Old New Zealand: A Tale of the Good Old Times: And a History of the War in the North against the Chief Heke, in the Year 1845Maning, Frederick Edward
History
Old New Zealand: A Tale of the Good Old Times: And a History of the War in the North against the Chief Heke, in the Year 1845
Maning, Frederick Edward
Māori (New Zealand people) -- Social life and customs; New Zealand -- Description and travel
When all the rockets had been fired, then the hundred men, soldiers
and sailors, who were at the back of the pa, arose out of an old Maori
_pare pare_, where they had been sheltered, and giving a great shout,
turned to rush against the pa. Then Heke shouted to his men, "Now let
every man defend the spot he stands on, and think of no other; and I,
on my side, will look to the great fish which lies extended on our
front."[24] And as Heke was saying this, the soldiers and sailors had
begun to move towards the pa, when suddenly Kawiti with one hundred
and forty men appeared close upon their right, and fired upon them.
Then the soldiers turned quickly to the right and attacked Kawiti;
they were close to each other, and some fought hand to hand. The
soldiers, then, were pressed back, and forced to give way before the
rush of Kawiti and his men; but soon they rallied to the call of their
chiefs, and charged with the bayonet, and then a close fight ensued,
in which twenty of Kawiti's men were slain, and many wounded. Several
of them were chiefs, and among them was one of Kawiti's sons, being
the second son he had lost in the war; the other fell at Kororareka.
Kawiti's men then retreated, and the soldiers chased them as far as
the path in the hollow, which leads to Ahuahu, and there the last
Maori was killed by the foremost soldier. There is a stone placed
there where that Maori fell, and close to that stone by the side of
the path the soldier is also buried, for a shot from the pa struck
him, and he fell there. He was a great _toa_, that soldier; in this
fight whenever he pointed his gun a man fell, and he ran so fast in
pursuit that there was no escape from him; but he fell there--for such
is the appearance of war. The musket is a bad weapon, the worst of all
weapons; for let a man be as brave as he may, he cannot stand up
before it long. Great chiefs are killed from a distance by no one
knows who, and the strength of a warrior is useless against it.
[Footnote 24: The natives often call a line or column of men a fish,
and this term is just as well understood as our "column," "company,"
"battalion," &c. I will here say that though the native language is,
as might be supposed, extremely deficient in terms of art or science
in general, yet it is quite copious in terms relating to the art of
war. There is a Maori word for almost every infantry movement and
formation. I have also been very much surprised to find that a native
can, in terms well understood, and without any hesitation, give a
description of a fortification of a very complicated and scientific
kind, having set technical terms for every part of the
whole--"curtain, bastion, trench, hollow way, traverse, outworks,
citadel," &c. &c., being all well-known Maori words, which every boy
knows the full meaning of.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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