Moko^amokai of Enemies.

Reference has been made to the custom of exposing an enemy's head, as contrasting with that of carefully guarding the head of a friend or relative. It should be added that Mr. White states these strange heads were set on the tops of the posts surrounding the marae or enclosure (courtyard, it may be rendered) so that strangers might see the results of the prowess of the tribe. They were a sort of spolia opima to the successful chief, over which he is supposed to exult. I give an illustration of three heads treated in the manner characteristic of the country; and about these the victors would relate to an admiring audience the tales of war and victory, and slay the slain again. At the conclusion of war, an exchange of heads was an indispensable article in the treaty of peace. Should a chief dispose of a captured head during the continuance of the war, it was regarded as a sign that he would never conclude peace with his foe. The exposed head was placed on a pole or stake (turu turu) with crossbars to represent arms; a mat was wrapped round pole and crossbar to give the effigy as life-like an appearance page 137 as circumstances would admit. On the occasion of a gathering of the clan or tribe, the victorious chief would gloat over these precious things, and re-enact the incidents of the combat amidst a scene of wild excitement. Mr. J. S. Polack says that in the flight of an army or in the butchery of prisoners, those heads that were best punctured were decollated for future preservation; but that the possessor of an unmarked head was battered and crushed with the most savage brutality. Subsequently those that were worth preserving, when set up on stakes as already described, were subject to all manners of abuse and obloquy from the victors who addressed the captured heads as though they were living persons. Mr. Yates thus renders the language addressed to these effigies of deceased enemies: “You wanted to run away, did you? But my mere overtook you, and after you were cooked you were made food for my mouth. And where is your father? He is cooked. Where is your brother? He is eaten. Where is your wife? There she sits, a wife for me. Where are your children? There they are, with loads on their backs, carrying food as my slaves.”

Mr. T. B. Lee, native teacher of Waima, Hokianga, informed the Rev. P. Walsh, on the authority of a chief of that district, that the head of an obnoxious party would be dried, and, as an ito, would accompany its rangatira on fishing excursions, when it would be so fixed on the gunwale of the canoe as to nod freely if a fish took the baited hook, the line of which was attached to the ear.

Some hair was usually torn from the head of each slain enemy, and preserved for the home-coming of the victors.

So long as the heads remained in the possession of a victorious chief, no amicable relations were possible between the rival tribes. Sometimes where both sides were inclined for peace, it happened that the heads of defunct friends were exchanged, or purchased, and returned to the surviving relatives by whom they were held in much veneration. The number of these preserved heads must have been very considerable, and a parade or exhibition of them must have been a very terrible spectacle to a stranger. Mr. Marsden tells us that on the return of one of Hongi's expeditions against the East Coast natives, a single canoe brought back to Rangihou no less than seventy of these trophies. The early missionaries used to find, during the fighting season which lasted for several months, that the palisading of the adjacent Pa and even the fence of their own compounds were decorated with a row of heads. As before remarked, only the heads of chiefs or of the tattooed were thus preserved; and when the heads were those of enemies, restoration to the defeated tribe was an indispensable preliminary to peace. The most important part which they played, however, was during the actual progress of the war, and in the negotiations respecting its continuance or otherwise. These heads were consequently too precious to be traded away for the white man's treasures. A change was brought about in these views when Hongi first obtained a good supply of arms and ammunition. Hongi was the first to organise Maori warfare on this new principle, and the terror of his name spread far. Every effort was made to meet him on equal terms; but difficulty was experienced in buying enough arms and ammunition. A ton of dressed flax, laboriously scraped with a pipi shell, could page 139 only be bartered for a single gun. But when it was found that the trading schooner would give guns and ammunition for specimen heads, another state of things supervened. Mokoed heads were wanted, and were rapidly provided, for the drying process was such that new and old heads were not readily distinguished. And what was once an honour reserved for chiefs, became forced on slaves with a view to prompt sale of the head. So armaments were bought; and the traders got that which the public wanted for museums and for collections. Then came the end, as we shall see.

It will have been gathered from what has been said that the Maoris did not entirely reserve their treatment of heads solely for their own race; and many heads of white men have been similarly smoked and dried. An instance may be given: In 1834, H.M.S. Alligator was sent to obtain restoration of British subjects, then in the hands of the New Zealanders; after the affair at Waimati on the coast, the preserved head of some ill-fated European was taken out of the water which partially filled a trench, where it was supposed to have been thrown on the flight of the natives. The complexion of this head was changed, but the features and hair remained unaltered. This discovery formed a melancholy confirmation of Mr. Guard's tale of shipwreck and slaughter. Yet, strange to say, none of the survivors of the crew of the Harriet could recognise the face as one of their former companions, and it may have been obtained from another source. The sight of the head again stirred up the soldiers, and in the course of the day one of them brought in the head of a New Zealander which he had detached from the trunk of one of page 140 the fallen natives. It was, however, buried by the officers under a rock, as it had been made a football of. The last instance is from the fighting which occurred in 1864. Just when the Maori cause seemed lost, the flames of war were fanned by a new religion called the Pai Marire or Hauhau, derived from the “fightingest” part of the Bible. At Te Ahuhu, on April 6th, a detachment under Captain P^T. W. J. Lloyd, of the 57th Regiment, was cut off in an ambuscade. Captain Lloyd fell fighting heroically, and killed or wounded three natives with his revolver when lying on the ground with a broken thigh. His body had eighteen wounds. The natives, believing that a British medical officer had decapitated one of their people and carried off his head as a specimen, did it for Utu, or revenge. They cut off the heads of Captain Lloyd and the fallen of his party, and having drunk their blood, they buried the heads and bodies in separate places. A few days after, they dug up the heads and smoked and dried them in the old fashion. Captain Lloyd's head was placed on a pole at Pipiriki on the Wanganui river and subjected to indignity; the wild fanatics even rushing at it and biting at it. The Hauhaus believed that the Angel Gabriel would appear to those who drank of the blood; and they caused the head to be carried about in order that it might be a means of communicating with Jehovah. They then announced that the head had appointed a high-priest Te Ua and two assistant prophets, Hepania and Rangitauria; had communicated a new religion; and that its believers (called Very Good) were to be protected by the Angel Gabriel and his legions who would aid in driving the Europeans out of the country, together with all natives who page 141 did not adopt the new faith. When this was accomplished, messengers would come from heaven and teach the Maoris all the Pakeha arts and sciences. A head was afterwards given up at Waitotara by Te Ua to Mr. Brompton, the interpreter; and the officers of the 57th believed it to be that of their gallant comrade. It was buried with the body, and a lock of hair sent to the widow.

In March, 1865, during the continuance of the fanaticism, the Rev. Mr. Volckner was killed at Opi^atiki, and shocking orgies ensued. Later in the same year the head of a soldier was taken to Pipiriki by Kereopa and Patara, and used as a mystic symbol. This is the last case of an English head preserved in the Maori fashion. In 1827 Captain Dillon was ordered by the Government of British India to undertake a voyage to the South Seas to ascertain the fate of La Perouse's expedition. In the course of the voyage, he was informed that the ship's carpenter had refused to work, and said he was going ashore. To deter him from this step Captain Dillon had recourse to the following expedient. He asked him if he had seen any preserved human heads offered for sale by the natives since his arrival. The carpenter replied he had. “Then, sir,” said Captain Dillon, “if you attempt to desert from the ship I will pay the natives to preserve your head and bring it here as a curiosity.” The threat had the desired effect.

I have myself seen the moko^Amokai of a young European, with close cropped hair. How old it was I could not judge.

As already stated, these preserved heads of native enemies had their use in bringing about peace, and often in maintaining it when once arranged.

It may be added that after the Maori had knowledge of fire-arms, the skin of the buttocks of a dead enemy, if well tattooed, was stripped off; it is about one-fifth of an inch thick, and was used as a cover for cartouche-boxes. In a medical museum I can name, there is a bit or sample of tanned skin of a man (name given) which is equal to good quality pig skin. On the same shelf is a small white-looking taper or uncanny dip formed of human fat. Commerce, one may suppose, will not adopt these articles just yet. (One reads lately that in France after the execution of the murderer Pranzini, the presiding judge was presented with a purse made from the criminal's skin.) I will endeavour to exhaust all I have to tell of these old Maori practices with a short account given by Captain Cruise, when at the Bay of Islands. The English learnt one day on going ashore that a body of natives had just returned from a successful expedition with numerous prisoners, including men, women, and children, some of the latter not two years old. Amongst the prisoners was one distinguished by her superior beauty, who sat apart from the rest on the beach, and though silent seemed buried in affliction. Her father, it appeared, had been killed by the man whose prisoner she had become, and who remained near her during the greater part of the day. The gruesome narrative proceeds:

“As we were preparing to return to the ship, we were drawn to that part of the beach where the prisoners were by the most doleful cries and lamentations. Here was the interesting young slave in a situation that ought to have softened the heart of the most unfeeling. The man who had slain her father, having cut off his head and preserved it by a process peculiar to these islanders, page 143 took it out of a basket, and threw it into the lap of the unhappy daughter. At once she seized it with a degree of frenzy not to be described; and subsequently with a bit of sharp shell disfigured her person in so shocking a manner that in a few minutes not a vestige of her former beauty remained.”

They afterwards learnt that this fellow had married the very woman whom he had treated with such singular barbarity.

Fig. 133.—Taraia: (a chief who cooked two native Christians in 1842), fully tattooed, fine specimen.

I will record the last act of cannibalism which is associated, as so many are, with heads. This ancient Maori custom was used for the last time at Katikati on the Thames about fifty miles from Auckland; and two human beings were cooked and eaten in 1842. They were native Christians. They fell in an attack led by a chief called Taraia, who had a feud against them, and they were duly entombed in the stomachs of the victors. The native account of page 144 the affair was reported to the New Zealand Government, as follows: After the action Taraia reached his own village where there were a church and a few believers, and here they rang the prayer-bell. When the Christian natives were at evening worship, Taraia rolled the two heads out into the midst of them. The missionaries were sent for by the executive council, and they proposed to Taraia that he should give some compensation to the sufferers' tribe. To this Taraia made no objection provided that the tribe in question paid him for the relations they had slain. “Have they not eaten my mother?” said Taraia. The matter was allowed to rest there; but it is satisfactory to give the portrait of the so-called last of the Cannibals. He had a shaking head, [unclear: &] wild blood shot eyes. Was reported to have eaten seven of his wives. Was also known as Ngakutu te [unclear: Turuihuia]

Moko^Amokai of Friends.