The Foeman's Head.

Another man of note, Sir George Bowen, when Governor of New Zealand, was greatly interested by the resemblance between Scot and Maori, particularly in their feuds, raids and war-practices generally. In June, 1868. he wrote in one of his despatches to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, describing the conditions of the Maori tribes: —

“In March last a herd of cattle belonging to Messrs. Buckland and Firth, of Auckland, was driven off by a party of Maori marauders but was afterwards restored on the application of those gentlemen to Tamati Ngapora, the uncle and chief councillor of King Tawhiao. The details of this case, even in the most minute circumstances would, if told at length read exactly like a chapter of ‘Waverley,’ which relates how the cattle of the Baron of Bradwardine, when carried off by the Highland cateran Donald Bean Lean, were restored through the influence of Fergus Mclvor, the chief of the clan.”

Governor Bowen went on to compare Highland clansmen's grim deeds with those of the Hauhaus. “Lord Macaulay and Sir Walter Scott,” he wrote “have recorded on the authority of official documents how a band of MacGregors, having cut off the head of an enemy, carried the ghastly trophy in triumph to the chief. The whole clan met under the roof of an ancient church. Every one in turn laid his hand on the dead man's scalp and vowed to defend the slayers.”

The Governor likened this to some of the acts of the Hauhaus in the Maori Wars, especially the decapitation of Captain Lloyd and others, of the 57th Regiment, after a surprise attack at Te Ahauhu, in Taranaki; and the carrying round of the heads as emblems to incite the other tribes to war. There was also the tragic affair of the Rev. Volkner, so violently deprived of his head by Kereopa, and the savage ceremony in Volkner's own church afterwards. Scots and Maoris, they were brothers under their skins.