for the future recognition of Her Majesty of any proprietary titles to land within New Zealand which the company or any other persons may obtain by grant or by purchase from the natives.”It was probable that the Queen would be “advised to take measures without delay to obtain cession in sovereignty”of lands occupied by British subjects in the islands.
If the Secretary of State hoped thus to arrest
Before divulging his schemes to the public Wakefield sent his first ship, the ‘Tory,’ to New Zealand, under the control of his brother, Colonel William Wakefield, who received elaborate instructions for his guidance. He was to be philanthropic and just. If his conduct had been conformable to his ostensible instructions the history of New Zealand would have shown a fairer page. Neither he nor his employers regarded them.
There was a rumour that the government might stay the departure of the ‘Tory.’
He enclosed a prospectus of the “New Zealand Land Company”for whom he wrote. They had already purchased “very extensive tracts of land.”The pioneer vessel (the ‘Tory’) now on the seas was to purchase more, “in eligible spots.”
A society had been formed, in immediate dependence on the company, with a view to prompt settlement of numerous families in New Zealand. The prospectus issued by this last society showed that the “first colony was to depart in a body during August next.”The authority of Lord Durham, the reputed framer of the Reform Bill, the son-in-law of Lord Grey, the hope of advanced reformers, could not be waved aside. Sir
The manœuvre by which the despatch of the ‘Tory’ was effected had shaken the ramparts of the Colonial Office.
On the 13th June, the Colonial Office, by the pen of Mr. Stephen, intimated that “circumstances appeared to the Marquis of Normanby and to Viscount Palmerston to force English Parliamentary Papers, 1840, vol. xxxiii.
On the 15th June, Her Majesty extended the boundaries of New South Wales, so as to include such portions of New Zealand as the Crown might acquire; and on the 30th July, the office of Consul, of which Hobson was to have been the holder, was expanded into that of a Lieutenant-Governor. Lord Normanby frankly told him “that circumstances entirely beyond the control of the Government had compelled them to alter their course, and that they departed from it with extreme reluctance.'
On the 14th August, Hobson received his instructions.
Meanwhile, to every applicant for information from England, Ireland, or Scotland, Lord Normanby and Lord
Lord J. Russell wrote to the chairman, Mr. G. F. Young, for a copy of the document, in order to obtain the opinion of the law officers as to its legality. After delay and much correspondence the document was forwarded with a letter, explaining that the company had meantime been advised that the agreement was unlawful, and had instructed their principal agent that he ought to assist Captain Hobson in establishing British authority.
With this assurance the Minister expressed his satisfaction, though he knew that the bold company openly prosecuted their schemes; and that deluded settlers were drawing lots in London for selection of New Zealand lands, which the Company affected to be able to sell. But Governors in ships of war did
The Marquis of Normanby's instructions (14th August) declared that the Government concurred with a Committee of the House of Commons (1836) “in thinking that the increase of national wealth and power, promised by the acquisition of New Zealand, would be a most inadequate compensation for the injury which must be inflicted on this kingdom itself, by embarking in a measure essentially unjust, and but too certainly fraught with calamity to a numerous and inoffensive people whose title to the soil and to the sovereignty of New Zealand is indisputable, and has been solemnly recognized by the British Government.”
The gathering together of lawless Europeans, some of whom were British convicts, the outrages and crime of which they were alternately the authors and victims, compelled the Government reluctantly to intervene. “To mitigate, and if possible to avert, these disasters, and to rescue the immigrants themselves from the evils of a lawless state of society, it has been resolved to adopt the most effective measures for establishing amongst them a settled form of civil government. To accomplish this design is the principal object of your mission.”
He was to treat with the natives for “the recognition of Her Majesty's sovereign authority over the whole or any parts of those islands which they may be willing to place under Her Majesty's dominion.”The task was difficult, and might excite Maori suspicions. Lord Normanby trusted that Hobson would “find powerful auxiliaries amongst the missionaries who have won and deserved the confidence of the natives, and amongst the older British residents who have studied their character and acquired their confidence.”
Hobson was to induce the Maoris to contract with him not to cede in future any land “except to the Crown of England,”and
There were copious instructions on other matters, and the Marquis concluded by saying: “Aware how powerful a coadjutor and how able a guide you will have in Sir
When these instructions became known in England, the New Zealand Company invited Lord Palmerston's attention (7th Nov. 1839) to the danger of admitting the independence of the Maoris in a land which Captain
In reply Mr. Somes was informed, on the authority of Lord
It was true, nevertheless, that public attention in France was directed to the colonization of the islands; and the complicity of the French Government in the enterprise of a French company will be established in a subsequent page.
Colonel Wakefield took with him in the ‘Tory’ the young Maori, Neti, already mentioned.
The instructions which
Colonel Wakefield was to be frank with the natives, and to make no bargain without taking care that all the owners of the land were “approving parties,”and that each should receive his due share of purchase-money. No negotiation was to be completed till “thoroughly understood by the native proprietors and by the tribe at large.”
The company would sell in England orders for “land (say 100 acres each)… and one-tenth of these land orders will be reserved The reserves were to be “equal to one-tenth of the whole.”The art of a company's necessities is strange. It was afterwards contended that the reserves ought to be limited to an eleventh, on the plea that one part against ten, and not one of ten parts was the true construction of “one tenth?” It seems strange that the acute mind of
The ‘Tory’ anchored in Queen Charlotte's Sound on the 16th August, 1839, and was at once visited by Maoris. Colonel Wakefield wrote (29th August): “The laws of property are very undefined in this part of New Zealand. Neither Rauparaha nor Hiko possesses the power of absolute disposal of any portion of land in the Strait. Great confusion exists respecting vested rights.”
On the 31st August, he saw at Terawiti the man Barrett, one of the sailors who had served the guns at Nga-motu against the Waikato invaders, and had afterwards migrated to Cook's Straits where he was engaged in whaling. Wakefield employed
On the 17th September, Wakefield heard that
At Port Nicholson, Wakefield found two chiefs who deprecated missionary instruction, and he cultivated their acquaintance. Descending the river Hutt in a canoe, he heard a Maori ask if any on board were missionaries. Wakefield's guide replied, “No; they are all devils.”The shouts of laughter which followed the sally indicated in Wakefield's opinion the “uncharitable tenets”of the missionaries who had so long been contending against the atrocities they found in the islands, as well as those which Pakeha Maoris had introduced. It was easy for a barterer in fire-arms to win favour from the natives.
On the 25th he had inspected the land, and resolved to buy it, and produced his purchasing-wares on the deck of the ‘Tory.’
A native missionary, Reihana, had been three months at the place. He, like Matahau, had been educated at Paihia. He had caused houses and chapels to be built at Port Nicholson-Though Wakefield encouraged sneers at the missionaries, he nevertheless sent for Reihana to witness his land-purchase. Dr. Dieffenbach, the naturalist, reported of Reihana: “I found him a very devout and honest man.”But Wakefield was prejudiced against him. Reihana had vainly opposed the chiefs who desired to sell, but they could not induce him to forego his own rights.
Wakefield says: “I found him so exceedingly importunate on his own account and held in such slight respect among the
One chief, Buacawa, both on shore and in the ship vehemently deprecated the sale. The debate continued till sunset on the 26th.
On the 27th, Wakefield promised an addition of twenty muskets to the goods offered, and after an encouraging address from Barrett the deed was signed.
One hundred and fifteen stand of arms, twenty-one kegs of gunpowder, one cask of ball-cartridges, night-caps, pipes, a gross of Jews' harps, and twelve sticks of sealing-wax, were part of the consideration. On the 29th the exultant chief, Warepori, proud of the fire-arms acquired, harangued some villagers who had not received much of Wakefield's treasure, telling them that the muskets would protect them. When a Christian Maori reproached Warepori for not endeavouring to reserve land for mission uses, the chief administered a rebuke, “eloquently delivered,”to the satisfaction of Wakefield.
On the 30th September, “the New Zealand flag”was hoisted on “an immense flag-staff”on shore, and was saluted with twenty-one guns from the ship. There was then a Maori dance. “The whole scene passed in the greatest harmony.”
On the 4th October, Wakefield inspected Cloudy Bay in the Middle Island, and on the 16th arrived at Kapiti to deal with Rauparaha, whom all men knew as the bloodthirsty chief who hired the wretched creature Stewart to aid him in a deed of blood. They knew him also as a powerful ruler uniting the best blood of the Ngatitoa with that of the Ngatiraukawa. His “mana”was recognized not only on both shores of Cook's Straits but in the interior. In all his deep-laid plots he was said to have succeeded. “To dive into the thoughts of Rauparaha”was a proverb expressing difficulty. So noted was he that among the riotous Pakeha Maoris and their whaling associates he was spoken of as “Satan”and “the old Sarpint.”
At Rauparaha's invitation Wakefield immediately visited him at Kapiti, and thought him fearful and servile, and for some time distrustful as to Wakefield's intentions. He rose and shook hands with his visitors, and told them that he was “determined to discountenance further fighting.”He was “slow and dignified in his action,” Mr.
On the 17th October, Rauparaha, with other chiefs, visited the ‘Tory.’ “They all came prejudiced against the sale of land… and also betrayed great jealousy respecting the purchase of Port Nicholson”(which was natural if it had led to the battle so disastrous to them on the previous day).
Wakefield thought that he convinced them that they would better their condition by parting with their land for his wares.
“No scruples”(he wrote on the 28th October) “would have deterred me from putting ever so large a quantity of fire-arms in their possession, as I feel sure that in this case they will not only prevent a war of aggression on the part of their enemies, but that they will be readily supplied by some party from Sydney desiring the land, in case the owners determine to become the attacking force.” While openly acting on these principles, Wakefield professed to be shocked at the opposition of missionaries to his proceedings.
On the 18th October, greedy for guns, Rauparaha and others made an arrangement which Wakefield affected to construe as a sale of all the Ngatitoa rights on both sides of Cook's Straits. Only Kapiti was exempted. Such a bargain would have left the Ngatitoa homeless, for the land of their birth at Kawhia had been solemnly alienated by tribal consent long years before.
Though the company admitted afterwards in London that they could not make good their claims if called upon to prove that the signers understood the deed, or that all owners had been consulted, it may be hoped that Wakefield did not act with premeditating deceit.
“The negotiation was difficult and disagreeable; none of the good feeling I had met with at Port Nicholson being displayed. Their rights to large portions of territory are, however, indisputable.”
On the 21st—“the sight of the goods seemed to decide their intentions; the quantity being far beyond what they had ever seen received for any sale of land in their country, and the reality of them convincing them that I had the means of performing my part of the treaty.”Wakefield explained that “reserves would be made for the maintenance of the chiefs, their families, and successors for ever,”and the 22nd of October was appointed for signing the deed of conveyance. But Hiko, Rauparaha's nephew, was ill on that day, and a small vessel arrived from Sydney with alarming tidings. The British Government was about to stretch its arm to New Zealand. On board the small trader there were “deeds from various merchants to be filled up by the chiefs' names.”The men of Port Nicholson were arriving to aid their kinsmen of Waikanae against the Ngatiraukawa.
Wakefield could no longer dally. His deck was stored with wares on the 23rd, and Maoris of all sizes crowded round them. Waiting till the fire-arms were produced, Rauparaha (though nearly seventy years old) and others rushed to seize them. Hiko went away in anger, and Wakefield “sent the whole of the goods below.”Recrimination followed. “If I were not aware of the cruel delusions and dishonest practices of most of the foreigners, they have seen, towards them, I should have been angry with their violent and perverse conduct.”Commiserating the “mental condition of the wild race,”Wakefield pursued his negotiations; and, on the 24th, Hiko and Rauparaha, without any followers, signed the deed and took away their double-barrelled guns. For fresh gifts of twenty muskets, eleven guns, twenty kegs of powder, and goods including two pounds of beads, Wakefield recorded gratefully that he had, by his two completed transactions, “acquired possessions extending from the 38th to the 43rd degree of latitude on the western coast and from the 41st to the 43rd on the eastern;”though “to complete the rights of the company to all the land unsold to foreigners in the above extensive district, it remains for me to secure the cession of their rights in it from the Ngatiawa, and in a proportionally small tract from the Ngatiraukawa and Wanganui people.”
Such monstrous claims, by which whole tribes would have been unseated, even Colonel Wakefield could not hope to make good, but he wrote that whenever the time might come for scrutiny, it would be “found that but very few written records of purchases prior to this day's date of any portion of land within the boundaries of my purchase, can be produced.”He had at least outwitted speculators from Sydney, but he knew not that there was a spectator there who had both will and ability to thwart much of the injustice which the shameful transactions on board the ‘Tory’ were calculated to inflict.
Colonel Wakefield wrote: “In purchasing on the large scale I have done in this transaction—in marking the boundaries upon the fullest and most satisfactory explanation and examination by parallels of latitude—I conceive that I have obtained as safe and binding a title as if the subject of negotiation had been but a single acre, and defined by a creek or notched tree; and
On the 25th October other chiefs signed the deed, but only eleven marks in all were procured for it. They could not by Maori law have conveyed the tribal land rights if they had wished to do so. It was fortunate, however, that there were so many as sixteen witnesses, for thus the production of evidence to refute the assertion that the natives understood what they put their marks to, was, at a future time, made easy, when a British Commissioner scrutinized the deed.
Even on the 25th October, Wakefield heard rumours that there was an opinion among the natives that he had included in his deeds lands which the signers had no power to deal with, but he was “rejoiced at the termination of the noisy and troublesome bargain.” All the facts in the text will be found in the Appendix to the Twelfth Report of the Directors of the New Zealand Company, in which Colonel Wakefield's Journal appears.
On the 26th, he remarked of Rauparaha: “It will be a most fortunate thing for any settlement formed hereabouts when he dies; for with his life only will end his mischievous scheming and insatiable cupidity.”On the 27th, he had an interview with the Ngatiawa at Waikanae, and found that they wanted “nothing but fire-arms”from him.
On the 30th, he congratulated the company on the daily proofs of “the speed of our outward voyage having frustrated the intentions formed by the New Holland speculators on receiving the news of our departure and destination.”
On the 8th November, he assembled some of the Ngatiawa chiefs upon his deck, and exhibited a deed purporting to convey to him, in trust for the company, their interests in an enormous territory, over much of which they had no control. “Know all men… that we the undersigned chiefs of the Ngatiawa tribes, residing in Queen Charlotte's Sound, on both sides of Cook's Strait in New Zealand, have this day sold and parted with… in consideration of having received, as a full and
This included Hokitika on the west, and Cheviot and Kaikora on the east.i.e.) “bounded on the south by the parallel of the 43rd degree of south latitude, and on the west, north, and east by the sea