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Natives.
The Port Nicholson natives, when the ‘Tory’ arrived here, were a fine specimen of the Maori race. All the men were tried warriors, and had fought successively the Waikato, the Wanganui, and the Wairarapa people. But they occupied rather an inconvenient corner of territory. As long as they could maintain peace with the Ngatitoa at Porirua and Kapiti, and the Ngatiraukawa of Otaki, they were tolerably safe; but in the event of serious hostilities in the direction of the West Coast, and such hostilities were threatening, the Wairarapa people, whom they had defeated but not subdued, would operate in their rear, making the position very critical.
It was this feeling of insecurity which caused them so readily to sell land to Colonel Wakefield, and to hail the arrival of Europeans. Having determined on the policy to pursue in this matter, Epuni, the Chief, with his immediate people, behaved with great consistency, and never receded from his bargain, or wavered in his friendliness to the settlers. There was a singular mixture of amiability and fierceness about these Port Nicholson natives. The circumstances of their position required them always to have arms ready beside them and the war-canoes at hand on the beach, but to the white people they manifested entire confidence, and exhibited the greatest kindness. When the schooner `Jewess' was stranded on the Pitone beach, they helped to dig a channel for her to the sea, and eventually, by force of numbers, animated by their war yell and chorus, dragged her until fairly afloat. At the subsequent upsetting of a passage-boat in the surf at Pitone they risked their own lives—men, women, and children—to rescue the exhausted Europeans from the fatal undertow.
Ere the purchase of the land was well completed their relatives were treacherously attacked by the Ngatiraukawa in force at Waikanae, and it required hard fighting, with all the advantages of position, to beat them off. Ere the excitement of this attack had passed away the chief of Waiwhetu, Puakawa, was shot in his potato field by a marauding band from Wairarapa.
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Arriving at Waikanae, as we did, just after the action terminated, it may be interesting to notice what occurred. The Waikanae pa stood on the sand-hills, behind the beach, and may have contained about 350 natives, of whom about 200 were fighting men. The attack had been made just before daylight on a small outpost of the pa, where a boy noticing a strange native peering into the whare seized a gun and shot the intruder dead, thereby giving the alarm and arousing the inmates of the larger pa. The attacking party now surged against the stockade of the main village, but were fiercely resisted. Spears were thrust through the fences, and men shot down in the act of surmounting them, but no entrance gained. Then the fight would lull for a time, to be resumed outside in rough “scrimmaging,” as the whalers called it, amongst the sand-hills.
Te Rauparaha, the great Ngatitoa chief, watched the fight. He professed friendship for the Waikanae natives, but had come over from Kapiti Island to assist the Ngatiraukawa with his advice, rather than materially. He was seen by the people within the pa, and a quick rush out was made to capture him. The Ngatiraukawa interposed and sacrificed themselves to save him. The fighting was here hand to hand, but Te Rauparaha escaped, only however by swimming off to his canoe, which was moored outside the surf. We met him ere he arrived at his island, which was distant about three miles from Waikanae. He looked crest-fallen, but was composed and self-possessed, and more than usually friendly in manner.
On Te Rauparaha's departure the Ngatiraukawa became dispirited, and carrying off their wounded, retreated rapidly along the beach towards their fortified pa at Otaki. The doctors of our expedition immediately proceeded to the assistance of the wounded. We entered the pa about three hours after the fight was over. The chief, killed by a musket-ball, lay in state on a platform in the large enclosure; his hair was decorated with huia feathers, a fine kaitaka mat was spread over him, a greenstone meri was in his hand, with the leather thong around his wrist; his spear and musket were by his side. The bodies of slain persons of inferior rank were lying in the verandas of their respective houses, each covered with the best mat, and with the personal weapons conspicuously placed beside.
Around the bier of the chief the people of the pa were standing in a circle, performing the tangi; the women, and several of the men, had divested themselves of clothing down to the waist-belt, and were bleeding profusely from a series of cuts inflicted in the ecstasy of their grief. It was not for the chief only that the tangi was proceeding, each person there had some near relative lying dead within a few feet of where they stood, and the cold and placid face in their midst was only the objective embodiment of their mourning. Several of those in the circle were themselves desper-
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ately wounded, and supported themselves on the shoulder or hand of their neighbour, decorously to pay the melancholy rite.
But a party of men were still out amongst the sand-hills burying the dead of the enemy, or bringing in the corpse of a friend. Before we entered the pa we noticed, standing on a provision stage high up above the stockade, a woman, who appeared by her violent gesticulations to be much excited. Closely following us as we passed into the stockade was a litter-party carrying a dead body, the last of the missing. Suddenly there was a heavy fall, or thud, close by us; it was the woman from the high stage, recognizing at last the corpse of her son she had frantically thrown herself down, nearly twenty feet, and lay there, apparently dead, while the litter-party passed on. Such matters were apparently of trifling moment while a tangi was proceeding.
There were a number of seriously-wounded men to be attended to, and gun-shot to be extracted. One native had the tendon-achilles cut through, and the foot was drawn upward and powerless. To some bones of the arm and leg, fractured by shot, they had already applied splints, fairly made from the thick part of the leaf of the Phormium tenax. To cut and lacerated surfaces they had applied dressings of herbs. How far these were effective, medicinally, it is impossible to say, but after a few days nearly all the wounded were progressing favourably and without fever. One man had his knee smashed by a bullet, and he was advised to submit to amputation. He agreed to have the operation performed, and was told about being able to walk with a wooden leg. The children considered there was fun to be found in wooden legs, and proceeded to manufacture them according to their lights—stumping about before the wounded man. At this ridicule he changed his views, and said that he would rather keep his leg and have it buried with him than live to be laughed at.
Most of the wounds healed by what is termed “first intention.” The severed tendon-achilles united, but with increased length and consequent loss of power in the foot. The Ngatiraukawa had 45 killed, and the defenders of the pa 14 killed and about 30 wounded. The man with the injured knee recovered for a time, but with a stiffened joint. Four years afterwards he had it removed by Dr. McShane, of Nelson. He smoked his pipe during the whole of the operation.