Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/31

The immediate cause that roused all this animosity, and provoked so much bloodshed, must seem to Europeans most trivial and inadequate, but there is little doubt that mutual jealousies and old grudges were working below the surface in men’s minds, and forcing on hostilities which, when once begun, led to further reprisals, and so the quarrel deepened and widened after every encounter. The immediate cause of the quarrel was owing to Murihaka, the wife of Potahi, putting on a dogskin mat belonging to Te Mai hara nui, which he had left in charge of some one at Waikakahi. This act was regarded as an insult by the immediate relations of the chief, since everything in the shape of apparel belonging to him was held to be exceedingly sacred. The greatest consternation prevailed throughout the pa as soon as it became known what had happened. At length some of the men grew so exasperated at the thought of Murihaka’s sacrilegious act, that they fell, not upon the perpetrator of the deed, but upon a poor servant woman belonging to a relative of hers, named Rerewaka, and put her to death. When her masters, Hape and Rangi Whakapaku, saw her dead body lying on the ground, they were much enraged, but instead of wreaking their vengeance on those who committed the murder, they went off to a village of Ngati Koreha, at Tai Tapu, in search of some member of the murderers’ family. They succeeded in finding Hape, whom they killed. This man was married to Hinehorahina, of Ngati Hurihia, sister of Tawhakiterangi, one of the principal chiefs of Taumutu. His widow took refuge with her brothers, who were greatly pained at witnessing her grief for the loss of her husband, of whom she was very fond. As they watched the tears streaming down her cheeks, day after day, while she sat pounding fern root for their daily meals, they meditated over some scheme for avenging her loss. At last they decided what to do.