THE HEAD-HUNTERS
The skirmish at Whakamara--Hauhaus on the run--Government
head-hunters--Major Kemp's white scout--Sharp work in the
bush--Barbarism of the Whanganui--_Kupapas_--Smoke-drying the
heads--A present for Whitmore--The heads on the tent floor--End of
the war.
The deep and roadless forest was now the scene of sharp, barbaric war.
The Hauhaus, after the abandonment of Tauranga-ika, built no stockades,
but trusted to their most ancient of refuges, the _nehenehe-nui_, the
great woody wilderness. From one hiding-place to another they fled,
with the Government bush-fighters on their heels.
"After our surprise and defeat at Otautu," to continue Kimble Bent's
narrative, "we were safe neither night nor day. Even when far in the
depths of the bush we were always on the look-out for danger, for we
never knew when we might have a sudden volley poured into our midst.
Kepa and his friendlies were continually scouring the country for
us. We retreated north and west through the forest till we reached a
settlement called Whakamara. Two nights we were on the track; all we
had to eat was a couple of potatoes each. At Whakamara we found many
pigs, and were able to fill our stomachs once more.
"But early one morning the soldiers were on us again. Two of our men,
young Tutangé and the warrior Kātené Tu-Whakaruru, who were out
scouting on horseback, discovered the troops lying in ambush just
outside, waiting to attack the village. They turned and galloped back
to us, Tutangé waving his sword and whacking his horse along with the
flat of the blade.
"So off we went again, running for our lives, with Whitmore's troops
close behind us, firing as they ran. Titokowaru and all his men fled,
after a very short fight. We took to the bush just like wild pigs
racing before the hunters. I and a few others kept together, running
for all we were worth, half-naked, foodless, tumbling over logs,
scrambling in and out of creeks, and made no halt until we found
ourselves once more at Rimatoto, my old home of 1866."
From Whakamara village the Maoris fell back on a little fortified
_pa_ in the rear of the camp. This position they abandoned after a
brief skirmish, and then the forest chase began. Whitmore ordered
an immediate pursuit, and a flying column of sixty white Armed
Constabulary, under Captains Northcroft and Watt, and about one
hundred and forty Maori _Kupapas_, under Major Kepa and Captain
Thomas Porter, all in light marching order, took to the bush after the
retreating enemy.
[Illustration: A CONSTABULARY OFFICER IN BUSH-FIGHTING COSTUME. (_From
a photo of Colonel T. Porter's taken in 1869._)]
The advance-guard of the pursuing force numbered twenty-five Maoris,
about equally divided between the Whanganui and Arawa tribes. Captain
Porter was the only European officer with them, but one or two white
scouts and bushmen accompanied the Maoris. As the column's march was
necessarily in single file through thick and tangled bush, it was
difficult to bring a large number of men into action when any skirmish
or ambuscade occurred, and the consequence was that practically all the
fighting was done by the advance-guard.
It was a picturesquely savage chapter of the war, that chase of
Titokowaru and his scattered Hauhaus. There was more than a touch of
the barbaric in it, for some of the Government forces reverted to the
primitive war-methods of the Maori himself.
Between the moccasined hero of the war-trail in Fenimore Cooper's and
Captain Mayne Reid's romances of Red Indian days, and Kepa's Maori
guerilla and some of his white comrades, there was, after all, only
this difference: one took the trail hunting for scalps, the other for
heads!
As mentioned in a previous chapter, Colonel Whitmore had agreed to a
request made by Major Kepa after the fighting on the Waitotara, and
had offered rewards of £10 a head for Hauhau chiefs killed and £5 for
ordinary men. Kepa's _Kupapa_, Maoris, recruited from the Whanganui,
Ngati-Apa, Ngati-Raukawa, and other "friendly" tribes--only friendly
to the _pakeha_ by reason of their deadly animosity to the Taranaki
tribes--were little less savage than the Hauhaus themselves, and
this manhunt under the _mana_ of the Government was just the work
that delighted them. They were "stripped to a gantlin'" for the bush
chase--simply a waist-mat or shawl and cartridge-belts and a pouch for
their percussion-caps. And some of the white bushmen-scouts were just
as eager on the head-hunting trail, and added to their service arms a
tomahawk.
With the Whanganui men marched a European scout and bushman about
whom some remarkable stories are told. This was Tom Adamson, Kepa's
_pakeha_-Maori, a big, powerful fellow who surpassed the Maoris
themselves in bush-craft and endurance. He marched bare-footed, like
his Maori comrades. Another of the white scouts and Hauhau-hunters
was a man who, in after years, became celebrated for his pioneer
exploration work in the vast wilderness of Milford Sound, an old
John-o'-Groat's sailor and soldier named Donald Sutherland, whose name
has been given to the immense waterfall that is one of New Zealand's
natural wonders.
It was a wild, picturesquely unkempt column, that little armed force
of _pakehas_ and Maoris, as it filed off under its active and daring
young officers into the gloomy, danger-haunted woods, the unknown and
trackless forest through which the Patea and its tributaries flowed.
The bush-fighting costume of many of the whites as well as Maoris was
simple, not to say brigand-like. Officers and men of the Constabulary
and other corps who had to do much bush-marching discarded the trousers
of civilisation and took to the "garb of old Gaul," worn alike by the
Scottish Highlander and the Maori; this kilt was usually a coloured
shawl, strapped round the waist and falling to the knee.
Through the huge and tangled woods they scrambled--hunters and hunted.
Now along some narrow trail, hardly discernible to the untrained eye;
now crawling through networks of supplejacks and brambly shrubs and
great snaky lianes that looped tree to tree in bewildering coiled
intricacies. Down into steep and narrow watercourses, swinging down one
after another by the hanging vines and tough tree-creepers; up rocky
gorges and jungle-clad cliffs. For endless miles upon miles the great
solemn woods covered the face of the rugged land; beneath the shadows
of the thick, dark foliage loped the blood-avengers.
In the afternoon of the first day of the chase the column descended
into a deep, thickly wooded gorge. Suddenly from both sides a fire
was opened upon the centre of the force, the main body of the A.C.'s.
"Clear the bush!" was the order. The advance-guard and A.C.'s quickly
circled round and enfiladed the enemy, who bolted like Red Indians
through the thickets; and the chase went on.
Three Hauhaus were shot and decapitated on the first day of the chase.
Every man killed, in fact, on this and the succeeding days of the
pursuit had his head cut off.
The first Maori decapitated was a young chief, who was shot
while in the act of climbing a steep cliff in the bush. Being a
_rangatira_, his was a £10 head. This man was a prominent Hauhau
named Matangi-o-Rupé. He belonged to Titokowaru's own immediate
clan, or _hapu_, Ngati-Manu-hiakai--"The Tribe of the Hungry Bird."
It was a Ngati-Raukawa soldier in Kepa's contingent who took off
the Hauhau's head with his tomahawk; later he duly delivered it at
the _pakeha_ camp. Matangi's son, Kuku--now living at the village
of Taiporohenui--on learning of his father's fate, swore to have
_utu_--revenge--and vowed to Bent that if he ever encountered the man
who beheaded his parent, he would "slice him to pieces like a piece of
beef."
Some years after the war, Bent, while on a visit to a Maori
settlement at Oroua, in the Manawatu district, met this Ngati-Raukawa
head-hunter--"an ugly, tattooed old villain," as he describes him. The
_pakeha_, by way of imparting an interesting bit of news, informed the
old warrior of Kuku's threat, but the tattooed veteran only smiled.
The days of the _lex talionis_ were over. That _utu_ account has not
been squared; but only because of the inconveniently peaceful rule of
the _pakeha_. Kuku has by no means forgotten or forgiven the man who
sold his father's head to the white man.
Later on in the bush chase the advance-guard, hurrying along at the
double, came upon a Hauhau family--a grey-haired, middle-aged man, his
wife, and two or three children. They had not been able to travel so
fast as their friends, on account of the tired children, and so had
been left behind. The old warrior was fired on by one of the Arawa
Maoris, and was severely wounded. He fell, but struggled to a squatting
position, with his empty gun across his knees. The Arawa rushed at
him, with tomahawk raised, to finish him off. The old Hauhau sprang up
with a great effort, gripping his tomahawk. He was too badly wounded,
however, to strike a blow, and the Arawa seized him and his tomahawk.
Just at that moment a white man, dressed like a Maori in a waist-shawl,
and bare-footed, rushed up, tomahawk in hand. He seized the Hauhau by
the hair, and, with a couple of furious strokes, chopped off his head,
and dropped it, all bloody as it was, into the flax kit he carried
slung at his back, and in which there were already other heads.
The Arawa by no means liked being done out of what he considered
was his head, seeing that he had captured the Hauhau, and there was
a savage squabble between the two as to its ownership. The white man
"bluffed" the Maori out of it, however, and prepared to add the heads
of the rest of the family to his collection. He rushed at the weeping
_wahiné_ and her children, and their heads would have come off also
had not Captain Porter, fortunately for them, just come up. The poor,
terrified woman clung to his knees, beseeching him to save her and her
children. He told them they would be safe, and ordered the white scout
forward. The Arawas took charge of the widow and her children, and she
was sent to Rotorua when the campaign was over.
The Whanganui _Kupapas_ were fully as savage as any wild rebel. No
quarter was given to any Hauhau warrior, and no Hauhau thought of
asking for any mercy. Of one frightful scene Porter was an eye-witness.
After killing and beheading two or three men in a little valley in
the forest, the Whanganui Maoris tied flax ropes to their ankles
and hung them up to the branches of the trees, eviscerated them and
thrust sticks into them to keep them open, just like animals in
a slaughter-yard. Then they danced round the bodies like fiends,
flourishing the tattooed heads of the dead by their long hair and
shouting and yelling war-songs, and making the hideous grimaces of the
_pukana_. They were quite beyond control, mad with the lust of killing.
Porter at last managed to put a stop to this mutilation, but he was
powerless to prevent the head-taking, except so far as his own men were
concerned. He did not allow any Arawas to decapitate an enemy, much as
some of the warriors from the Hot Lakes Country would have liked to. He
asked the Whanganui natives to bury the heads, and, if necessary, take
only the ears with them if they wished to claim Whitmore's reward. But
the warriors answered, "No, Witimoa said 'heads,' and if he doesn't get
the heads he may not pay us."
The pursuit of the Hauhaus continued for several days, until
Titokowaru's warriors finally scattered in the dense forest, and the
pursuers had exhausted their food. It was then determined to make for
the coast again, but owing to the density of the bush the Government
men lost their bearings. They were far in the tangled, jungly forest,
without a guide, for they had killed their prisoners. The column
accordingly divided, each division marching independently for the open
country, food, and tented camps.
The night before the divisions of the pursuing column separated, Major
Kepa ordered one of his _tohungas_, a wild-looking, tattooed old
warrior, learned in all the savage arts of Maoridom, to _whakapakoko
nga upoko_, that is, to dry or preserve the heads of the slain
Hauhaus. Porter and the other Europeans in the Maori contingents now
for the first time witnessed the ancient process of smoke-drying human
heads. The heads had up to this time been carried in flax kits on men's
shoulders through the bush, and it was necessary, if they were to be
taken out to the camp, that they should be preserved from decay.
The old medicine-man went into the bush and returned with armfuls of
branches of the _mahoé_-tree, and made a fire, which he kept burning
until all the wood was reduced to glowing embers. The earth was heaped
up around this fire, and the head, neck downwards, was placed over it,
and all openings at the sides were closed, so that the fumes from the
charcoal oven would pass up into the head. The brains had previously
been removed and the eyes stuffed up. As the smoking went on, the old
man smoothed down the skin of the face with his hands to prevent it
wrinkling and wiped off the moisture, until the head was thoroughly
smoke-dried and quite mummified. For several hours the head-smoking
went on, and in the morning the trophies of the chase were packed for
the final march.
Half-starved, ragged and weary, the Constabulary and their Maori allies
at last reached the open country; from the top of the range of wooded
hills they had seen the white tents of Colonel Whitmore's headquarters
at Taiporohenui. That evening they were in camp, and there they enjoyed
the first square meal they had had for days. Kepa and Porter and their
contingents had been nine days in the bush.
Captain Porter went to Colonel Whitmore's quarters as soon as he
arrived, and reported the result of his expedition. While he was giving
the commanding officer an account of the forest chase, the Whanganui
men who had taken the Hauhau heads came up in a body and opened the
tent door, and poured in head after head upon the ground, exclaiming as
they did so, "_Na, Witimoa, to upoko_!" ("There, Whitmore, your heads!")
The little colonel was thunderstruck. He stared with consternation in
his eyes on the ghastly heads, most of them tattooed, with grinning
teeth and long blood-stained hair, strewn about the floor where they
had rolled. There were eleven of them, some at the colonel's feet, some
beneath the table; some had rolled under the camp bedstead.
He had forgotten all about his promise of a reward for heads. Anyhow,
he now told the Maoris, he did not mean that the heads should actually
be brought in to him in camp, but that a reward would be paid for each
Hauhau killed in the pursuit. But he kept his word to Kepa, and each
head was paid for.
The white scouts, too, brought in their kits of heads, and received
their blood-money. These and certain other Taranaki heads brought in
were not personally delivered, but were all paid for, mostly in orders
for clothes, boots, and other necessaries.
"No more heads," was the colonel's order. He realised that this
barbarous fashion of squaring affairs with the enemy would arouse a
howl of condemnation from those who did not understand the sharp and
savage necessities of frontier-fighting.
These facts may not please the mild or gentle variety of reader. The
idea of a New Zealand Government force decapitating its enemies and
smoke-drying those heads for purposes of reward is too, too savage
for the refined humanitarian to contemplate without a shudder.
Nevertheless, these are facts. Many an ugly incident happened in the
bush-fighting of those days. It was no kid-glove warfare. In this case
the Government Maoris were inflamed by anger and revenge, and indeed
some of them were little better than the cannibals they were chasing.
And they were wild with a desire to _ngaki mate_, that is, to seek
vengeance, payment, for their dead--blood for blood.
But while it was barbarous, it was thoroughly in accord with the spirit
of guerilla warfare that was forced upon the troops, and it served its
purpose, for it struck terror into the hearts of Titokowaru's warriors,
and they never fought again.
* * * * *
The Hauhau war-chief's _mana-tapu_ was gone, and there was nothing for
it but to fly to the depths of the wilderness. He and his men gathered
in a few days at Rimatoto, but made a very short stay there. They
marched through the forest to the island-fastness in the Ngaere swamp,
where they were very nearly caught by Whitmore and his Constabulary,
who made a rough _tête-de-pont_ over the quaking morass with hurdles
of supplejack and bush-vines. Then they made off for the Ngatimaru
Country, on the upper waters of the Waitara, thirty or forty miles
away, over terribly rough country and through an almost trackless
forest.
"A party of forty or fifty of us," says Bent, "remained in our little
settlement at Rimatoto, always on the alert against surprise by the
troops, until the anxiety of our position became too much for us. We
packed up our belongings, and swagged them inland to Rukumoana, on the
Patea River. In this lonely spot, far in the bush, we camped, and made
a little clearing in order to plant food. When we had felled the bush
with our axes, twenty men travelled across to the Upper Waitara to
procure seed potatoes from their friends, and we planted our crops and
waited."
In this remote valley of refuge, far in the forest, the white runaway
and his Hauhau companions--he was still with his chief Rupé--remained
for many weeks, living the loneliest life conceivable, hearing nothing
of the outside world, and existing precariously on the foods of the
forest.
Titokowaru was safe in his bush retreat in the Ngatimaru Country, his
last battle fought, his once godlike _mana_ in the dust.