Titokowaru ordered his men to place von Tempsky's body on the fire-pile first, and then lay the others on top of it. The chief suspected, perhaps, that some of the Hauhaus wished to cook and eat Manu-rau's body, and he so far respected his gallant foeman even in death that he resolved to spare it that last degradation. So the major's body went on first, and then around and above it were heaped the other soldiers. On top of the bodies more wood was thrown. Bent's hut door was now unfastened, and the natives called to him to come out. What he saw he will tell in his own words: "When I walked out on to the _marae_, I met two Nga-Rauru men I knew from Hukatéré village, on the Patea River. They had come to Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu with a gift of gunpowder to Titokowaru. With them I presently went down to the cooking-quarters to see what had become of the body that had been dragged away. There we found a large earth-oven full of red-hot stones, and there they were engaged in roasting the white man's corpse. They had prepared it for cooking in the usual way, and were turning it over and over on the hot stones, scraping off the outer skin. "The cannibal cooks looked round and asked me savagely what I wanted there. They threatened that if I did not leave instantly they would throw me into the oven too, and roast me alive. "I returned to the _marae_, and was sitting amongst the crowd there some time later, perhaps an hour, when I saw a man's hands and ribs, cooked, carried up. The human flesh was placed in front of the two powder-carriers from Hukatéré, who were sitting close to me. The meat was in a flax basket, and a basket of cooked potatoes was set down with it. This present of food was out of compliment to the visitors. "The two Maoris refused to touch it, saying, 'No, we will not eat man!' So the other natives ate it. The rest of the body was also served round, and the people consumed the whole of it. "Kātené and Wairau were two of those who ate the cooked soldier. I saw Kātené squatting there, with a basket of this man-meat and some potatoes before him. He took up a cooked hand, and before eating it sucked up the _hinu_, or fat, that was collected in the palm just as if he were drinking water. The hands when cooked curled up with the fingers half-closed, and the hollowed palm was filled with the melted _hinu_. "Titokowaru did not eat human flesh himself. His reason for abstaining was that if he ate it his _mana tapu_, his personal sacredness, would thereby be destroyed." The younger people in the _pa_ were rather awe-stricken by the preparations for the cannibal feast, and stood together some distance away from the _hangi_. "I stood with them," says one Te Kahu-pukoro, who was a boy at the time; "I was afraid to join in the eating, but the savour of the flesh cooking in the ovens was delightful!"