Camp Fire Yarns of the Lost Legion Part 2

Anyhow, the oracle had spoken, and the war party started. The w.a.n.ganui reached Opotiki, did their duty well, and on the completion of their service were to take ship for home. Up to this time nearly everything had panned out all right for the soothsayer, with regard to his prophecy: the w.a.n.ganui had been successful and had not lost a single man; but the oracle had distinctly stated Pitau was to die himself, yet here he was still alive. It certainly was not his fault, for at the fight at the Kiori-kino, and also in other skirmishes, he had done his best to get killed, but seemed to bear a charmed life; yet if he returned home alive, his name and reputation as a high-toned prophet would be gone for ever. The Fates, however, gave him one more chance, and he grasped it. Canoes, heavily ladened, were pushing off from the sh.o.r.e to the ship: he sprang into one of these, and by his extra weight swamped the canoe. The amphibious natives easily swam ash.o.r.e, but so did not Pitau, for, raising his arms above his head, he allowed himself to sink down to his rest, among the eels and crabs, rather than allow his prophecy to be unfulfilled. Surely there are many names on the scroll of martyrs who have laid down their lives, to prove the truth of their convictions, less worthy of fame than that of Pitau.

And now I think I may spin you a yarn about a personal experience I had of the superst.i.tious fears of the Maoris, although by doing so I must confess to a _mauvaise plaisanterie_ I was guilty of perpetrating, and of which I am thoroughly ashamed, that created a greater emotion, among a party of highly respectable old cannibals, than any convulsion of nature would have caused.

It happened in this way: I was well aware of the great superst.i.tious dread the Maoris had of the green lizard. These, although they exist in New Zealand, are rare birds, and during the years I was there I saw but few of them. The Maoris, however, believe that at death one of these lizards enters a man's body, and consequently look on them with horror and abhorrence. At the period I am yarning about, I was located at Ohinimutu, in the hot lake district, and had made a short visit to the town of Napier.

During my stay there, while wandering about the streets, I noticed that a speculative storekeeper had added some children's toys to his stock in trade, perhaps the very first that had ever been imported into the country, and as they attracted my attention I stopped to examine them. We are told that Old Nick is ever ready to prompt an idle man, and he must have been mighty adjacent to me that day, for on my spotting one of those old-fashioned, wooden crocodiles, painted a vivid green with bright-red spots on it, I immediately went into the shop and purchased it. The thing was constructed of small blocks of wood, sawn in such a way, and connected together with string, that when you held it in your hand it wriggled, and looked alive, while it also possessed a gaping red mouth and staring eyes. The confounded insect would not have raised a squall out of a nervous European babe of a year old; but, such as it was, I put it into my kit and, on my return up country, took it with me.

In due course of time I reached Ohinimutu, where, after a swim in the hot water and a good dinner, I retired to my private abode, a large hut built Maori fashion, but with European door and window, as I knew I should have to give audience to some dozen chiefs of the Arawa tribe, who would call on me to welcome my return and hear the news.

It did not take me long to prepare for their reception, and getting the toy out of my kit, I slipped it up my left sleeve, so that it was hidden. I then sat down in a low camp-chair and awaited my victims, who soon arrived, giving me their words of welcome as they entered, and squatting down in a semicircle in front of the fire, all of them as keen as mustard to hear the news. They were a fine-looking lot of old chaps, ten in number, and some of them almost gigantic in size.

Old Hori Haupapa must have stood over seven foot high, when in his prime; and the rest were all big men. Anxious as they were to hear the news, still they were far too well-bred to ask any questions, and, as I pretended to be in very low spirits and sat speechless, heaving an occasional deep sigh, they squatted there, conversing in low whispers, with looks full of commiseration for my unhappy state.

For a few minutes we sat quiet, then I made signs to the girl who attended on us to hand round the rum and tobacco: which she did. And after each man had been served, letting go a dismal groan, I said: "Friends, I thank you for your words of welcome. My heart is very dark. I have dreamed a dream." Here I paused to let the poison work; for a dream to a Maori audience is always a safe draw, and the muttered grunts and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, pa.s.sed round with nudges, showed me they were quite ripe to believe anything. So I continued: "Yes, friends, last night I dreamed a dream, and the interpretation of that dream is hidden from me." Here I paused again, and slipped the toy into my left hand, which rested on my left knee, while I held their eyes with my own, so that, in the firelit whare, none of them noticed my sleight of hand. Then I continued: "I dreamed, O chiefs of the Arawa, that we all sat, as we are doing now, by this fire, when lo!

out of my left hand crept a ngaraka" (green lizard). Here again I paused, but so did not my hearers, for old Taupua, glancing nervously at my left hand, at once spotted what he thought to be a dreaded lizard. The grim old warrior let go a howl of consternation and promptly turned a back somersault, thereby drawing the attention of all the others to the noxious reptile; and in one moment these dignified old savages, who would have faced without flinching the fire of a battery of artillery sooner than have committed a gaucherie, were trying to push and struggle through the door, with no more regard to manners or manhood than the ordinary well-dressed Englishman displays who pushes ladies on one side while boarding a tram.

The first one to reach the door was an ancient, who did not understand the mechanism of a white man's lock, so failed to open it; and in a moment they were climbing over one another's backs, in their frantic endeavours to escape until the end of the whare gave way, and the big chiefs of the Arawa tribe precipitated themselves, door and all, into outer darkness, where they formed a confused heap of writhing, howling humanity. At last they struggled free, and each man made for his own hut, all fully convinced that something dreadful was going to happen and that the whole community was past praying for. Nor did the panic end here; for in a moment the tribe was roused up and, the awful news being promulgated, in two flirts of a cat's tail, every man, woman and child had cleared out of the kainga. Yes, those who had canoes took to them, and those who had none used their legs, and used them to some advantage, for in less time than it takes me to write it the whole of that congregation of peaceful natives had abandoned their happy homes and fled.

Well, after my first burst of laughter was over, I began to count up the cost of my stupid joke, and at once saw I was likely to have to pay dearly for my fun. To commence with, my hut would have to be rebuilt; but that was a trifle. What I had to fear was the censure of the Government, as the Defence Minister was an old Scotsman, without a particle of fun in his whole corpus, so was not likely to view the scatterment of his most pampered tribe with equanimity, and visions of reasons in writing and prosecutions danced before my eyes. It was clear that the first thing to be done was to get the natives to come back to their kainga; but how? I knew full well they would not suffer me to approach within a mile of any of them, and although I had some sterling friends among the fighting chiefs, yet, if I could not get speech with them, so as to explain matters to them, their good will would be of no use to me.

Fortunately, among the men dwelling at Ohinimutu was a Ngapuhi native, and I engaged him to act as messenger; but, although he was a red-hot Christian, nothing would persuade him to come near, much less touch, the wretched toy. I, however, induced this man to go over to Mokoia Island, see the princ.i.p.al tribal tohunga, and get him to come across and interview me. Fitting him out with a gallon of rum and plenty of tobacco, I despatched my Mercury and awaited his return in trepidation. On the morning of the second day he reported himself, and informed me that the tohunga awaited me, but that, as nothing would induce the limb of Satan to land, I must go down to the lake, and he would discourse with me from his canoe. So I had to go to the lake and collogue with the old sinner from the point of a jutting-out cape.

After I had tried to make him understand the true state of affairs, I produced the toy; but nothing I could say would induce him to believe that it was composed of inanimate wood. No, he could see it move, swore it was alive, and sternly refused to touch it, or even come closer to me, so that he could examine it. At last, happy thought, I suggested I should burn it. To this he consented. So, putting the unfortunate crocodile on the top of a flat stone, I collected some dry sticks and, with him watching every movement, constructed a funeral pyre, and cremated the wretched toy to ashes. Then he consented to land and came up to my hut, where he went through many incantations and gesticulations, although he avoided touching or entering it.

Presently he turned to me and said: "This and all it contains must be at once burned. Have you removed anything from it?" I had not; though, expecting something of this sort to happen, I had taken every care that my servant should do so, and that absolutely nothing of value remained within it; so, like a Radical Minister, I only told half the truth. "Set it on fire," quoth he, and this I did with equanimity, as it would only give the Maoris the trouble of building me a better one, so that in a few minutes not a vestige of my late mansion remained. As everything that had been contaminated by the penny toy was now supposed to be destroyed, the old tohunga consented to discuss terms of peace, which consisted as follows:--first, that I should hand over, privately, to the tohunga himself, one gallon of rum, three pounds of tobacco and twenty-five pounds of flour, the said tohunga guaranteeing to at once dream a dream directing the natives to rebuild my house, with great rapidity. Secondly, that at the general tangi, to be held next day, on the return of the natives, I was to provide ten gallons of rum, twenty pounds of tobacco and half-a-ton of flour, all of which was to be consumed thereat. And lastly, should I on any future occasion go to Napier, and discover any more instruments of white man's devilry, I was to bring them to him, when, with a little judicious management, we could work many miracles to our mutual advantage.

All these terms having been agreed to, Satan's representative among the Arawa departed, and the next morning all his congregation, accompanied by many of their country friends, returned, when a big tangi with much feasting and dancing took place; but even my very best friends looked askance at me for a long time, while for some weeks the majority of the women, girls and children would fly from me as if I had the plague.

You must not think for a moment that this avoidance was caused by ill will, or that the old chiefs bore me any malice for the shameful trick I had played them, or that I was fined the rum, flour, etc., for the evil I had done. Not a bit of it. I was mulct for my misfortune, not for my fault. In their eyes no fault had been committed. If Moses himself had returned to tell them I had played them a trick, they would not have believed him. No; had they not seen the beast come out of my hand at the very moment I was relating my dream? Trick indeed, not much. They looked on me as an awful example of misfortune, and therefore as a fit and proper personage to be politely robbed.

Yes, robbed. Had I been a Maori, not only myself but all my family would have been robbed of every single article we possessed in the world, in payment for the affliction of bad luck that had fallen on me; but as I was a white man this could not be done, so I was fined.

For is not this in accordance with the ancient custom or law of Muru, which authorises a man smitten by a sudden calamity to be plundered of all he possesses? And what greater calamity was possible to mortal man than to have an obscene lizard grow out of his hand? Therefore I was fined. As for trick, nonsense! What man dare make fun of, or render ridiculous, the dignity and majesty of the head chiefs of the Arawa tribe?

I think I may say a few more words on this extraordinary law of muru--a law that Europeans regarded with laughter and contempt; yet it worked very well among the natives, and should any family have met with misfortune and the law not have been put in force against them, they would have considered themselves not only slighted, but insulted.

It also, among others, contained one salient good quality, as it caused all personal portable property constantly to change hands, for the family that was plundered one day would, in the ordinary course of events, rob some other family a few days afterwards, so that a canoe, blanket or any household utensil might pa.s.s through many hands and, if not worn out during its transits, might at last return to its original possessor. Yet to a white man it did seem funny that a party of natives _en route_ to visit another family, and whose canoe should be capsized when landing, were not only robbed of their canoe, but that the unlucky ones would have considered themselves insulted had not their friends immediately annexed it.

I remember well that once, while on a journey to visit a pah, accompanied by a chief of some importance, in fact he was a native a.s.sessor--_i.e._ a sort of Maori J.P. appointed by Government--a very queer ill.u.s.tration of the law of muru cropped up.

We were to inquire into some trivial case, the defendant being the son of the chief of the place, and the utmost penalty not more than five shillings. Just as we reached the pah my companion, who was riding a fine, high-spirited horse, was bucked off, and while in the act of rising received a severe kick on the croup. He was picked up with much solicitude, all the natives condoling with him. The case was tried and settled, the defendant being mulct two shillings and sixpence, and next day, when about to depart, the horses being brought to the gate of the pah, my companion's horse was not forthcoming. At once I demanded the reasons why, and was informed it had been annexed as muru, for throwing and kicking my unfortunate friend, who at once acquiesced in the judgment and thanked the chief of the pah for his courtesy in paying him such an honour.

Again I was on a visit to a pah situated close to the mouth of a river, on the other side of which was another pah. One day my hosts started out to shoot a huge seine net, and of course the whole population turned out to a.s.sist or give advice. The noise, as everyone yelled at the top of his or her gamut, was deafening. However, two large canoes eventually got away with the net on board, and after taking a bold sweep returned to sh.o.r.e and landed the sea end.

Immediately all hands, redoubling their yells, tailed on to the hauling ropes and pulled and howled with all their might. Just as the bag of the net came in view, a huge shark, that had been encompa.s.sed in its toils, made a bold dash, broke the net and escaped, letting out, at the same time, many large fish. The excited and disappointed natives were just dragging the net and the still great remainder of the catch up on to the sand, when their neighbours, apprised by the yells that something unfortunate had occurred, dashed across the river in their canoes, and after a sham resistance of a few minutes swept up and carried off all the remaining fish. They might also have confiscated the net, but did not, an old chief confiding to me that the other side of the river was full of rocks, and not suitable for seine netting; moreover, the net was broken and would require repairing. Such was the law of muru.

Of course to yarn about New Zealand without saying anything about the custom of Tapu would be on all fours with yarning about Rome and not mentioning the Pope. So here goes for a few remarks about the ancient but very confusing custom of tapu.

Anything animate or inanimate could be rendered tapu by the will, or even touch, of a man who was tapu himself. Tapu might also render a thing so sacred, or might render it so unclean, that to touch that thing would const.i.tute an act of unpardonable sacrilege, or cause the toucher to be looked upon as so defiled as to be ostracised by the whole community, although the act was done innocently and in ignorance.

To break a tapu was looked upon, by the superst.i.tious natives, as a direct challenge to the greatly dreaded spiritual powers, and was certain to bring swift and awful punishment.

A big chief was tapu, and if he went to war the essence of tapu became doubly distilled, so much so that he could not feed himself, nor even touch food with his hands. Nor could he even touch a cup or utensil that did not actually belong to himself, for if he did so, the article he used at once became so tapu that no one else could use it; consequently it became either his personal property, or had to be destroyed. This in a country where there were neither shops nor manufactories was an impossibility, so that at meal-time a chief had to eat apart, and be fed by either a girl or slave. Truly the sublime approached the ridiculous, to see a grim, tattooed old warrior squatting down, with a small girl throwing morsels of food into his mouth, or with his head thrown back, and his jaws extended to their full width, receiving a stream of water, poured down his throat, from the spout of an ancient tea-kettle. Even an ordinary warrior, not being a slave, lost his back when on the warpath--_i.e._ his back became so tapu that he could carry nothing, much less provisions, on it; and this was also very inconvenient when having to march through a rough, bushed country, without waggons or pack-horses. Food could even become tapu, especially that which remained from the portion served out for the use of the chief, even though no part of his body had touched it; and there is a well-authenticated case, that on one occasion a slave, being on the warpath, found some food and ate it. No sooner had he done so than he was informed it was the remains of the dinner of the fighting chief. This news so horrified the poor superst.i.tious wretch that he was at once taken ill with sharp internal pains, and died.

The Maoris always made their plantations in the bush, frequently at a considerable distance from their kaingas, and these, after the potatoes had been planted, would only be occasionally visited by their owners, who, to protect them, would get the chief or tohunga to tapu the plantation; and this being done, the produce would be quite safe from the depredations of others.

About the year 1870 some six brace of pheasants were turned loose in the Waikato district, and the princ.i.p.al chief put his tapu on them for seven years. These birds increased and throve in a manner truly wonderful. Not a Maori dare touch one, although long before the period of protection had expired the birds had not only spread all over the Waikato district, but also over all the adjoining ones. And they carried their protection with them, for notwithstanding the fact that they had become somewhat of a nuisance to the Arawa tribe, who were not in any way subordinate to the Waikato chief, yet they respected his tapu, and would have starved sooner than eaten them.

It was by making use of this tapu that the wonderful head of game and fish at present in New Zealand has been reared and acclimatised.

Should a chief die within his whare, that hut and everything it contained at once became tapu and was lost to use; for as soon as his body had been removed, the door was at once blocked up, and the hut with its contents allowed to moulder away, no one daring to touch, much less remove, one single article. Tapu, therefore, in a manner of speaking, was the antipoise of the law of muru, for if the enforcement of the latter rendered the portable property of an individual or tribe precarious, yet tapu made his t.i.tle indissoluble; so the two laws or customs got on very well together, and may exist to the present day.

I cannot leave my friends the Maoris without speaking about their awful cruelty in torturing and killing their prisoners, and in the foul ma.s.sacres of helpless women and children.

Yet even in this there may be something said in their favour, especially should you compare them, savages as they were, with the human monsters that every Christian European country has produced, when they would be found no more cruel or bloodthirsty.

Now I don't want to draw parallels in history, but it rather disgusts me to hear Alva, Tilly, Nana Sahib, or even Te Kooti, run down, while such a cold-blooded villain as Cromwell is extolled.

I was taught as a schoolboy to regard Tilly and Alva as the incarnations of Satan; I suppose because they made it sultry for Protestants; but it was not pointed out to me that at the very same time Alva and his Spanish troops were making it hot for Lutherans in the Netherlands, the English troops of Protestant Queen Bess were perpetrating infinitely worse brutalities on the helpless Irish, while the fiendish cruelties of Tilly's wild Croats and Pandours, at the sack of Magdeburg, were equalled, if not surpa.s.sed, at Drogheda, by Oliver Cromwell and his canting hypocritical Puritans.

I am myself an Irishman, a Protestant, a Unionist and an Imperialist, just as ready to fight for our King and Flag as ever I was during the forty years I pa.s.sed on the Colonial frontiers, but I can blame none of my countrymen for the hatred they feel towards England, provided they fight like men and eschew all cowardly, underhand, secret societies; and I am convinced it will require many centuries to roll past before the recollection of the Penal Laws and the foul, savage treachery of past English rule is obliterated, while the curse of Cromwell will remain for ever. Nana Sahib and Te Kooti did not, combined, kill as many helpless women and children as either Alva, Tilly or Cromwell; yet, as they killed all they could, they cannot be blamed for that, and I have no doubt that on their arrival in Hades they were a.s.signed just as honourable entertainment and particular attentions as the aristocratic fiend, the priestly murderer or the Puritan cut-throat.

It must also be remembered that the atrocities committed by Te Kooti and his fanatical followers might be blamed upon the fiendish faith they had adopted and had never been practised by the Maoris during the previous six years of the war, also that they were more or less fighting in defence of their country against invaders. Again, Te Kooti had been the victim of gross injustice, at the hands of the Colonial Government, insomuch as he had been transported without trial, and that the evidence against him was not only insufficient, but was also of such a nature that the law officers of the Crown could find no excuse even to bring him to a trial, so that many of his brutalities were prompted by a desire for utu, a custom universally practised by the Maoris.

Please don't think I have written the above for the purpose of deifying England's enemy, or to slander my own countrymen like a Radical Little Englander, for I would have, at any time, blown the roof off Te Kooti's head, or that of one of his followers, with as little compunction as I have since shot a mangy jackal; but I have written it simply to show that, if savage New Zealand produced one fiend, in the shape of Te Kooti, Christian England produced a worse one in the shape of that sanctimonious hypocrite, Oliver Cromwell, and that therefore we should not endanger our own gla.s.s by throwing stones.

I alluded just now to the custom of utu, which means payment or revenge, and is very similar to the law of the Jews, that laid down the maxim of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth--an axiom which the Maoris believe in thoroughly.

It was the practice of this custom that led to many of the sanguinary combats and ma.s.sacres that took place between the armed traders and the natives during the first half of the past century. These traders visited New Zealand and exchanged muskets, powder, ironware, etc., for flax, whale oil, curios and men's heads. They were a hard-fisted, lawless crowd, who, in their brigs or schooners, well armed with musket, pike and carronade, would anchor in one of the splendid natural harbours and begin their traffic with the haughty, warlike savages.

Business carried on between such men as these often brought about a row, which a musket shot or a slash from cutla.s.s or tomahawk would not improve, and the ship would then sail away, after most likely the killing or wounding of some natives. The remembrance of the blood spilt would be treasured by the Maoris, and the next trader who visited that place would have to pay for the evil deeds of the previous visitor. Now the Maori looked on all white men as belonging to the same tribe, and the custom of utu allowed any man injured by an individual to wreak his vengeance upon any member of the said individual's tribe, provided his particular enemy were absent. In this he was backed up by all the members of his own tribe, especially if blood had been drawn; for tribal blood must be paid for with blood, and no Sicilian clan ever carried out a vendetta more thoroughly than a Maori hapu. This being so, the Maoris eagerly looked for the next vessel, to take their blood payment for the blood spilt.

Knowing full well that their canoes and spears were no match for the well-armed ship, they would bide their time and have recourse to treachery. The white men would be received with apparent good will, and, if foolish enough, might be lulled into a mistaken sense of security. This being done, the majority of the crew would be enticed ash.o.r.e, where, taken off their guard, or separated, they would be attacked, killed and eaten, while the ship, weakened by the loss of so many men, was sometimes boarded and captured, the natives thereby obtaining utu for the original injury done them.

Maoris were very punctilious about the honour of their tribes and ancestors, this being carried to an extent almost ludicrous. _Par exemple_, a year or two before I left New Zealand an old woman belonging to one tribe was planting potatoes, and as she shoved each tuber into the ground she called it by the name of one of the princ.i.p.al living chiefs or dead heroes of an adjoining tribe. This came to the ears of the said tribe, who immediately prepared for war, despatching an ultimatum that, unless the plantation and all the spuds it contained were at once destroyed, they would attack their insulting neighbours. The _casus belli_ must seem very absurd to a white man; but it was different to the offended tribe, as when, in the course of events, the murphies became ready for the pot, the scandalous old dame would be able to declare that she was not only devouring their living chiefs, but that, vampire-like, she was feeding upon their defunct ones.

I mentioned that the Maoris performed many splendid acts of courage in getting away their wounded and even their dead. This was done not only for love or comradeship, but to prevent the enemy from using their flesh in lieu of butcher's meat, and also to save their bones being turned into useful and ornamental articles by their opponents.

For instance, let us suppose that during some ancient war, the Waikato tribe fighting against the Taranaki, the former should have killed and captured the body of a great war chief whom we will call Te Rawa. The flesh of the dead man, in the first place, would be eaten--a great indignity--but that would not be the end of him, for the bones would be preserved, and turned into fish-hooks, flutes and ornaments, the teeth strung nicely on flax, making a necklace; and it was not pleasant for the victim's descendants to hear that their revered though unfortunate ancestor was still furnishing food and bijouterie for the offspring of his slayer.

Now all the aforementioned useful articles were called by the name of the man they had, in the first place, belonged to--in this case Te Rawa. The owner of the fish-hook could boast that he was still eating Te Rawa, as he would call all the fish caught by that special hook Te Rawa. Then, pointing to the necklace, he might brag he was wearing Te Rawa, and when inclined for music he would tootle on his flute and proudly declare he was playing Te Rawa; so that the unfortunate descendants of the poor old defunct, whenever they heard of this, would have to blush under their tattooed skins at the very name of their much-deplored ancestor.

It was therefore a most sacred duty to rescue a dead or wounded comrade from the enemy, even when fighting against the white men; for although the natives well knew that we did not use their defunct relatives for rations, nor turn them into musical instruments, yet it had become so strong a custom among themselves to guard against such a possible catastrophe, that they still practised it although unnecessarily.

I must revert once more to the custom of utu so as to point out the fair-mindedness of the natives should this law be used against themselves. Let me give you just one instance.

The circ.u.mstance took place after the capture of Ngatapa. Some 130 Hau Haus had been taken prisoners, these being shot out of hand and their bodies thrown over a precipice; but six or eight of them remained alive, in our hands, as it was not certain they had partic.i.p.ated in the Poverty Bay ma.s.sacre. They were confined in a hut awaiting trial and, as all the murdered people were dead, it was a moot point whether these fellows would not get off for want of evidence. One of the men, however, whose relations had been murdered, determined that they should not slip through the clumsy fingers of the law, as alas so many of the blood-stained villains had succeeded in doing. He volunteered to act as one of the guard round the hut and, borrowing another revolver from a mate, he took the first opportunity to enter the hut and deliberately blew out the brains of all the inmates.

This act of summary justice was fully approved of by the Maoris, as it bore out the custom of utu; for if the defunct Hau Haus had not murdered the man's family themselves, yet their tribes had done so; and they considered it a square deal, as blood had been paid for by blood.

I could yarn on about these queer people for hours and tell you of plenty of other quaint customs, such as their wakes, marriages, etc., also about their industry and other qualities, good and bad, for, faith! they have them mixed like all other people. But if you have followed and appreciated my first attempt it will encourage me to write more of my humble experiences on the frontiers of the Empire with the old Lost Legion I love so well.

CHAPTER II