Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/59

protected their less influential fellow-sufferers from destruction.

It would needlessly prolong this narrative to relate the encounter between the several forces under Taiaroa and Rauparaha. Suffice it to say that the Southern expedition was successful. But a sad disaster befell it when returning, which resulted in the loss of many valuable lives. Taiaroa’s fleet, which consisted of twenty-nine canoes, was mainly composed of vessels specially adapted for ocean voyaging, formed by lashing two ordinary war canoes together, and further strengthening them with a deck; but the canoe in which Tu te hou nuku and many of the oldest chiefs embarked was only an ordinary war canoe, quite unable to cope with the winds and waves of stormy Rau Kawa. When rounding Cape Campbell, the fleet encountered a tremendous storm, and though Tu and his companions handled their canoe with all the skill of experienced seamen, it capsized before reaching the shore, and all but an old woman named Mawhai were drowned. She managed to escape by clinging on to the canoe till it was washed up. Their comrades, who witnessed the accident from the beach, were unable to render them any assistance, but after it was all over they waited in the neighborhood till the bodies were cast up. On finding the remains of Tu te hou nuku, they prepared at once to conduct his funeral rites, which were superintended by Te Wera. He commenced by killing the poor woman who had reached the shore alive, as an offering to the manes of the deceased. He then cut up the canoe, and with the fragments burnt the body of the young chief. The actual handling of the corpse was assigned to Rangitihi, the husband of Wakatau’s sister, who was in consequence subjected to the incon-