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Ena, or, The Ancient Maori

Chapter VIII. The Tohunga

page 44

Chapter VIII. The Tohunga.

"He often raised his voice to the winds,
When meteors marked their nightly wings,
When the dark-robed moon was rolled behind her hill."

It was within two hours of sunset when the old chieftain, his son, and Atapo set out on their journey, leaving the fort by a subterranean way that had an outlet in a natural cave on the face of the cliff. The entrance to this passage was completely hidden by scrub and bush: emerging from the cave, they crept slowly down the rock, assisted in the descent by the branches of overhanging trees, and by the vines that hung from the trees like cordage from the masts of a vessel; the path lay among boulders that seemed ready to topple over and crush everything that impeded their fall. In safety the chieftain and his companions reached the bottom of the ravine, where page 45between dark green banks brawled a mountain streamlet: every tree and shrub that overhung the water was covered with a trailing green moss, hanging in feathery tresses over the moist breathings of the limpid current: for a moment the travellers stopped to drink and to cool their feet; then, following the course of the stream, they struck up the bank, and away by a scarcely discernible path that wound among ferns breast-high, and of sweet, bright foliage; on they silently walked, until they gained a ridge which led them through upland glades of sylvan beauty, now made doubly so by the beams of the setting sun, as they tinged every spray, and blade, and leaf with a golden light, and caused the sea to appear as if it were on fire, when an occasional glimpse of its surface could be seen through openings among the forest trees. The sun had sunk as the party in silence reached the summit of the mountain, where Hahaki and his wife lived apart from the tribe they loved so well, and for whose safety he had of late undertaken long and wearisome midnight journeys through the bush, to keep a secret watch on the movements of the Ngatiraukawa, whose pah was on the sea-shore, and protected on three of its sides by a wilderness of almost impassable and impenetrable swamp.

page 46

The cell or cave that afforded Hahaki a shelter and a home was on the eastern slopes of a mountain peak, one of the many eminences that belonged to the chain on which was the pah Wairauki: a low arch formed by nature in the face of the sandstone cliffs was the entrance to the tohunga's home; around, the tors and beetling cliffs were picturesque in the extreme. The vegetation was scant, and in keeping with the wildness of the locality. The spear-grass shot up at sparse distances from between the hoary masses of rock; a few ti, or cabbage-trees, stood like ghosts of a former forest at dreary distances apart from each other; nor shade nor shelter might here be found: upon the stones the tantaras, large lizards with prickly backs, could be seen, perfectly harmless, enjoying an existence peculiarly their own—slow, ugly, and repulsive. Few would have thought that a human being could live in this wilderness, so bleak, so sterile, and so blasted it stood in its solitary wretchedness far above the sombre depths of the forest that surrounded it on every side.

The travellers announced their arrival by uttering in a soft low voice a guttural call as they entered by the lichened lintel, and passed through the unbarred, unthresholded doorway: their call was answered by Mahora, who was squatting before a slow fire on the page 47hearth of the primitive apartment: the tohunga rose from his seat near the embers, and welcomed his visitors. Rarely did the priest allow any to enter his dwelling; keeping aloof from the tribe, never visiting the pah excepting when his services were required, his name was a terror, and his reputed power overawed the most daring. The floor of the cave was covered with matting; the rock walls were hung with flax garments of various shape and colour, head-dresses of feathers, necklaces of bones and shells, implements of the chase, arms of war, instruments for tattooing, tools for scraping the bones of the dead, reeds for wizard divination, genealogical staves, and a vast store of dried and preserved food of various kinds and savoury aroma.

Seating themselves near the fire, and drawing their flax garments around them, the chief and his comrades waited in patient suspense for Hahaki to commence the business of the night: gravely withdrawing a little distance from the group, and extracting the bituminous quid from his mouth, he spoke as follows:—

"Hear the words, the message of our Atua to you, and to our people.

"Many shall go down to the valley, few shall return to the hill.

"The Kuri howls nigh the deserted whare.

page 48

"The meri of the stranger is in his hand: both are stained with the blood of the Mauopoko.

"The pakeha maiden is a gift from the sea; her coming a good omen.

"Hasten to your fortress on Wairauki; make secure the gates, post the sentinels, allow none to go forth.

"Soon expect the stranger to wade up the hill in his own blood; his children are fatherless, his women slaves, his bones will whiten on the lap of the mountain.

"Rest till the morning dawns, Uenuku is propitious."