“I warned you. Tis the prophecy. It no matter what you do. The bones have spoken.”
Awaru, the young chief spoke again.
“She is mine. I will have her and I will decide whether to keep her or to take her back. I paid for her with my pigs.”
The old man seethed on hearing this and his eyes rolled in his head as he screamed.
“No, you not, I not, nobody,” he ranted in fury.
His anger was barely comprehensible, for he was too old for yet another wife. The mere is a beautiful yet deadly small fighting weapon worn on the hip by all men of rank. The best are of greenstone, painstakingly shaped and sharpened over months, even years by skilled slaves. Its edge can be made as sharp as a razor, and now the mere was a blur, such was the quickness of the old man. There was a striking of stone on bone with such force that the head of the girl was immediately severed, falling to the ground. The body was consumed, and the matter largely forgotten.
In due course the news of the murder filtered north, eventually reaching the ear of Te Morenga. After Hone Hika, he was the biggest and most feared warrior chief of the Ngapuhi. The death was such a gross insult that no Maori worth his name would ever forgive or forget, least of all Te Morenga. Yet despite his mana and power, it took him a full fifteen summers before he was able to assemble enough warriors and arms to ensure victory.
To The Victor The Spoils
At his Pa up north, at Kerikeri, Te Morenga was preparing a mighty war party. Large amounts of tree fern were pounded by slaves for food, war canoes readied, while war hakas and sporadic musket fire thundered and echoed through the hills. A frenzy of excitement and war fever pervaded, as hundreds of warriors arrived to join the taua (war party).
Some came from long distances, even traditional enemies, for the social structure of the time was exceedingly complex. The political ambitions of many could be realized by participating in such a mighty offensive and alliances were always complicated. With Maoris, a friend today could be an enemy tomorrow and a friend the day after. But great could be the joint mana (status) achieved from a successful raid and victory in battle would realize many tangible benefits. Not the least being more slaves, who represented food, or if not eaten, subservient minions to do the menial work.
From Kerikeri went twenty war canoes, resplendent in rich symbolic carvings and decorated with shark blood and bird feathers. They carried some six hundred warriors with traditional weapons and thirty five precious Pakeha muskets.
The words of spies could travel as fast as a crow can fly and the Ngati-Hei in the south were long aware of the coming raid. Though they had heard of white man’s weapons that could spit fire and smoke and kill from a distance, they preferred hand-to-hand combat and had made no attempt to purchase these strange weapons. Indeed, the tohunga claimed she had such great power that when the chief gave command, the sticks held by warriors would spout the same deadly fire of the white man’s sticks. So confident were the Ngati-Hei that they would win, they were prepared to meet the fearsome Ngapuhi on the beach, below and outside the Pa.
Now, from the lookouts on the headlands, smoke signals rose, warning the Whitianga people of the war party heading towards them. The wakas drew closer, paddles flashing in the sunlight to the incessant beat from the drummers. The defenders began a defiant war chant, a haka, and from the canoes came a mighty roar, as the rowers then launched into their own haka, accompanied by slapping of their paddles. The canoes were allowed to land, while the Ngati-Hei fell back to protect the entrance to their Pa.
Further hakas challenged back and forth in the ancient ritual and were answered. Then Awaru’s men, with increasing confidence, rushed forward and unleashed a hail of spears, killing one man.
Te Morenga held his men back and as the defenders went to cast further spears, he gave a fateful order. The warriors levelled the muskets, which blazed with a roar and a cloud of smoke and twenty warriors, including two minor chiefs, fell dead. The Ngati-Hei stood stock still in amazement at the sight of these strange spears that really could kill without even leaving the hands. Then to a man they scrambled back to the steep narrow track and into the safety of the Pa.
The Ngapuhi warriors wanted to continue the fight but Te Morenga had a wise head. Whitianga was famed for the crops of sweet potato and hills of pigs, given by James Cook. While the defenders sheltered in the Pa, Te Morenga raided sweet potato pits and took so many pigs that two massive canoes were loaded to the gunwhales and sent back north.
They set fire to all the outlying houses and crops, till the air was thick with smoke and ash. They slaughtered and ate a number of people they found hiding in the forest.
But the defending Ngati-Hei, were buoyed by the tohunga who confidently declared their sticks would make fire. They streamed out of the Pa the next morning and attacked the huge Ngapuhi camp, by aiming their blackened sticks. The tohunga gave an order. Nothing happened, only silence.
There was much derisive laughter, followed by a hail of bullets and spears from the Ngapuhi. In the ensuing brutal massacre, four hundred people lay dead. Survivors cut off from their Pa tried to swim across the estuary to safety. These were chopped down relentlessly and the waters ran red with blood, as bodies drifted with the tide. Some were deposited on the beach to bloat and be picked over by birds, while many were mauled by sharks, who in a feeding frenzy added the final indignity to the people.
Awaru, the young chief and his family bravely fought a standing battle till driven back against the entrance to a small cave. He parried with his taiaha, dealing death to many ambitious hot-bloods and the pile of vanquished warriors grew in front of them. Such was the protection from the cave entrance, that killing him was a difficult matter for the attackers. Suddenly a bull roar from a Ngapuhi chief made the attackers melt back. It was Rewa himself. Blood covered the bodies of both men and it could clearly be seen dripping from their weapons. The two chiefs faced each other, both young and with eyes full of hate.
“Surrender and you live,” demanded Rewa.
Awaru knew he could never be so dishonoured to live as the slave of a Ngapuhi.
“Take your flee-bitten maori dogs away, then we talk about who is the better man,” retorted Awaru.
“Step back,” ordered Rewa to his men, and he haughtily addressed Awaru.
“Today I will eat your eyes and your brain and your heart - or maybe the taste is so bad, I just give you to the pigs.”
“You feeble old man, I will beat you senseless and throw your maggoty carcase over the cliff- and your men will be so ashamed they will jump over after you.”
Rewa grabbed a taiaha from an onlooker and leapt on to the pile of dead warriors, but the bodies were soft and he slipped on them, like others before him. His arm rose and was barely able to parry a striking blow that would have taken his head off. The force of the thrust drove him down, slithering on to the bodies. As quick as a flash, Awaru’s taiaha twisted and lanced down, but it missed the rolling Rewa and entered deep into a dead body.
Rewa was within striking distance and the mere from his belt was a slashing blade. It took Awaru by surprise as it cut across his knee cap, immediately and effectively crippling him. With an anguished bellow, Awaru pulled out the spear and, hobbling on one leg, turned to face his attacker, but it was too late. The mere and the briefly delayed spear were to be his down fall, for Rewa’s spear twirled and the sharpened point was already driving towards Awarua’s heart. It flew with such force that it broke through the thick woven mat around his body and lodged itself deep into his chest.
Awaru stopped, as if mystified. He looked down at his chest, not quite believing what had just happened, before gazing at Rewa, a long, hard, pained look. His legs buckled and he slowly sank to the ground. His last movement was to twist towards his family, who were cowering, huddled and screaming, in the cave. With horror, they watched as he crumpled down and then wordlessly, life passed out of him.
The victorious Rewa rolled and was on his feet, springing like a cat.
A great cry rang out from his followers and Rewa raised his bloodied mere in triumph. He marched towards the family, his chest heaving. With an almighty cry, he slew the wife. Surrounded by screaming warriors, Rewa marched up to the eldest daughter, a comely girl of fifteen, and grabbed a handful of dark hair.
“Mine,” and she sank to her knees in abject terror, her bowels letting go, but he yanked her to her feet by her long hair.
“What be your name?” he demanded and she struggled to get out,
“Kiriwai.”
“Tie her up and into the canoe,” he demanded to a warrior.
“Lose her, and you lose your life.”
For many gory days, the Ngapuhi cannibalised the tribe, living and dead. They feasted till they were sated, throwing up and feasting more. The raiders pillaged and burned every village they came across, and it was an orgy of wanton destruction, before the canoes turned back to the north. They had mustered together more than two hundred prisoners. The wailing of men, women and children rose in mingled grief and alarm as they were bundled mercilessly into the war canoes, Kiriwai suffering amongst them.
These hapless and helpless slaves endured unbelievable agonies, tied and living in the wet bilges of the canoes. They lay in their own faeces and constantly under the fear of death, at the mere whim of any of their captors. Being bound and raped and beaten regularly, many died on the horror trip, to be either cast over board, or even used as bait to catch fish. It was the custom of the day that both men and women wore their hair long, and it was a very effective restraint to weave a thick rope from the head of one slave to another.
Triumphantly Te Morenga and Hone Hika paddled into the Bay of Islands, where the waiting Ngapuhi people were as one on the shore line, hundreds deep and in ecstasy at the tremendously successful war raid. The canoes with the warriors touched the shore to a cacophony of keening from the old ladies. Following them, the canoes containing the dead warriors moved towards the shore. Selected warriors had accepted the honour of paddling all the way back north, with the revered yet decomposing bodies of the slain. That the bodies gave out an incredible stench in the summer sun was of no concern, but the losses created immense grief in the tribe.
The attention turned to the miserable slaves, tied and barely alive with exhaustion and starvation. Without consideration, they began to be pulled from the canoes, many barely able to walk, many already dead. They were manhandled roughly till all were seated on the beach. Many of the slaves were weeping bitterly and Kiriwai in particular, before whom was placed the head of her young brother, stuck upon a pole, by her laughing captors.
Over the next few days the Ngaphi randomly killed more of the prisoners, murdering them unfeelingly and for no apparent reason. Several heads were impaled upon poles near the English mission dwellings, and the tattooed skin of a man's thigh was nailed to a board to dry, in order to be made into the covering of a cartridge-box.
It did not occur to the Ngapui victors that their relatives had fallen in fair fight, or even perhaps that they had brought upon themselves a well-merited death by going to attack those who, by comparison, were much weaker in defence, nor had given sufficient cause for hostilities. Neither did they bear in mind how much larger a number of the enemy had fallen than the few over whom they were grieving. They had lost their relatives and they knew of no other way of moderating their grief than by the indulgence of brutal revenge.
Of the peaceful Ngati-Hei and other raided Whitianga tribes, only a small fraction survived capture or death. The captured were now slaves and were taken to be distributed among the tribes of the Bay of Islands.
Rewa Returns
Rewa was a minor chief compared to Hongi Hika and Te Morenga, but he had acquitted himself with honour. He took home a large number of slaves, including a new wife, Kiriwai. Rewa was besotted by this beautiful Ngati-Hei girl, and so maddened was the first wife that when her own child was born, she walked into the water with the placenta still trailing, and drowned herself and her own infant.
As customary, a slave was similarly killed and Rewa suffered some distress, as he was fond of the wife, but his attention was focused on the lovely young Kiriwai, whom he now made first wife, even though a slave. But to his great despair, she never recovered from the rigours of her capture and she died a few years later in childbirth, in 1826. Rewa revered the child, who was given the best suckling nurse and every care possible.
The baby was named Ika a Maui (fishhook of Maui) as she had a birthmark in shape of fishhook on her chest. She became known amongst friends and playmates as Kiri, a name that stayed with her all her life. Virgin and untouchable high rank, she swam naked, climbed trees as well as any of the boys, learned womanly arts and it was thought she was to be apprentice to the chief tohunga-priest, a fierce old man who lived alone in a shabby raupo whare.
The growing years of Kiri were the most enormous years of change for the Maori people. By now the white people, the Pakehas’, were firmly ingraining themselves with their new languages, and the new religion was creeping like a parasitic vine over the land. The centuries old ways and traditions were in a few brief summers, changing forever.
Rewa, by the 1830’s was a middle-aged man, astute and wise. He had been forced, with his family and people, to change and adapt in ways unimaginable just a few years prior.
1835 Kororareka, Northland
Whaler captains and crew, after enduring months of highly dangerous work in the southern oceans, burned with lust for the warm Maori maidens and the harsh rum, both readily available in Kororareka in the north of New Zealand.
Captains and crews of these ships, married or not, rarely exhibited restraint, but into the den of sin one day sailed Captain Brind, a genial, affable man, who wisely did not try to inhibit the enthusiastic fornication shown by his crew. A married man, he himself generally resisted the charms of the dusky maidens who regularly swam out to his ship.
One November morning the ship lay quietly at anchor in the sheltered waters off Kororareka. Maoris in canoes selling trinkets and fresh provisions were by now a nearly permanent sight, and he barely noticed them. As he leaned on the taffrail, a coffee cup in his hand, he looked down – into the eyes of an exceptionally beautiful native girl, sitting quietly in a single canoe. Aged not more than fifteen years, her glossy black hair barely covered her naked breasts, though the slightest movement of her head exposed them to his eye.
Despite himself, he felt himself become aroused, for she was no ordinary girl; she was simply ravishing. A simple grass skirt was all that hid her private parts, for her long legs and feet were also bare. Unlike most of the women, she had no moko (tattoo) on her lips or chin.
“Captain, I have been waiting for you.” Captain Brind nearly spilt his coffee.
“Why, may I ask?”
“Chief Rewa has a message for you.” He delegated a nearby sailor to help her on board and held his jacket in front of himself, barely able to hide his embarrassment. Where had this creature been hiding all this time? He bade her come to his cabin and she walked confidently ahead. The view from behind was totally bewitching, a strong honey-brown back with small buttocks barely contained in the grass skirt. Captain Brind nearly had an indiscretion on the spot.
He closed the door, and sat uncomfortably on the edge of his desk, while the girl stood relaxed in front of him, feet slightly apart and arms by her sides. His gaze was transfixed by a brown nipple showing through the tresses. The girl spoke in a husky soft voice.
“My name is Moewaka. I am second daughter of chief Rewa. My father wishes to give this to you.”
She slowly parted her hair and now the full breasts of the maiden were exposed. Despite himself, Captain Brind let out a small cry. In the swelling of the natural cleavage of her breasts, was a beautiful carving. Not a tiki as he had often seen, but a jet black figure, the shape of a sperm whale.
“The stone is obsidian. It is the hardest stone we know. It took a slave carver four years of work by hand to create this. My father would
like you to have it.”
She made no move to take it from her neck. Captain Brind actually shook with excitement, fantasy and desire. He slowly put down his coat, dropping it to the floor. That he had desire was very evident. She made no movement but stood watching him calmly.
“Captain,” she breathed huskily, “My father has a message.”
Captain Brind constrained himself, barely, but his intelligence made him realize that if this was Rewa’s daughter, then this was a unique situation. No matter his lust, he must handle this correctly, for the Maoris outnumbered the settlers by ten to one and were extremely volatile.
“I am fifteen. I am a virgin daughter. My father has a difficulty. He has sided with the Pakehas but the white people are small in numbers. Our young people yearn for the old days there are many who would fight. Chief Rewa knows he must have muskets to control these young warriors and to avenge old grievances. The missionaries will not sell them. I am to bargain with you.”
“Is he letting me - have you, for – a musket?”“He wants fifty muskets.”
“I can only spare one.”
The price agreed was two muskets. She earned eight muskets that night alone, no hard task, for both felt the lust for each other. For the next four years, they would hungrily fall into each other’s arms as his ship set anchor and she wept bitter tears whenever he left.
Then there was a dramatic turn of events. In 1839 a Mrs Eliza Brind arrived by ship, for back in the UK in 1833 she had married the captain. Now to her surprise, a beautiful Maori girl, heavily pregnant, also met the boat.
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