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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 9 (December 2, 1935)

Hone Heke, the Chivalrous Rebel

Hone Heke, the Chivalrous Rebel.

Hone Heke, of Kaikohe and the Bay of Islands, had been reared in the cannibal warfare school, before he became for a time a “mission boy,” amiably rounding off in the establishment of the Rev. Henry Williams at Paihia the varied and turbulent experience gained on the warpath and in the war-canoe flotillas and among the rough whaleship crews in Kororareka bay. His portrait is in some degree an index to his character. The picture of him illustrating this article is from a pencil drawing which I possess, excellently sharp after nearly eighty years. It was drawn at the Bay of Islands by J. Gilfillan, of Wanganui—the Gilfillan of the tragic Mataraua affair in 1847. The date is uncertain, but it was probably 1846. His nose though not the predatory ihu-kaka (“parrot-beak”) the strong hook-nose that distinguished some great Maori leaders, was prominent and well-shaped; the prominent jaws and chin denoted firmness and resolution. He was tattooed but not with the full design of moko, such as that engraved deeply on the face of his great kinsman and antagonist, Tamati Waka Nene. His character was a blend of ambition, strong patriotism that became a fervid passion, a considerable degree of vanity and bravado, and a shrewdness quickened by his partial civilisation. Like his uncle, Hongi (who was also the father of his wife, Hariata) he had high regard for the missionaries; and commercial considerations actuated his friendly feeling for the traders and the ship captains. But, like Hongi again, he dreaded the military power of the pakeha, of which he had heard much and which he was to encounter in a few years after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. His vision was keen; he was not long in realising that the immigration of the strong English race would in time submerge the Maori.