Cannibal Jack by Trevor Bentley

Author:Trevor Bentley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781742287270
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2010-07-06T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

Eyewitness and convict, 1821–23

It was late October 1821 before the Ngāpuhi army boarded their battle fleet at Tamaki, according to Marmon, ‘after interring the bones of our friends and holding a great tangi over them’. The victors carried with them the preserved and packaged heads of their own fallen rangatira to be presented to the families of the deceased to grieve over. The white tohunga again travelled in Hongi’s leading waka as the great armada, now escorting a fleet of captured Ngāti Paoa canoes, laden with captives, slowly exited the Tamaki River on the ebb tide. At the entrance to the estuary, the Ngāti Paoa prisoners were permitted to turn and gaze in sorrow for the last time upon their ancestral lands. The twin pā of Mokoia-Mauinaina had been torched and two columns of dark smoke rose vertically to merge with the clouds. The waka taua progressed eastwards across the Hauraki Gulf, before turning south into the Firth of Thames to seek utu for past defeats at the hands of the Ngāti Maru people.

The prisoners whom we had taken in battle were conveyed along with us, and we were moreover laden with the spoils of the Ngatipaoa, highly polished pounamu meres and ornaments, beautifully wrought mats, carved weapons, and tattooed heads. These were the property of the chief to reward as he chose the bravery of his followers.

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