Page:Maori Religion and Mythology.djvu/111

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
CH. vii.
LAND TENURE.
97

him with a canoe." "Why did not you go?" said Wainganui. "We offered to take the canoe to him," said the boys, "but he was not willing. He said that you must take the canoe to him." So Wainganui went in a canoe, and when he reached the other side of the river he called to his father to come down to him. But his father said, "Do you come up here to my side." So Wainganui left the canoe and went to his father; for he knew that he had something important to say to him. Then seating himself by his father's side he said "What means this that you have done?" The father said, "My son, I have been wronged by your uncle Hanui and by Heketewananga." "What sort of wrong?" inquired the son. "My wrong," said the old man—"my wrong. Heketewananga climbed on top of my house, and made water on my head—at the same time he jeered me, 'Ho! ho! now then your growth is stunted.'" Then the son said to his father, "Ha! you were all but murdered by those men. Their act shall be avenged. Their heads shall soon be struck by my weapon." Then turning in anger he went back to his canoe, and returned to the Pa.

Without delay he called together the whole tribe, and made known to them all that his father had told him. After the tribe had heard the wrong done to their old chief, they assembled at night to deliberate, and determined to go the next morning to kill those men. Then they retired to rest. At daybreak they arose and armed themselves, in number three hundred and forty, and set out for the Pa at Hanui.

The men within that Pa were more than six hundred. So when they saw the armed party coming to attack the