The Aborigines and Maori: The History of the Indigenous Peoples in Australia and New Zealand by Charles River Editors

Author:Charles River Editors
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Charles River Editors
Published: 2018-12-20T00:00:00+00:00

A sketch of Hongi Hika

Hongi Hika was no fool, and he realized very quickly that the primary advantage in having ballistic weapons lay in the shock and awe produced on those unfamiliar with them. In short order, Hongi Hika won his revenge and then began raiding southwards for slaves because guns were expensive and slaves were needed to cultivate the potatoes and flax. They produced as much food as they could sell to buy more weapons, so as guns flooded into certain regions, hunger among the common people often accompanied them.

In 1820, Hongi Hika, in the company of the Church Missionary Society missionary Thomas Kendall, visited England, ostensibly in order to assist in the production of a Māori dictionary. However, Hongi Hika was more interested in the guns that he had heard were stored in the Tower of London. While in England, he was introduced to King George IV and was lavished with gifts, including a full suit of armor. He was unable to gain any access to the arsenal in the Tower of London, but upon arriving in Sydney on the way home, he exchanged his haul of gifts for some 300 muskets, keeping only a coat of mail, which saved his life more than once in battle and enhanced his mana as an invincible warrior.

Those 300 muskets ultimately tipped the balance, giving Hongi Hika and his army an assailable edge. This prompted an arms race as other powerful chiefs rushed to equalize their position, or at least retain the ability to mount a credible defense. The first to do so were the Bay of Islands communities, and once a certain equilibrium had been established, the heavily armed tribes of the north turned on the tribes of the south that had not yet begun to arm. The panic caused by the initial shock of these attacks secured numerous decisive victories for the Ngāpuhi. Tribes under threat of attack, however, scurried to acquire stocks of this new weapon, and soon various campaigns were underway across the region as weaker tribes fell upon each other.

The Musket Wars lasted on paper from 1807-1842, comprising numerous battles and campaigns on both islands. Suddenly, from a handful of obsolete muskets appearing here and there in the order of battle, there was an orchestrated use of ballistic weapons, aided on occasions by artillery pieces and the adaption of tactics and strategies. As the trade in muskets developed, and better supplies were established, Māori musketeers were better placed to train and thus develop appropriate strategies. At the same time, traditional Māori warfare tended to be ritualized, and on numerous occasions the warring groups were linked by ties of kinship, so debilitating death tolls were certainly not desirable. The ultimate objective of all war was to defeat the strongest tribe, so in a sense, Māori warfare can be seen in the context of a sports tournament, thus resuming every fighting season.

Traditional Māori tactics of warfare were organized and relatively sophisticated, but the ritualization ensured that the fighting was not done in the most efficient manner, at least from modern perspectives.

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