page (129)

Chapter VIII
Continuation of war at Tara-naki
(Nga-puhi)

I will now resume my account of our war at Tara-naki. This was the third war I was in, we had only four guns in all our party and Hongi Hika had one of the four, which he used with great effect he was said to be the best shot of all the Maori people in his day.

When we came in sight of a Pa the three with the guns always went in front and as Hongi now was not with us and as soon as these in the Pa saw us they knew we were a taua, as is usual their warriors would get up on to the Pu whara or stages erected in the Pa from which we used to throw stones at an attacking party, such warriors would of course not knowing that we had guns, as they had not heard of or seen the effect of guns, would make faces at us and put out their tongues and defy us to attack, of course they thought we would be killed by the stones they could throw from the Pu whara, but in the midst of their uttering their defiance, our three men shot them like pigeons. Those in the Pa seeing the smoke and hearing the noise of the report which to them was like thunder, and their warriors being killed and falling head long down from the Pu whara, they thought it was the god Maru who was with us, and who by the power of his mana, and the extreme tapu of our Priests, Maru had thus killed their men with thunder, this so frightened the whole of the Pa that they stood still with fright, and all we had to do was to rush up to the Pa and go in unresisted and kill the people who had not the power to run away, each Pa thus taken was a confused howl of joy and sorrow, we killed all we liked and took those we saved as prisoners, in each Pa we stayed to cook and eat till the smell of the decaying corpses drove us from it, in that page (Book 4A)(130)way we passed along the west coast till we arrived at Te whanga-nui-a-tara (Port Nicholson) at that place we found very little to eat, having taken slaves from all the Pas we took on our journey up, these we killed as required to keep us in food, I killed of those I had taken twenty five out of all my slaves, we had made an agreement that each chief should kill some of his slaves for all our party to eat in his turn, we stayed in this place for some time till most of our slaves had been eaten, we stayed on the flat at a place called Pipitea, but some of our people went and lived on a flat called Te Aro, those at that place went at times to the west coast where they found some of the Natives of the place there they killed, but once some of our people were killed by them, and the daughter of one of our chiefs was killed, we then all went on by the west side of the harbour and at the heads we made mokis and sent 50 of our men across the mouth of the harbour to take a Pa which we saw on the right side or East of the entrance as you go into the harbour, but our 50 were repulsed and beaten and drawn back and some of them were taken and cooked and eaten by the people they attacked. One of our great chiefs was speared in his breast, he died before we heard the news, so soon as we heard of the repulse we all determined to start in pursuit of the people who had thus beaten our men. So soon as they had cooked and eaten our people they left their Pa and went eastward up the Wairarapa country, so we crossed the harbour in mokis and followed them, after three days chase we came up with them, they gave battle but we beat them and killed many and took many prisoners, the prisoners we led back to the place where our chief was laid out, and then the live slaves we killed as food to live on whilst we cried over our dead chief. So soon as the tangi ceremonies were over we cut the head off our dead chief and buried the body, the head we preserved to take home to his relations, but before the head had been properly preserved, before the heat and smoke of the fire had hardened the flesh of the head in which it had been cured, so that the flesh would not rot, some of our people took some of the Nikau which was put up as a shed for the Priest page (Book 4A)(131)as whariki to sleep on, this act of hara brought a sickness on our people and out of our party which consisted of 500, 200 died of this disease, we had to remain here for some time, that is on the East side of the heads of Te whanganui-a-tara, and as fast as our people died the hands of the great chiefs were cut off and preserved, and the bodies burnt for fear that their bones might fall into the hands of our enemies, those of the dead who had relatives with us in the war party preserved the heads of their relatives, but those of the minor chiefs who were with us and who had not any one with us of rank enough to give them power to cut the head off; the body was burnt with the head.

Just as we were well enough to fight again, we were attacked by the people of the land, but we fought and beat them, and gave them chase up the River which River is at the head of the Bay beyond the two Islands Matui and Makaro, on the right side of the bay as we went into the Bay, we followed them up that River and overtook them in a Pa, we stormed the Pa and took it, and killed and eat and took prisoners as many as we liked, we stayed at this Pa for a fortnight eating all we could, and then followed on up the river and attacked and took another Pa and stayed there to eat the killed till we wished to move on, we left this and went still further up the River to attack a Pa which we had heard was the largest Pa in these Islands, in going up the River to find this great Pa we came to a deserted settlement, at which 200 of our people stayed, and 100 went some distance further up the River, here we rested another week, just at the end of the week a party of the people of this talked of great Pa came and attacked the 100 of our men who were by themselves further up the River than our main body.

Of the 100, only 10 men escaped to tell us the tale, our main body of people left our camp and went to where the battle had taken place, and seeing the track of the attacking party we followed on in it, we then went in our canoes and one day's pulling up the River brought us to the Big Pa, but on seeing the number of people in the Pa Te Rauparaha suggested not to attack the Pa, but pull on up the River so as to entice the people of the Pa to follow us and so come out of their Pa page (Book 4A)(132)this we did, and went some distance up the River they followed us by walking abreast of our canoes on the bank of the River till we came to a creek that went out of the main River on the side on which these people were following us, as it was deep mud in the creek if any of them had attempted to cross it, we could have killed them in the mud before they could have crossed so they stopped in their journey, and we landed on the opposite bank in front of the mouth of this muddy creek, where we were was on the left side of the River in going up, on the opposite bank of the River were the people of the Pa who had followed us, these laughed at us and made sport of so few men daring to come and attack their great force, who said that by tomorrow we should all be eaten by their men, and even then all of their tribe could not have each a taste, our Tohunga told us not to answer the words of these people, we sat on the bank of the River, and the people of the Pa on the other bank looking at each other, they sneering but we sat in silence. All the slaves we had taken sat still in our canoes, we the Ngapuhi only stepped on shore, our slaves cooked some food for us and then all our party assembled in a body and the Priest performed the karakia over us on the bank of the River, when the karakia was done, we all got into our canoes, which had been taken in the River as we came up. The people of the Pa who had followed us up the bank of the River had now so increased in numbers that they stood thick on the bank the canoes in which those of us who had guns crossed the River first and went across till they were close to the people on the bank, of course those on the bank of the creek made faces and put their tongues out at us, asking us to land, having no doubt that we should be all killed by their superior numbers, but the guns opened fire and every ball killed a chief, they were so astonished that they stood quite still for some time in fright till many were shot down, then all at once with a wild yell they all fled and ran to cross the muddy creek, but one of our canoes had gone up this creek and as they ran away they were stopped by the guns in this canoe, our people had now landed on the page (Book 4A)(133)bank of the River, and the Pa people were now between the two firing parties of our men, and many were killed, they however fled back on the road they had come and we followed them and killed many and took many prisoners as they fled, on and on we all rushed till they came to the Pa, we all rushed in the fleeing and our war party. We entered the Pa with them, and killed till we were tired till all the Pa was full of corpses, here we cooked and eat what we liked, we stayed at this Pa 3 weeks, and cooked the best of the killed, and those we could not eat there, we cut the most fleshy parts off the bodies and dried the flesh in the sun, and packed it in small ketes and pound the fat of the flesh over the kits to keep it from becoming mouldy, the bones of those we cooked and eat we burnt, least any of the fugitives should return when we had gone and so be able to take the bones and bury them with their dead in the sacred caves, we cut the heads of all the chiefs and piled them up in hills, and putting one principal head on the top of the heap we took other heads and threw at it, this was a game of throwing a stone in olden days, thus we did throwing the heads each at the other till we had broken all the heads to pieces; when we the old men had done this, the young chiefs made a great fire and burnt these heads, this was thought fine sport, but the thigh and arm bones of those we cooked we took and broke one end of the bone, and heating a fern stalk we put it up into the bone to melt the marrow which when melted we sucked out of the bone, this we did in this way, when the marrow was melted we put a cooked potato into our mouth, and turned the open end of the bone to our mouth and sucked the marrow as a kinaki (relish) to the potato, this we did with all the bones which had marrow in them, these bones we burnt, we had been in this Pa about a week when we went up the country to attack another Pa, which we had been told of by the slaves taken in these fights, we went and found the Pa, but on the suggestion of Te Rauparaha we made a show piece with this Pa to blind them as to our intentions and to get the Pa into our possession, we did not like to attack it as it page (Book 4A)(134)contained about five times as many men as our party. We sent messengers and made peace with them, and thus invited three hundred and fifty twice told of the best men of the Pa to come and partake of a feast we would give to them, this three hundred and fifty twice told were the same number of which our party now consisted, they came as invited, we put the feast in two lines, and our men sat in the same row as our guests, but each alternate man at the feast was one of our men, this was all planned by Te Rauparaha, when the food was brought by the women and put down before the guests our men were told to rise as soon as the food was placed before them and to stand on their feet, and that as they thus stood by a signal from Te Rauparaha each of our men should with a weapon of war he had in his mat strike the head of the man on his right side, thus the feast was prepared and the signal was given, the noise all at once of the sound made by the cracking of heads was a loud one, it was like so many hundred calabashes being broken all at once, we killed every man of the three hundred and fifty, not one escaped, at the same time each man who had killed his man jumped from where he stood and the whole body of our men rushed up to the Pa, the people there were so panic stricken as they saw the slaughter, they did not make any resistance and we rushed the Pa and killed as many as we liked and took the rest prisoners, the people of the Pa were so taken by surprise that before they had time to think they were dead at our feet.

In this war Hongi Hika swallow the first eyes of men, and the eyes of the man thus swallowed was a man who had killed Hongi's great grandfather, and thus he was an uto, his name was Keke ao.

These battles were fought when Hongi was quite young and it was also many years before he went to England.

The cunning and plots and ambushes, and all the murderous actions we committed in this expedition were planned by Te Rauparaha.

Our chiefs were Nene, Hongi-hika, Patuone, page (Book 4A)(135)Whare papa, Moetara, Rangihaeata, Rauparaha, Kekeao, Mohi Tawhai and many others who are now all dead, all these but Kekeao and Moetara are now alive.

We were twelve months from the time we left Ngapuhi till we got back to our Home. On our way whatever part of the country we went through, we took all the food and took all the canoes, and burn all that fire could consume.

We left Home with five hundred twice told and returned with only three hundred twice told. All our chiefs who died on the way or were killed we preserved their heads and buried their bodies, the heads of such were preserved and brought Home to their relatives; the slaves we brought back most of which were killed and eaten by the relatives of those who had been killed in the war, these of course were killed after we got back to Ngapuhi as utu for the slain, and as a treat to those who liked man's flesh. Many of our slaves escaped here and there on our journey as we went from place to place.