Kimble [Kimball] Bent An Unusual European Who Deserted The British Army And Joined The Hau Hau #32

len.george (63)in #history • 5 years ago

The Wanganui 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 around 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 [Whitmore] 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 mahoe-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 head-quarters 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 Wanganui 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 maté, 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.

Info From

The first of the below posts has a list of the previous posts of Maori Myths and Legends

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/how-war-was-declared-between-tainui-and-arawa

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-curse-of-manaia-part-1

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-curse-of-manaia-part-2

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-legend-of-hatupatu-and-his-brothers

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/hatupatu-and-his-brothers-part-2

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-legend-of-the-emigration-of-turi-an-ancestor-of-wanganui

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-continuing-legend-of-turi

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/turi-seeks-patea

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-legend-of-manaia-and-why-he-emigrated-to-new-zealand

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-love-story-of-hine-moa-the-maiden-of-rotorua