Sleeps Standing: A Story of the Battle of Orakau
Page 18
Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 31-02804
Postlude
Settling matters
Witi Ihimaera
The figures differ on the number of Māori who were killed at Ōrākau. Official reports of the time estimated between 160 and 200; no children are mentioned among the dead in so far as I have been able to ascertain, although some newspaper reports do mention children.
Some people say that most of the defenders died during the pursuit by the soldiers when they were running from the pā. Officials pulled a veil over the chase by the Forest Rangers; nobody liked to think that a sabre attack may have been commanded or that women were cut down in it. The Royal Irish claimed in their defence that not only were the women dressed in men’s clothing, they were short-haired and therefore indistinguishable from the men.
In J. C. Anderson and G. C. Petersen’s biography, The Mair Family (A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1956), Gilbert Mair writes how he took the Waikato chieftain and Christian lay reader Wī Karamoa with him to identify the Māori bodies:
Most of the bodies had been stripped of even the wretched clothing they had worn. The woman whom I tried to save in the ditch was Hineiturama, formerly the wife of Tapsell, the famous East Coast trader. She, Te Paerata, his son Hone Teri, son-in-law Wereta (my friend!), Piripi te Heuheu, and others, making thirty in all, were buried in the ditch at the south-east corner of the pa. At the edge of the Manuka swamp, where Ariana was captured, twenty-five were buried. On the rising ground straight across the swamp, where the Maoris headed off in their flight by the Forest Rangers and Blythe’s party, thirty were put in one grave. Down the valley there were several smaller graves, containing seven, five, three and so on. Those who were killed in the pa during the siege were buried by their own people where they fell.
Mair’s reference to his attempts to save the chieftainess Hineatūrama should be further commented on. The repeated bayonet attack on her weighed on his conscience; he thought he had stopped it, but, when he went back to check on her, discovered that her body showed further bayonet wounds. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some soldiers feared that women would breed sons who would continue to fight, and this might explain why they were subjected to such treatment. In Hineatūrama’s case, her clear chieftainess status and the fact that she had once been married to a European may well have inflamed the soldiers further.
The deaths at Ōrākau make the site a wāhi tapu. They have given added urgency to the efforts over the years to have the battle recognised.
The rest of the defenders — who had been inside the redoubt — escaped. Most made it beyond the aukati, the boundary between Crown and Māori territory in the rugged Ngāti Maniapoto land. Those who didn’t were taken as prisoners to the Te Awamutu garrison.
Among the escapees was Mere Te Rangipamamao, who became the mother of Dame Rangimarie Hetet, one of Māoridom’s most famous weavers. Another was Ahumai Te Paerata, who lived on after being shot in the pā during the retreat of the main band from it. James Cowan in Hero Stories of New Zealand (Harry H. Tombs, 1935) takes up her story, narrating her escape through the swamp that lay between Ōrākau Ridge and the Pūniu River. A month later she was to be found continuing to fight the British troops at Tauranga. Eventually she reached her home at Waipapa, near Lake Taupō, with her brother Hītiri and other survivors of Ōrākau. She was later said to have saved the life of a Lieutenant Meade, who was caught up in a Hauhau celebration: in an act of great generosity, during the council of war she sat at his feet to champion him.
Cowan writes: ‘Europeans at Taupō long years afterwards sometimes saw the tattooed whitehaired dame as she hobbled into the township for her oldage pension.’ Ahumai died in 1908, some forty years after the battle, at Waipapa. She was around eightyfour.
Henry Matthew Stowell, otherwise known as Hare Hongi, wrote an alternative version of the events that happened to Ahumai. In his narrative poem, ‘Defence of Orakau Pa’ written in April 1899, he describes her as being bayoneted, like Hineatūrama, and he calls her ‘Our Lady of the Bayonet’.
Thirtythree Māori were taken prisoner. Of the British troops, sixteen soldiers were killed and fiftytwo wounded.
After the fall of Ōrākau, General Cameron thought that the Kīngitanga could be finished off by cutting off their supply route from the Bay of Plenty. But on 24 April 1864, at the Battle of Gate Pā, the British Army suffered a humiliating defeat under Ngāi Te Rangi. However in June 1864, Ngāi Te Rangi warriors were caught in the open at Te Ranga.
Wiremu Tamihana made a separate peace in May 1865, but the majority of the Kīngitanga forces of WaikatoNgāti Maniapoto did not; instead they withdrew to Te Kūiti. The Crown took 400,000 hectares of their land, and the population of refugees behind the aukati doubled, placing huge pressure on food resources and leading to widespread starvation. It’s a story that breaks your heart.
Although they took many years to recover from famine and disease behind this aukati, the King Movement nonetheless remained undefeated.
The failure of the British Army to secure a clean victory at Ōrākau was much criticised, as was the leadership of the regimental commanders like Leslie and von Tempsky in allowing the survivors to escape. Nobody seems to have noticed or taken much account of the fact that the army had been foxed by an enemy who had already run out of ammunition by the end of the second day at least, and who had resorted to women masquerading as men to give the appearance of numbers.
My friend and colleague James Belich writes:
Moreover, Cameron himself was among the regiment’s fiercest critics. General Cameron got in a temper and slanged Colonel Leslie (‘Gentle Arthur’ as he is called) for letting the enemy pass. But it was less the mechanics of the 40th’s failure — there were mitigating circumstances — than its results that lent force to this criticism. Leslie’s inability to stop the Maori escape had done nothing less than rob Orakau of its fruits. (James Belich, The New Zealand Wars, 1986)
Other commentators refer to the great breakout as having snatched a crowning victory from Grey’s hands and turned it into a bitter defeat.
Grey’s governorship was terminated in 1868; some say that one reason for this was that he kept delaying the return of regiments to England, so as to quell the rebellions that kept on erupting, ‘like fire in the fern’. Grey himself went to England where he tried to make a political career, but failed. He returned to New Zealand where he remained for all but the final few years of his life, including a stint as premier from 1877.
Rewi Maniapoto was injured in the flight from the pā but escaped, thus denying the British the trophy that they would undoubtedly have paraded in Auckland. He continued to wage war against the Government of New Zealand. After the amnesty in 1871, he remained in seclusion, but he was persuaded in 1878 to meet Grey at Waitara, where the two agreed that no more fighting should take place. Their conversation was reported in the Otago Witness in 1894.
‘It is for you and me to settle matters,’ Rewi said.
‘I shall be glad to settle all these troubles between the Maoris and Europeans before I die,’ Grey answered.
‘You are not going to die yet, and neither am I. We are both too tough. If you die before you settle the troubles I shall blame you. But you are not going to die so long as you are working for the country.’
‘If I died first you will come and have a tangi over my grave,’ Grey responded. ‘And if you die, I shall come and have a tangi over your grave.’
‘If you die first, I will choose a burying ground for you.’
Sir George Grey later told Rewi that the brave struggle he had made for his people would not be held against him. He is also recorded as saying: ‘Rewi let us plant our tree of peace at Kihikihi in the midst of our children and when the tree bears fruit our children both Maori and Pakeha can help themselves.’ In 1880, a house was built for Rewi by the New Zealand Government in his home village, Kihikihi; mainly to honour him, the house nonetheless also came with the proviso
that the old man would give up his claims for a Crown Grant and waive his pension.
Gottfried Lindauer painted the well-known portrait of the old chief in 1882.
Rewi Manga Maniapoto died at Kihikihi on 21 June 1894; he was in his eighties.
Grey ordered the monument to be erected at Ōrākau to honour the great chief.
Acknowledgements
It was my father, Te Haa O Ruhia Ihimaera Smiler Jnr, who first told me the story of the Battle of Ōrākau. I doubt that there was any boy of my generation who did not hear of Rewi’s Last Stand.
With this story, I repay a debt to my father; he was always quoting Rewi Manga Maniapoto’s great words. On his behalf and my own, I further pay tribute to the people of Ngāti Maniapoto and to their ancestors who fought during those incredible three days 31 March to 2 April 1864.
Apart from being a descendant of Raharuhi Rukupō, I am also a member of Te Whānau A Kai, which supported Te Kooti Arikirangi, who, like Rewi Manga Maniapoto, had a reputation as one of New Zealand’s greatest rebel leaders.
Thanks to publisher Harriet Allan, whose support for the project was such an inspiration; Gillian Tewsley for her editing skills; Abby Aitcheson for her project-editing skills; Tania Butcher for advice on the original short story; and Barry Friend, Hamilton City Libraries, for providing Hītiri Te Paerata’s account of the battle (a recent monograph published by Kiwi Publishers, Christchurch, in 1999 might still be found in secondhand book stores, if you are lucky).
I consulted a number of key documents for background research. In particular I am indebted to James Cowan’s accounts of the Battle of Ōrākau in The Old Frontier (1922, chapter 10) and in The New Zealand Wars: A history of the Maori Campaigns and the pioneering period, volume 1 (1845–64) (1923, chapter 38). In writing about the battle I acknowledge Cowan’s work and that of newspaper reports of the day as providing the sequence of events against which I framed Moetū’s story. Richard J. Taylor’s British Logistics in the New Zealand Wars (2004) offered insights into military supply.
Witi Ihimaera
Firstly, I would like to thank Witi for honouring Ōrākau and respecting the eyewitness accounts, which provide the foundation of the novella. These accounts were given by various rangatira, including Poupatate Te Huihi, an important ancestor of my hapū and marae.
There is a deep-rooted connection amongst Ngāti Maniapoto and Ōrākau. The translation of the novella is in honour of the many iwi who responded to Manga’s appeal for assistance. This collaboration of two descendants of those ancestors is a celebration of the legacy they have left us.
Translating Sleeps Standing was not a simple task. It was stimulating to think about the different types of language used by the characters, the language of home and battlefield, mid-nineteenth century Māori concepts and contemporary Māori. I examined a number of key documents, including the Māori newspapers of that era and Williams’ Dictionary of the Māori Language, first published in 1844. The Māori oral accounts were invaluable in providing an insight into a Māori way of explaining their experience in the three-day siege.
Ka nui te mihi a te ngākau ki aku kaiako i roto i ngā tau, nā koutou ahau i ārahi i roto i tēnei mahi. Kei taku whānau, kei taku hapū, kei te iwi whānui, tēnā hoki koutou.
My appreciation to Penguin Random House for supporting the publication of a bilingual text. I hope that readers, particularly language learners, enjoy both versions.
Finally, I would again like to thank Pānia Papa, who introduced me to the art of translation and has been one of my great mentors. Pānia is a leader of a number of organisations, including Te Panekiretanga o Te Reo (Institute of Excellence in the Māori Language) and Te Mātāwai, which looks at innovative ways to revitalise te reo Māori under the Māori Language Act 2016.
Hēmi Kelly
Kia mau tonu ki tēnā,
Kia mau ki te kawau mārō.
Whanake ake, whanake ake!
Always hold together,
Hold fast like a flock of shags.
Uttered in farewell by the original Maniapoto as he lay dying, this saying became the pepeha or tribal motto of Ngāti Maniapoto. Little black shags forage in tight-knit flocks and fly in a V-formation, at times so close that their wings can appear to touch. It would have been the likely message that Rewi Maniapoto used to encourage unity of purpose and formation as the Ōrākau defenders escaped from the pā.
Rewi Maniapoto, leader of Ngāti Maniapoto, photographed in 1879 by Elizabeth Pulman.
Alexander Turnbull Library, PA2-1359, PA2-2882
He Mihi Whakamutunga
Ō koutou tapuwae i te mata o te whenua
Ngaro noa, ngaro noa
Ō koutou tapuwae i te ngākau o te tangata
Mau tonu, mau tonu
Ngā iwi i whawhai kia mau ai te whenua
Hei oranga mō ngā uri e haruru nei ōna tapuwae
I runga i ngā parekura o te motu
Ka tangi te horu a te tangata
‘Homai te rā, homai te rā!’
Hēmi Kelly
About the Authors
WITI IHIMAERA was the first Māori to publish a novel, Tangi, in 1973. He has gone on to become one of New Zealand’s leading writers, exploring Māori stories and history through literature, theatre and film. The first volume of his memoir, Maori Boy, won the Ockham Award for best non-fiction in 2016. He is currently working on the second volume of his memoir and other projects including Flowing Water, a musical drama set in the Waikato during the New Zealand Wars. He is of Te Whānau a Kai, Te Aitanga a Mahaki, Rongowhakaata, Tuhoe, Whakatōhea and Ngāti Porou descent.
HĒMI KELLY is of Ngāti Maniapoto and Ngāti Tahu-Ngāti Whāoa descent. He is a full-time lecturer in te reo Māori at the Auckland University of Technology. Alongside the Māori language, Hēmi has a passion for waiata composition, writing, translation and Māori visual and performing arts. Hēmi is a licensed translator and a graduate of Te Panekiretanga o Te Reo, the Institute of Excellence in the Māori Language.
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