A HAU HAU MARTYR
Let me spin you a yarn of how a Maori was so imbued with fanaticism
that he faced in cold blood extinction for the same.
Many of the Hau Haus, bloodthirsty, cruel fanatics as they were, whom
the Colonial forces ruthlessly knocked on the head during the latter
half of the New Zealand wars, are just as much entitled to be enrolled
in the army of martyrs as are the early Christians or any other poor
devils who have perished by fire or sword for believing and sticking
to their faith.
Again, there are many instances of Hau Haus who were so strong in
their convictions that they of their own free will deliberately
offered themselves up to undergo the fiery ordeal by leaving their
harbours of safety and, unarmed, trusting alone to spiritual aid,
faced certain death; and I have never read of any persecuted
communities doing the same.
When in 1865 the Pai Marire religion was promulgated by a demented
Maori named Te Ua, the two principal promises held out to induce the
Maoris to join the new religion were: first, that they should be
rendered invulnerable in action; and, secondly, that they should be
granted the gift of tongues. They were also promised the assistance of
legions of angels, and that those white soldiers who were not turned
into stone should with the rest of the settlers be driven into the
sea, after which the natives should be given the knowledge of all the
European arts and sciences. Please note he made no promise about a
future state, nor, like Mahomet, did he invent any gorgeous paradise,
thronged with pretty girls, where free drinks would be served out _ad
libitum_.
Now these were queer promises to captivate a Maori warrior, as after
the first excitement there was but little in them to induce him to
abandon Christianity and cling to Hau Hauism. Let us take them
_seriatim_, remembering at the same time that the Maori is an astute
reasoner. First of all the promise of invulnerability. Well, that
would be all right so long as they only had to fight against the white
man, but the pakeha was to be driven out, and what would follow then?
War was the Maori's greatest pleasure, and each tribe hated his
neighbour quite as much as he hated the white man. Yet his neighbour
was to become just as invulnerable as he was to be himself. Where,
therefore, would be the fun if he could not kill his enemy, eat him,
nor turn his bones into useful and ornamental articles? Bah! the zest
of war would be gone. Then again the second promise. What on earth use
could the gift of tongues be to a man when there was not to be a
single foreigner left in the country with whom to collogue? As for the
other promises, they were not worth a row of pins, for if the warriors
became invulnerable they wanted no further angelic aid; and as far as
acquiring the arts and sciences went, so long as they could learn how
to make rum and grow tobacco, all the rest could go swing, they being
willing to live as their fathers had lived before them.
Now I am sure that if the natives had only reasoned as I have just
done they would not have thrown off their Christianity in such a hurry
and become stark raving Hau Haus; but they seem on this occasion to
have lost their wits altogether, for, carried away by the crazy
incantations of Te Ua's apostles, they not only embraced the new
faith, but believed in the truth of it, so much so that there are
plenty of instances of their laying down their lives for it--and no
man can do more.
Another wonderful thing is that even after four years' continuous
fighting, during which period the angel had not only failed to bear a
hand, but had not even rendered one man invulnerable, as apostle,
priest and warrior had been put out of mess by the white man's bullet,
still they were strong in their faith, and there are plenty of
instances of Hau Haus, believing in the promise of the angel, offering
their bodies as a target so as to prove the truth of their religion.
And now for the yarn.
The scene is a Maori kainga on the east coast of New Zealand, date
1869, time of day about 9 A.M. The village, composed of some twenty
huts, stands in a clearing surrounded by dense bush, and in the
foreground stands the Niu, the sacred pole round which the fanatics
perform their mad dances and mystic incantations. I said it was a
Maori kainga; so it had been, though the only Maoris at present inside
it are perhaps a score, and these lie about very dead indeed. The
remainder of its whilom inhabitants have fled away into the depths of
the bush and are safe from the pursuit of the strong party of
Colonial Irregulars, who, having, after a long, wearying night's
march, surprised and rushed the place at daybreak, are now in
occupation of it. These men, having eaten their frugal meal, and worn
out by their overnight's march, with the exception of the guard lie
around booted and belted and with their carbines by their sides,
trying to get what sleep they can, as at any moment they may again be
called upon for active service. On the low fence surrounding the Niu
ring, which is about thirty feet in diameter, the ground within the
magic circle being trampled as hard and smooth as stone pavement by
the feet of its former worshippers, lounge some half-dozen officers
smoking and dozing. The day is a fine one, the sun shines hot, the
white men rest, the Hau Haus, far away in the recesses of the bush,
bind up their wounds and talk of utu (revenge). No, not all of them,
for the undergrowth parts and out into the clearing strides a big,
stark-naked Maori, who, without paying the slightest attention to any
of the astonished and by now wideawake men, passes through them and,
without apparently seeing the group of officers, enters the Niu ring,
where, after saluting the pole, he prances slowly round it, chanting
in a minor key the words: "Hau Hau, Pai Marire" (Wind, wind, good,
peaceful), over and over again. Gradually he gets up steam and, paying
no attention to the throng of armed enemies who now surround the
mystic circle, he cavorts higher and faster, while his monotonous
chant is raised to the full gamut of his deep, bass voice. Presently
he foams at the mouth, his features become distorted, sweat pours
through his skin like water, on his hands held rigid his fingers
quiver, while with leaps and bounds his stamping feet beat time to the
chant of "Hau Hau, Pai Marire."
How long this exhibition would have continued the Lord only knows, for
it was brought to a sudden termination by a big Scotch Presbyterian
sergeant, who, being as bigoted as they make them, could not tolerate
the ritual of a foreign denomination, so he stepped out of the crowd
of men and, as the fanatic devotee pranced past him, he with a leg as
brawny as that of a Highland stot let fly a kick, at the same time
exclaiming: "Hae done, ye pagan, wi yer satanic cantrips." Out flew
the No. 12 boot, which, catching the unfortunate bounder fair and
square on the crupper bone, launched him through space till, the
momentum being expended, he landed on his nose at the Colonel's feet.
"Get up," quoth the O.C. in Maori, at the same time giving the
officious non-com. a look that made the ower-guid mon wilt. "Now, what
made you come here?"
The Colonel spoke the language like a native, and what he did not know
about Hau Haus was not worth learning, so he was not in the least bit
surprised when the somewhat blown native staggered to his feet and
answered him in perfect English: "I came here among you to turn you
all into stone, and should have done so had not that man, whose head
is fit to be boiled, interrupted me."
"Ah," replied the O.C., "I know you; you assisted Nama to torture
women and children at Poverty Bay."
"I did," triumphantly exclaimed the fanatic. "Sweet is the blood of
women and children." (Note this fellow had been mission bred and
educated, in fact had acted as a lay Bible reader.)
"Ah, is it," growled the Colonel. "Sergeant O'Halloran, detail four
men, take this fellow to that tree and do your duty."
The Sergeant saluted smartly, quickly told off four men, advanced to
his prisoner, whose arm he grasped with a shoulder-of-mutton fist, at
the same time exclaiming: "Come along wid me, ye bloody-minded
Fanian."
A few steps took them to the huge tortara-tree that had been pointed
out, against the trunk of which the Sergeant, drawing his revolver,
placed the Hau Hau. "And now," said he, "a Christian ye were wance,
and a bloody pagan ye are now, bad luck to the likes of ye, but ave ye
wist to recant and make yer sowl, sure it's foive minutes I'll give ye
to make it.--Fall in, boys, tin yards forninst us."
Now no good soldier man, be he regular or irregular, likes to make one
of a firing party, told off to shoot a man in cold blood, law or no
law, and it is usual in such cases to detail the worst characters in a
regiment to perform that obnoxious duty; but when it comes to letting
daylight into a fiend who brags of having tortured helpless women and
children, then no frontiersman jibs at making one of a party to do so.
Therefore, no matter how distasteful the job might be to any of the
four men told off on this special occasion, they fell in with great
alacrity and brought their carbines to the shoulder like one man.
"Hurry up, ye spalpeen, and make yer sowl," quoth the Sergeant.
"You can't shoot me," replied the fanatic, "the great Gabriel and all
his angels protect me; you can't kill me."
"Nabocklish" (maybe not), answered the imperturbable non-com., "but by
the holy poker we'll have a darned good try. Will yez call on the
blessed saints or not, ye contumacious blaggard?"
"Hau Hau, Pai Marire," shouted the fanatic, raising his arms,
stretching them to the full extent and turning the hands, palms
outwards, towards the firing party.
"Ah, thin ye won't," growled the now somewhat enraged non-com., "thin
go to hell yer own way. Ready!"
"Hau Hau, Pai Marire," yelled the fanatic.
"Present!" ordered the Sergeant.
"Hau Hau, Pai Marire," triumphantly shrieked the Maori.
"Fire!"
"Hau Hau" bang came all together, and the misguided fanatic, smote
full in the chest by four sneider bullets, collapsed and fell on his
face as dead as Julius Cæsar.
Now was that Hau Hau, blood-stained brute as he undoubtedly was, a
martyr or only a bally fool? Remember, he had only a few hours
previously escaped from out of a sharp fight in which many of his
co-religionists had been killed, and after winning through to safety
himself he is so strong in his faith that he voluntarily returns alone
and unarmed to justify the truth of his conviction, although he well
knows he is facing certain death providing he be wrong in his belief.
You may call him which or what you please, but I maintain that he is
just as much to be enrolled in the army of martyrs as any of the poor
devils who were stretched on red-hot gridirons, or were put to death
in other unpleasant ways, for testifying to what they believed to be
the truth.