Cultural apologists should accept Hau Hau's dark past

If you came across a group of men gathered round an altar comprised of human heads on poles, would you: (a) Ask to join their prayer meeting; (b) Whip out your Bible and try to convert them to Christianity; or (c) Run like hell.

If your answer was either (a) or (b) and you were still alive at tea time would you, on being offered a cooked human arm, leg or choice rib section: (a) Politely decline, explaining that you're vegetarian; (b) Inquire: "Are there fries with that?"; or (c) React as in (c) above.

If you ticked option (c) to both questions, you've probably come to the same conclusion our early colonists and many mid-19th century Maori also came to - that you were in the company of fanatics and barbarians.

After all, members of religious sects have been labelled fanatics by embracing far less extreme tactics than those of the Hau Hau. And, of course, the whole point of their Pai Marire (good and peaceful) religion was to spread terror among the settlers to force them back to England.

So, accepting today's apologist view that the wording on Wanganui's Moutoa monument referring to "fanaticism and barbarism" is "incendiary language", as reported in the Chronicle (April 16, 2014), and supplementing it with a culturally sanitised text seems an affront not only to the Europeans and Maori who fought against the Hau Hau but also to the Hau Hau themselves, who would have been the first to claim credit for their tactics and the terror they unleashed.

Who are we, in our position of relative comfort, to tiptoe through our forebears' history, rewriting it for them and inferring we're better equipped to interpret it than they were? Do we, for example - as did pioneers Mrs Hewett and Mrs Lloyd - have to live with the knowledge that our loved ones' impaled heads were used to communicate with the war gods?

The religion began benignly enough with the war god subservient to the peace god. Te Ua Haumene, taught as a child by missionaries, was the movement's founder and he wove Maori and Christian beliefs into his new doctrine to see Israel (Maori) restored as the rightful inhabitants of the land of Canaan (New Zealand) and the unrighteous (Pakeha) held accountable on the Day of Judgment. By the time of the Battle of Moutoa (May 14, 1864), Te Ua was losing his grip and Pai Marire was taking a more warlike direction.

Much is made of the belief of settlers that local Maori were protecting the settlement of Wanganui, when more likely they were protecting the mana of their river by opposing the Hau Hau invaders, but there was also resistance by Maori to the rising militancy of Hau Hauism, because of fears of loss of tribal governance among a people who fiercely guarded their independence.

The Evening Post (December 27, 1865) had this to say on the unveiling of the Moutoa monument: "The brave men who last year fell at Moutoa ... were led by chiefs who were fully alive to the importance of the decided step which they took in supporting British authority within these districts. They were aware that persistent rebellion would eventually exterminate the Maori race and that whilst they fought to maintain law and order, they were by that course displaying a true patriotism to their own countrymen."

Which sounds like a good dose of colonial propaganda, except for the fact that around 600 Maori from as faraway as Wellington gathered for the unveiling and contributed a fierce war dance to underline their support. Plainly, they knew the consequences of Hau Hau dominance and were determined to prevent it.

However, the Battle of Moutoa did not bring peace, the Hau Hau mantle being taken up by Titokowaru, described by some as the most astute military leader on either side of the New Zealand wars.

In June 1868, he raised the stakes. His men killed Trooper Tom Smith, took half his body away and reduced it to soup, which was "partaken of every member of the tribe".

This was followed by a warning from Titokowaru - "I have eaten the European ... he was cooked in a pot. I have begun to eat human flesh, and my throat is constantly open for the flesh of man."

Of course, atrocities were committed by both sides of the conflict, but the fact remains that the Hau Hau was a committed "fanatic and barbarian", as stated on the monument, and Titokowaru and his followers would have scoffed at suggestions they were anything but.

So while the Government, the British Army, the Armed Constabulary, Forest Ranger von Tempsky, and military leaders Cameron, Chute, Whitmore, McDonnell and others couldn't tame Titokowaru and his men, they've finally been brought to heel and emasculated by today's cultural apologists who have probably wielded weapons no more lethal than a pencil sharpener.