Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/50

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Maori History.
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the wife of one of his enemies. His captors were very much enraged with him doing so, and fearing he might commit suicide, and escape the punishment in store for him, they secured his hands, and then fastened him by a hook placed under his chin to the cross beams of the hold. The torture occasioned exquisite suffering, which was watched with satisfaction by his vindictive enemies. On reaching Kapiti, Te Mai hara nui was handed over to the widows of the chiefs killed at Kaiapoi, who put him to death by slow and nameless tortures.” Base as the means adopted for his capture were, and cruel as his fate was, it is impossible to feel much pity for Te Mai hara nui. His punishment was hardly worse than he deserved, since the treatment he received at the hands of his enemies was little more than a repetition of the cruelties he had himself perpetrated on members of his own tribe.

Onawe.

The remarkable pear-shaped promontory which divides the upper end of Akaroa Harbor into two smaller bays, is a locality possessing special interest to the Maori annalist, not only from its having been from ancient times the reported abode of an atua or guardian spirit, but more particularly because it was the site of the last occupied Maori fortress on the Peninsula, and the scene of a terrible encounter with Rauparaha’s forces.

The summit of Onawe was called Te-pa-nui-o Hau (the chief home of wind). There, amongst the huge boulders and rocks that crown the hill, and cover its steep-sloping sides, dwelt the Spirit of the Wind. Tradition tells how jealously it guarded its sacred haunts from careless intrusion. How it terrified the unwary or too daring trespasser by demanding with startling suddenness, and in strange unearthly tones, “What doest thou here?” instantly following up