Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/243

Maoris and half-castes, amongst which were some very pretty girls, arrived in Pigeon Bay from Dunedin. Most of these settled in the Bay, and as a good proportion of the men had been whaling, they were superior in their ideas to the old Maori superstitions, and laughed at the idea of the “Tapu.” A well-known Maori, named Toby, who had been a headsman in whaling boats for many years, took the lead in the movement, and after many and many a “korero,” he and those who doubted the virtue of the “Tapu,” resolved to test it by attempting to seize two large sealing boats over which the sacred Maori halo had been thrown, viz., the one from which Bloody Jack had been knocked overboard and drowned whilst trying to land at Timaru, and another owned by the young chief Hapukuku. These two boats were each under a bark whâre upon the small flat near the present wharf, and the reason for wishing to utilise them was that the natives at that time nearly supplied Lyttelton with firewood and potatoes, which they hawked round from house to house upon their backs, and that these two boats would carry quite as much as five whale-boats. At this time there were two Kaiks in the bay. Thiah’s occupied the flat near the wharf, with a population of about seventy-five. The other (Kingston’s) was at the head of the bay, with some 150, besides a few at Sinclair’s, and four whâres in the gully below the wharf, called Hapukukas. The old natives were quite alive to the proposed sacrilege, and had taken steps to prevent it, and this too in such a manner that the breakdown was an utter surprise. Runners were sent to Kaikoura (north), and to Temuka (south), taking in the intermediate Kaiks, with instructions to go to Pigeon Bay at a certain date. In the meantime the breakers of the “Tapu” had hauled the boats to Gilbert’s shed to be repaired and painted. Gilbert