Kimble [Kimball] Bent An Unusual European Who Deserted The British Army And Joined The Hau Hau #7

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

We left Kimble, having just met the prophet, and waiting to be attacked by his old Regiment.

All was excitement in the pa when this became known.

The palisading of the pa was strengthened with stout timbers from the forest, trenches and rifle-pits were dug within the walls.

The natives worked away like mad and Bent with them.

He had caught the fever of the moment, and in all but skin was a Maori.

He was not at all happy, however, at the news that his old regiment, the 57th, was expected to march on Otapawa, and he heartily wished himself far away from these scenes of constant commotion and terror.

But for the present, he was safer with the Hauhaus than with the men of his own colour and tongue.

Day after day passed, and the Maoris lay behind their strong stockade waiting for the attack.

The underground food-stores were well supplied, water was carried in in taha, or calabashes, made by scooping out the soft inside of the huge gourd, bullets were cast and cartridges were made.

Then, as no troops appeared, and the scouts who kept constant watch on the forest outskirts reported that there was no sign of immediate action on the part of the enemy, the tension of garrison life relaxed, and the ordinary avocations of the kainga [village] were resumed,

In a clearing hewn and burnt from the heart of the woods were the cultivation grounds.

Here all the able-bodied men of the fort were set to work, turning up the rich black soil and planting potatoes, kumara,

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and taro.

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Planting over, the lengthening days were spent in hunting wild pigs, and in gathering wild honey, which was plentiful in hollow trees in the forests, or in strolling, pipe in mouth, about the pa, playing draughts (kaimu) on the marae in Maori fashion, singing songs and narrating old stories and legends.

Night and morning there were long Hauhau prayers, led by the priest of the pa, old Tukino, who was one of Te Ua's apostles.

Life in this bush-fort presented to the lonely pakeha a picture of barbaric simplicity.

Few of the people had European clothing, the men's working garb was just a rough flax mat hanging from the waist to the knees.

They lived on the wild foods of the forest until their crops were ready for digging,

snared kaka (parrots) and the sweet-tongued korimako, or bell-birds,

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tui, or parson-birds, and the swarming wood-pigeons, and shot or speared the pigs that abounded in the dense woods.
They lived to a large extent, too, on aruhe, or fern-root,

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which they dug up in the open patches of fernland, and in the bush, they gathered the berries of the hinau - tree,

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steeped them in water to rid them of their astringency, dried them in the sun, and then pounded them into cakes, which made a sustaining if not very palatable food.

Another food-staple was kaanga-pirau, or maize steeped in water until it was quite decayed.

“The smell of this Indian corn,” says Bent, with an emphasis begotten of unpleasant memories, “was enough to kill a dog. Nevertheless, I had to eat it, and in time I got used to it.”

“I had at this time,” continues the deserter, recounting his wild days in Otapawa, “no boots, no trousers, no shirt, just Maori flax mats to cover me, and a mat and blanket for my bed.

I had managed to procure some needles and thread, together with paper and pencil (I kept up a sort of diary now and then), and one or two other little things which I kept in a kit, thinking that, though I had nothing to sew with the needles and thread, and very little to do with the other belongings, they might come in useful before very long.

One of my greatest troubles was the want of salt, as for bread, I had not tasted any for many months.

Summer was in the forest.

The beautiful mid-summer of Maori Land, with its soft airs and brilliant sunshine, its blaze of crimson blossom on the grand old rata-trees, and its showering of scented, white, peach-like flowers on the thickets of ribbonwood.

Birds flooded the outskirts of the bush with song, the early morning chantings and pipings and chimings of the tui and the korimako made a feast of melody to which the brown forest men were in no way deaf, for they delighted as much as any pakeha in the sights and sounds of the free, wild places, and the call of the creatures of the bush.

“Te Waha-o-Tane,” literally “The Voice of the Tree-God”, the Song of Nature, they called these morning concerts of the birds, it was their poetic expression in the classic tongue of old Polynesia for the sounds that betokened the daily awakening to light and life of the deep and solemn forests of Tane-mahuta.

Pigeons, ku-ku-ing to each other, with blue necks and white breasts gleaming in the sun, went sweeping across the clearing on softly winnowing wings, and flapped from tree to tree and shrub to shrub in search of the tenderest leaves, for it was not yet the season of the choicest bush fruits, the big blue tawa berry, the sweet yellow koroi, and the aromatic miro.

Life went easily in the pa when the early harvesting was over.

There was little to do but eat and sleep and lie about in the sun, or join in the daily prayers and the procession around the Niu pole, where the brightly coloured war-flags hung.

[These flags, displayed on the war-poles in the Hauhau villages in 1865–70, carried many a strange device.
The ground was white calico, on which red patterns and lettering were sewn or painted.
Favourite designs were a red half-moon, like the crescent of Islam, a five-pointed star representing Tawera, “the bright and morning star,” and what was called a Kororia, in shape like the half of a mere-pounamu, or greenstone club, cut longitudinally.

These colours had been made in the Waikato during the war, and had been sent round after the manner of the Highlanders' fiery cross to the various tribes in the Island.]

There was an abundance of food in the camp, potatoes, maize, potted birds, pork, and dried fish sent as presents from the coast tribes.

Early morning, and again in the warm, golden evenings, long, straight columns of pale blue smoke arose from the cooking-ovens of the village, and mingled with the little clouds of steam curled up as the women, with lively chatter, uncovered the hangis [earth ovens] and arranged the well-cooked food in little round flax baskets, which they presently carried off, women and girls in a double line, keeping time with a merry old dance-song, the lilt of the “tuku-kai,” the “food-bringing”, as they marched on to the green marae and laid the steaming meal before their lounging lords.

It was all very pleasant and idyllic from the point of view of the brown bushmen.

But “Ringiringi,” the pakeha-Maori, though he led by no means a hard life now that the heaviest work of the year was over, had an uneasy mind.

He was, or had been, a civilised man, and he could not forget, moreover, he often woke from unpleasant dreams.

One was a vision of a British regiment charging him with fixed bayonets and pinning him against the palisades of his pa.

Fervently he hoped that he would not be in the fort when the troops marched to the assault and that the Hauhaus would not compel him to level a tupara [shot] against his one-time comrades, the old “Die-Hards.”

This peaceful state of things did not endure for long.

In a few days, it was early in the year 1866, the long-expected attack on Otapawa was delivered.

Before the troops came, however, the prophet of the pa ordered all the old people and most of the women and children to retire to the forest in the rear of the fort and told “Ringiringi” to accompany them.

News had just been brought in that the scouts out in the fern country had noticed signs of an impending movement in the British camp.

The white man and the tribal encumbrances pushed back into the bush for about three miles, and camped in a quiet little nook by a creek-side, with high, forested hills towering around.

The weather now became cold and bleak, and there was little food to sustain the refugees, for the principal stores of kai had been left in the pa.

Early one morning the sound of cannon was heard in the distance, then heavy rifle-volleying, followed by desultory firing.

The Queen's soldiers were storming the fort.

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