THE CANNIBALS OF THE BUSH
After the battle--The slain heroes of Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu--A
terrible scene on the _marae_--What Bent saw from his
prison-hut--The sword of "Manu-rau"--A funeral pyre--Priestly
incantations--A soldier's body eaten--Why the Hauhaus became
cannibals.
On the morning after the battle, Kimble Bent and his companions, who
had been informed by a messenger the previous night of the result of
the forest engagement, hurried back to the stockade.
The news of the repulse of the white troops had spread with incredible
swiftness all over the Maori country-side, and the Hauhaus from the
neighbouring villages gathered in Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu to hear the story
of the fight and to share in the distribution of the loot taken on the
battle-field.
The village was crowded with Hauhaus, all in a fearful state of
excitement, a delirium of triumphant savagery.
Yelling like furies, shouting ferocious battle-songs, waving their
weapons in the air, the victorious warriors were there with their
spoils--carbines, swords, revolvers, soldiers' caps and belts.
More frightful still was the sight of which Bent had just a glimpse as
he entered the gateway of the _pa_.
Laid out in a low row in the centre of the _marae_, side by side, were
bodies of many white soldiers, nearly twenty of them, all stripped
naked--the fallen heroes of Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu.
Just a glimpse the white man had as he entered the blood-stained
square. The next moment he was surrounded by a howling mob of Hauhaus,
grinning, yelling, laughing fiendishly, shaking their weapons in his
face, all in sheer hate and contempt of anything with a white skin.
Two or three of the _Tekau-ma-rua_ men whom Bent knew came bounding up.
One of them said to him:
"Tu-nui, you must come with me. It is Titoko's command." The Maori led
Bent to a small thatched hut on one side of the _marae_. Here he shut
the white man in, and fastened the low sliding-door on the outside.
For a little while the white man sat in the gloom of the windowless
_wharé_, listening to the demoniac shouts of the Hauhaus outside, and
wondering what would come next--whether, indeed, his own body would not
soon be added to the terrible pile of slain soldiers on the _marae_.
At last, hearing Titokowaru's great voice raised in commanding tones,
Bent's mingled curiosity and fear impelled him to search for a
loophole from which he could see what was going on.
Discovering a small crack in the reed-thatched walls of the hut, he
enlarged it sufficiently to gain a good view of the assemblage on the
village square.
There they squatted, men, women, and children, their faces smudged with
charcoal or with red ochre, the paint of the war-path. They were seated
on the ground in a great half-circle, facing the staring white corpses
of the slain _pakehas_. The frightful clamour of the savages had given
place with strange suddenness to a dead silence, as they listened to
their war-chief's harangue, and watched him pacing quickly to and fro,
with his sacred _taiaha_ in his hand, now carrying it at the trail in
the _taki_ attitude, now dandling it high in the air as he intoned a
chant to his battle-god Uenuku.
"Bring out my _pakeha_ Tu-nui-a-moa!" cried Titokowaru, when he had
ended his speech.
A Maori rose, and, unfastening the _wharé_ door, led Bent out on to the
assembly-ground.
He was taken up to the corpses of the slain soldiers, and one of the
Hauhau chiefs asked him if he knew any of them.
Bent walked slowly past the dead, scrutinising each body carefully. He
recognised two of them. One was an old soldier who had been a comrade
of his in the 57th Regiment, and who had afterwards joined the Colonial
forces.
The other dead soldier he identified was von Tempsky. The major's body
lay there naked, with a deep tomahawk cut on the right temple, and the
long, curly black hair matted with blood. The other bodies were hacked
about the head with tomahawks; this was the work of the Maori women,
who delighted in mutilating the dead in revenge for those of their
relatives who had fallen.
Before announcing his recognition of the white warrior's remains, he
turned to the people and asked if any of them had taken from a _pakeha_
officer a sword with an unusual curve in it, and a cap bound with a
brass band.
A Hauhau jumped up and said, "Yes, I have them."
"Show me which soldier you took them from," said Bent.
The Maori, with von Tempsky's sword in his hand, pointed to the major's
corpse.
"Well," said Bent, "that is the body of Manu-rau, whom the _pakehas_
called von Tempsky, and that is his sword."
A great "Ah-h" came from the people, and the exultant possessor of
Manu-rau's sword of wondrous _mana_ went bounding down the _marae_,
flashing the weapon above his head, turning his painted face from side
to side in the hideous grimaces of the _pukana_, and thrusting out his
tongue to an extraordinary length.
The Hauhaus were in a frenzy of excitement when they realised that
the renowned Manu-rau was indeed lying dead before them. Some of them
proposed to drag the body out and cook it in the _hangi_, so that they
might have the satisfaction of devouring their most dreaded enemy, and
eating his heart, the heart of a _tino-toa_, a warrior indeed.
But Titokowaru, raising his sacred spear-staff, forbade the handling of
the dead for the present.
Bent was now ordered to return to his hut, and the door was again
fastened on him. The proposal to cook and eat the bodies of von
Tempsky and his comrades was debated in a wild _korero_. Bent, from
his eye-hole in the wall of the _wharé_, saw Hauhau after Hauhau, the
orators of the tribes, jump up, tomahawk or gun or sword in hand,
and furiously declaim as they went leaping and trotting backward and
forward in the open space between the ranks of the victors and the
dead; and the deeds of the battle-field were told again and again in
great boasting words.
Von Tempsky's body, the _pakeha_-Maori had observed while on the
_marae_, had not been mutilated, except for that tomahawk cut. His
heart had not been cut out, though Bent half expected it would have
been. The rite of the _Whangai-hau_, the ceremony of propitiation and
burnt sacrifice following a battle, had not, however, been omitted.
On the previous night, Tihirua, the young war-priest, had cut open
a soldier's body and had torn out the heart, which he had offered
in smoke and fire as oblation to Uenuku, the God of War, chanting a
_karakia_ as he watched the heart of the hated white man smoking in the
flames.
"Manu-rau's" famous sword, too, was set apart as a sacred gift to the
gods; it was a _parakia_, or _taumahatanga_, a thank-offering for
victory. It became a _tapu_ relic, and was religiously preserved by the
Hauhaus. It is in their possession to this day.
Presently the bodies of the slain--the "Fish-of-Tu"--were ceremoniously
apportioned amongst the several tribes represented in the village, as
Bent again watched from his eye-hole in the wall.
One of the chiefs paced up and down past the pile of dead, with a stick
in his hand. Pointing to a soldier's corpse, he cried:
"This is for Taranaki! Take it away!"
Pointing to the others, he said:
"This is for Ngati-Ruanui--take it away! This is for Nga-Rauru--take it
away"--and so on until the whole of the dead men had been portioned out
to the Hauhau clans to deal with as they deemed fit--subject always,
however, to Titokowaru's approval.
The Nga-Rauru, the wild tribe of the Waitotara River, were the only men
who actually took a body from the line of dead.
Two warriors jumped up and, laying their weapons aside, seized a dead
soldier by the ankles and dragged the corpse away. One was Wairau, the
other was the celebrated scout Kātené Tu-Whakaruru. This Kātené
was a strange fellow. He had fought for some time on the Government
side against his own countrymen, then he suddenly reverted to Hauhauism
and barbarism, and led his warriors against his old friends and
commanding officers, McDonnell and Gudgeon, with utter valour and
ferocity. Now he was to turn cannibal.
Kātené and his companion dragged the body along the ground across
the _marae_ to the cooking-ovens in the rear of the dwelling-huts,
watched in silence by the people. "I could not say whose body it was,"
says Bent, "but it was a man in good flesh!"
When the two Hauhaus had hauled their body away to the _hangi_ for a
terrible feast, the tribes sat in silence for a few moments, gazing
intently on their dead enemies lying there before them. It was a calm,
windless day, and the midday sun beat hotly down on that ghastly pile
in the middle of the crowded _marae_.
Titokowaru rose, _taiaha_ in hand. In his great croaking voice he cried:
"_E koro ma, e kui ma, tena ra koutou! Tanumia te hunga tapu, e takoto
nei; e tahu ki te ahi. Kaore e pai kia takoto ki runga ki te kino. Te
mea pai me tahu ki te ahi!_" ("Oh, friends, men and women--I salute
you! Bury the sacred bodies of the slain, lying before us here. And
burn them with fire! It is not well that they should be left to offend.
They must be consumed in fire!")
At this command the people dispersed to collect fuel for a funeral
pyre. They brought logs and branches of dry _tawa_ timber from the
surrounding bush and from the firewood piles in the rear of the
_wharés_, and a huge pile of wood was built in the centre of the
_marae_. Even the little naked children came running up with their
little hands full of sticks to cast upon the heap.
All the mutilated bodies of the white soldiers--except the one that had
been dragged away--were lifted up and placed on the roughly levelled
top of the pyre, which was about four feet high and about fifteen feet
long.
Titokowaru ordered his men to place von Tempsky's body on the fire-pile
first, and then lay the others on top of it. The chief suspected,
perhaps, that some of the Hauhaus wished to cook and eat Manu-rau's
body, and he so far respected his gallant foeman even in death that he
resolved to spare it that last degradation.
So the major's body went on first, and then around and above it were
heaped the other soldiers. On top of the bodies more wood was thrown.
Bent's hut door was now unfastened, and the natives called to him to
come out. What he saw he will tell in his own words:
"When I walked out on to the _marae_, I met two Nga-Rauru men I
knew from Hukatéré village, on the Patea River. They had come to Te
Ngutu-o-te-Manu with a gift of gunpowder to Titokowaru. With them I
presently went down to the cooking-quarters to see what had become of
the body that had been dragged away. There we found a large earth-oven
full of red-hot stones, and there they were engaged in roasting the
white man's corpse. They had prepared it for cooking in the usual way,
and were turning it over and over on the hot stones, scraping off the
outer skin.
"The cannibal cooks looked round and asked me savagely what I wanted
there. They threatened that if I did not leave instantly they would
throw me into the oven too, and roast me alive.
"I returned to the _marae_, and was sitting amongst the crowd there
some time later, perhaps an hour, when I saw a man's hands and ribs,
cooked, carried up. The human flesh was placed in front of the two
powder-carriers from Hukatéré, who were sitting close to me. The meat
was in a flax basket, and a basket of cooked potatoes was set down with
it. This present of food was out of compliment to the visitors.
"The two Maoris refused to touch it, saying, 'No, we will not eat man!'
So the other natives ate it. The rest of the body was also served
round, and the people consumed the whole of it.
"Kātené and Wairau were two of those who ate the cooked soldier. I
saw Kātené squatting there, with a basket of this man-meat and some
potatoes before him. He took up a cooked hand, and before eating it
sucked up the _hinu_, or fat, that was collected in the palm just as
if he were drinking water. The hands when cooked curled up with the
fingers half-closed, and the hollowed palm was filled with the melted
_hinu_.
"Titokowaru did not eat human flesh himself. His reason for abstaining
was that if he ate it his _mana tapu_, his personal sacredness, would
thereby be destroyed."
The younger people in the _pa_ were rather awe-stricken by the
preparations for the cannibal feast, and stood together some distance
away from the _hangi_. "I stood with them," says one Te Kahu-pukoro,
who was a boy at the time; "I was afraid to join in the eating, but the
savour of the flesh cooking in the ovens was delightful!"
When the warriors, a little later on, were enjoying their meal of
man-meat, some of the little children were heard calling out to their
fathers: "_Homai he poaka mou_" ("Give me some pork to eat"). They had
seen the meat carried up in flax baskets, and thought it was pork.
Now the white soldiers' funeral pyre was set alight. An old man,
Titokowaru's _tohunga_, or priest, walked up to it with a long stick of
green timber in his hand, an unbarked sapling with a rough crook at one
end. He stood in front of the pile as the flames shot up and chanted a
song. Then, when the logs with their terrible burdens were well alight,
he began a strange incantation. Using his long stick with both hands
he turned over the burning logs, pushed them closer together to create
a fiercer heat, and forked the bodies into the midst of the blaze. And
as he did so he recited a pagan _karakia_, the chant of the _Iki_,
anciently repeated over the bodies of warriors when they were being
cremated on the battle-field. These were the words of the incantation
(the mystic meaning underlying some of the expressions would require
many notes to fully elucidate them):
_Translation._
_Ka waere,_ Clear them away,
_Ka waere,_ Clear them away!
_Ka waere i runga ma keretu,_ Sweep them into the earth,
_Ka waere i raro ma keretu,_ Into the stiff and useless clay.
_Kei kai kutu ma keretu,_ There let them perish and
_Kei kai riha ma keretu,_ decay.
_Whakatahia te kukakuka,_ Sweep man's flesh to earth
_Whakarere te kukakuka,_ again.
_Te roua atu,_ Fork them that way!
_Te kapea mai._ Haul them this way!
_Roua ki Whiti,_ Fork them to Whiti,
_Roua ki Tonga,_ Fork them to Tonga,
_E tu te rou,_ To the ancient homes of man.
_Rouroua!_ Here I hold my fork erect,
_Takataka te kape;_ I turn them this way, that way.
_Kapekapea!_ Quickly stir the funeral pile,
_Ka eke i tua,_ Now this way haul, now that!
_Ka eke i waho,_
_Ka eke i te Maru-aitu_ Their spirits far have gone;
_Te ihi nei,_ The flesh alone remains;
They have gone the way of
Destiny.
_Te mana nei,_ Their courage no longer stirs
them;
Their pride and power have flown;
_Nga toa nei._ Their valour's gone!
_Ko tai ko ki,_ In the fullness of life they
fell--
_Ko tai ko rea,_ Like the fullness of the tide!
_Ko tai takoto ki raro._ And now they lie naked before me!
_Ma peruperu!_ They leaped in the war-dance;
_Ma whiwhi!_ They were strenuous in battle;
_Ma rawea!_ But they fell.
_Haere ake ra te ihi o nga toa,_ Farewell! spirits of the brave!
_Te mana o nga toa,_ The pride and power of heroes!
_Te whatu te ate-a-Nuku_ Heart of Earth, and heart of
_Te whatu te ate-a-Rangi._ Heaven--
For both joined to produce you!
_Huri ana te po,_ Now turns the night--
_Huri ana te ao,_ It turns to day again.
_He rangi ka mahea;_ The clouds obscure the sky;
_He whai ao,_ We search for light,
_He ao marama!_ The perfect light of day!
The people sat there on the _marae_, silently watching the burning of
the dead. Far above the trees of the surrounding forest rose the thick
black column of smoke from the blazing pile. It went up as straight
as an arrow, unswayed by any breath of air, to a great height. To the
savage watchers it was verily the incense of the battle-field, rising
to the war-god's nostrils. "Now and then," says Bent, "a body would
burst, and the blaze of flame and the smoke would leap straight up,
high into the air."
Long the Hauhaus gazed at the dreadful crematory blaze on the palisaded
_marae_, replenishing the fire with dry logs as it burned down, until
all the dead were consumed, and nothing but a great heap of charcoal
and ashes remained.
* * * * *
The revival of the ancient practice of cannibalism was the most
hideously savage feature of Titokowaru's method of warfare. It was not
meat-hunger in this case; it was a battle-field rite. In olden Maoridom
war was war to the death, and to the oven; it was no use beating your
enemy unless you killed him, and no use killing him unless you also ate
him. The eating of soldiers' bodies not only glutted racial revenge;
but also--in Maori eyes--destroyed the prestige of the whites; it
ruined their _mana_ as men and as warriors.
The Taranaki Maoris tell a singular little story in explanation of
those man-eating rites in Titokowaru's camps. In consuming bodies from
the battle-fields they were only putting into practice the spirit of a
speech made by old King Potatau te Wherowhero a decade or so before.
Potatau--grandfather of the present "king" of Waikato, Mahuta Potatau
te Wherowhero, M.L.C.--was a warrior of exceeding renown three-quarters
of a century ago, and a cannibal of cannibals.
Te Wherowhero Kai-tangata--"man-devourer"--he was called. Many a time
he raided Taranaki with his war-parties of Waikato and Ngati-Maniapoto
and Tainui. At Pukerangiora, about 1830, he slew hundreds of Ngati-Awa
tribespeople, and with his warriors cooked and ate them. Nearly thirty
years later he was set up as king over the confederated Maori tribes in
the centre of the island.
When the Maori kingdom was first established, the then governor of the
colony visited old Potatau, and discussed the Maori aspirations for
independence. The governor, according to the Maori story, endeavoured
to show the king the folly of opposing the sway of the white man; if
it did come to warfare--which was not then contemplated by either
side--the British soldiers would soon make a clean sweep of the
ill-armed and ill-provisioned Maori.
"You are wrong," said Potatau; "it will take you many a year to sweep
away the Maoris--you will never do it."
"But," said the governor, "suppose we fight you, and drive you into the
forest, far away from your cultivations, what will you do for food?"
"Why," replied the old king, "I have plenty of food even in the
bush--the berries of the _tawa_ and _karaka_ trees, the heart of the
_mamaku_ tree-fern, and the _nikau_, and other foods of the forest. We
can live on those."
"And suppose I chase you with my soldiers, and fight you in the forest,
and pursue you so that you cannot even get those things to eat, the
berries and the _mamaku_, what then will you do for food?"
Said old Potatau, grinning, "Then I'll eat you!"[9]
This half-defiant, half-jocular speech of the venerable warrior of
Waikato was repeated word for word, as it is given here, in every
Kingite village and in the Hauhau _pas_ of after years; but it was left
for Titoko's bushmen of Taranaki to put into actual execution their old
foeman's commissariat methods.
"Titokowaru heard it," say the Maoris; "and when the war began, and he
became a fighting chief, he did as Potatau would have done--he fought
his enemy in the forest, and slew him there, and ate his flesh for
food. And, as Potatau had predicted, it was many a year before the war
was ended--and even then Titokowaru was never caught."