Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/150

doing away with the inter-tribal discords, and making the Maoris a strong, united people, capable of waging war on other places beyond New Zealand, and of repelling any foreigners. In the North, amongst his own people, the idea was well received, but he then wished to go through the South, and for that purpose announced his intention of coming across the straits to Taiaroa, who was the leading chief of all these tribes, though he resided in Otago. He came across, but the old feeling of hatred to the Northern tribes was still strong, and when he got to Kaiapoi he was treacherously murdered by a rangitiera named Tangatahira. The great Northern chief Rauparaha vowed revenge, and right royal “utu” he took for the assassination of his friend. Rauparaha induced the captain of a trading brig, named the Martha, to take himself and a number of his warriors to Akaroa. He had no money to give him, but he proffered a few of those preserved human heads which were then such a common article of traffic, being sold as curiosities for the museums of the old world, and he promised to fill the vessel with pigs and flax as “utu.” Directly the Maoris landed, however, they immediately began to massacre all the Natives they could meet, and all the survivors fled to a strongly fortified pa at the end of that Peninsula running out between Duvauchelle’s and Barry’s Bays, now in the occupation of Mr Birdling. The position was a strong one, and it was several days before the attacking force gained an entrance to the pa, but when they did, a most horrible carnage ensued, many of those taken being killed in the most terrible manner. The Maori who was with Simpson in the Bee told him that the conquerors seized many of the children, and, cutting their throats from ear to ear, eagerly drank the hot life blood as it flowed from the terrible wounds. They held high and hideous festival on the bodies of their dead foes, and Simpson says he has