Captain Cook’s Arrival at Aotearoa, Part Two
Said Kaha: “The chief was as simple and curious as the ordinary tribesman. The master jostled with the slave. The chieftainess of high degree joined in the universal scramble to…
From: 1769 C.E. To: 1769 C.E.
Location: Tūranganui-a-Kiwa, New Zealand
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From Where the White Man Treads by William Baucke, 1905.
Captain Cook’s arrival at Aotearoa, part 2
Said Kaha: “The chief was as simple and curious as the ordinary tribesman. The master jostled with the slave. The chieftainess of high degree joined in the universal scramble to get the first and better view! And presently, when the first great dread had waned, and we saw that, though present knowledge failed of its reward, these people were kindly-minded, and that closer contact resulted in no injury, it was the fulness of happiness to stand near and look on. And the misgiving clamoured incessantly: Is this real?
Presently we wondered: Are these men? Are they fashioned as we are? So, when they came ashore to fill their water-casks, it was suggested that, should one become detached from his party, to rush him into the bush, strip off his clothes, and examine him!
But this our chief absolutely forbade. These strangers have trusted us; they have in all their behaviour dealt justly by us; therefore do not molest them. Who knoweth their power for vengeance? They offer no indignities to our women. Why, then, be they fashioned as we are, or not: leave them alone! And there was wisdom in this, as after events will prove. So they came and went in our midst at their pleasure.
“Among their party was one who prowled about like a simpleton, picking up shells, and collecting flowers and shrubs. This, we said, is a tohunga; he is searching for herbs to make ‘wairakau’ (herb water—medicine), and one of our people offered to show him the plants and barks we use to that end. Presently he came rushing back crying: ‘Beware! he is a tohunga of no ordinary degree! Not flowers, and plants, and shells alone, but also stones! for he chippeth here, and he chippeth there, and examineth them with a movable eye, until his satchel is laden. What manner of medicine will this become?’
“Not a moment of the day but had its surprises! First it was this, then that, and we followed them as the faithful dog followeth his master, and when they placed tubes in their mouths and smoke issued therefrom, we scampered to a safer distance; this our chief seeing, it became not his dignity to flee likewise, so he bravely drew up for closer inspection; but when the smoke issued also from the nose in two streaks, he stopped as one stricken by lightning! And when, further, one built up a mound of grass and sticks, and stooping over it with nothing apparently in his hands (convex lens?), and forthwith it crackled and blazed, he fled in terror to our tohunga, and cried: ‘Now, go thou and do likewise, for verily they are beshaming thy skill!”
“Presently the tidings spread: ‘Toia and his tribe have visitors from the gods! Oversea they came; no one knoweth from whence.’ Then began our tribulations; for our visiting kindred, hearing also that the strangers had presented our tribe with goods, such as eye had never seen before, that also they were peaceable and lavish with gifts, forthwith our village became a concourse of ravaging turbulence.
And when Toia, as became the lord of his own district, clamoured for patience and order, and striding to and fro. warned and persuaded, saying: ‘hey have come. Look seaward; there floateth their ship. They have traded with us, and where we gave one they repaid two and three. Nothing have they touched but the value was adjudged and laid before us! It were shame that they return and tell of this outrage!’ (It had been proposed to take the ship and compel the white strangers to live among them.)
‘Beware! we have seen their white side, but even white hath a shadow of black! And who knoweth what a “kiriwera” (a person driven to extremities) will do to avenge his dishonour? We know not their means of defence! Go as sightseers, but take food in your hands, as an offering of peace; go and sate your bowels, but if you go I will go, too. And, listen: Leave your weapons behind.’
“Thus spake Toia; and calling a secret council he and his men girded a mere beneath their mats; for they decided that come what may their pakeha friends should be protected, because now our hearts were swelled with an unbounded love for these strangers! Strangers? Nay, they had become in three days as the affectionate kin of a lifetime. Did they not pay an axe apiece for three long, straight saplings wherewithal to mend their sail poles? And did we not carry them down to the shore on our shoulders—an army under each—out of goodwill? What were those trees to us? Valueless! Nothing.
“Now, the curiosity of our kinsfolk was good. All curiosity is good; it showeth a yearning to be instructed. The greater the desire to unravel the intricate, the greater the wisdom to follow. So they launched the canoes; but Toia and Toko, and all our foremost men, were careful to be, and keep, in advance, that thereby they might get the ear of their white friends to be on their guard. This they did with laborious sign language; so when our kinsfolk drew near, each white man had shifted his scabbard to be within handier grip range; besides holding a spear with a blade whose brightness flickered like forked lightning (boarding pikes), and by Toia’s advice not more than one canoe load was to climb on board until the others had glutted their bowels and departed.
Toia now took command, and gave orders as from Kuki—lies they were; what did he know of the white man’s language! He ordered here, and interpreted there; and all the while Kuki understood and smiled his approval. Then the jealous-begotten in their canoes demanded to know by what right Toia claimed ownership of precedence; so he whipped out his mere, and flashing it in their sight with a shrewd menace of deeds to come, answered: ‘By this!’
Then came the wheedling voice of entreaty, but he abated not the width of a nail paring—one canoe at a time and no more! Presently they all struck their paddles into the water for a defiant onrush; and Toia mutely asked of Kuki for a sign of his craft, which he instantly understood; for he took up a gun lying ready to hand, and pointing it at a passing seagull, suddenly a spit of fire, smoke, and a crash of thunder threw even Toia and his men down upon the deck; because Kuki did not wish to frighten his friends, therefore even we did not know of this terrible token.
Suddenly Toia leaped to his feet, and waving a trembling hand towards the dead seagull, cried: ‘What did I warn you?’ But he spoke to the rear-parts of people now madly paddling shorewards, with cries most painfully urging undignified haste! Thus, it is reported that the fugitives stayed not to draw up their canoes; but with the roar of the white man’s destruction in their ears incontinently took to the bush!
Oh, the proceedings were masterful—delightful to have seen and afterwards boast of! And what before were mere strangers, then friends, were now beloved as blood-kin and brothers. For, it is said, had Kuki been so minded his skill could have fleetly destroyed us and not left a memory behind!
“But the time drew near that these strangers must depart. And the desolate cry grew in our hearts: ‘They go, will they return?’ Truly little did we previse that these were the harbingers of decimation and sorrow; that they would darken the land like a ‘pokai kuaka’ (covey of snipe), that they would ask and receive; then, without asking, take. For we were deluded into thinking that they would live in our midst—not we in theirs—and disclose to us the secret of their magic, to delight us and our descendants for ever! This we thought, and were deceived; else we had done that which lieth at every man’s hand for self-defence!
But who could strive against a benevolence like unto Kuki's'? Had those who came after him been like blooded and hearted, decimation and sorrow had never been dreamt of. For with our friends nothing went amiss! Never a cause for complaint! Each hour we knew each other better; and the growth of mutual esteem met like the waves of a cross tide, which embrace and pass on without apparent loss of momentum. They walked in our village; they sat at our hearths, and talked in a language which tickled the ears; and we answered them, neither knowing what the other had said , yet the eyes left no sentence in doubt!
So it became that the one we had jeered at for a gatherer of simples was indeed of unheard wisdom and skill, which we detected in this wise: A slave whom we had sent with him to carry his garbage fell from a tree, on which grew a plant which his companion’s fancy had coveted. Now, the fall was grievous, for in his descent he struck an outstanding branch, which staved in a rib. According to ancient and privileged custom, this entailed utu (payment). But by common consent it was waived; yet the pitying soul of this wandering stranger said with his eyes what his speech left obscure; so he patted, and probed, and painted, and bandaged; God knows where his multitudinous actions had ended, had the slave not ceased groaning, and at last slept in peace, of a powerful potion which this wonderful man had poured down his throat!
But this was not all; he gave him two bags joined at their upper ends to sheathe his legs in—like unto those which he wore himself (trousers?)—which his master promptly estreated when the strangers had left; he was only a slave!
“On one point only was Kuki deaf to all entreaty; he would not part with his guns; the which he made plainly understood, that unending sorrow would accrue to the community should one part become possessed of this death-dealing tool. Even of those hairy rascals shut up in pens he presented a male and female to our tribe, saying in sign language, by laying a row of pebbles beside her, that so many would they increase by careful nurture.
Of seeds also he gave us abundance, which, when they grew, we did not know how to eat! And the last day of all he gave Toia another pot, and speaking vehemently, with much pointing at it, said: ‘Now go ashore.’ So we took that to be its name; for do we not call it at this distant day a ‘kohua?’ (corruption of ‘go ashore’). And thus it is handed down that before they stepped over the side they chanted this farewell song:—
From out of the sea came the white-featured strangers. From out of the sun strange faces, strange voices, and bewildering wonders. Return to the sea; behind the horizon, where the world has its ending. Go back to your kindred. Our thoughts and affections be in your keeping until you return!’”
Baucke, William. Where the White Man Treads. Wilson and Horton Printers, 1905.
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