"So they left this part of the battle-field, not daring to carry off the bodies as usual for a cannibal orgy. A long time afterwards, Tama, and certain priests of the almost exterminated Ngatewhatua tribe, ventured to return here. With much solemn karakia and propitiatory sacrifice, they tremblingly crept into the precincts of the bay. They placed the remains of their kindred in the forks of the trees, and hid the sacred tiki for ever from mortal eyes. Then they departed, and the ægis of a holy place invests for posterity Te Puke Tapu.
"It is a charnel-house if you like, under those trees there, but a very beautiful one as is evident. We ought to keep alive the memories that make the place romantic. It would be a pity if utilitarian axe and fire were to spoil the beauty of Te Puke Tapu. There is plenty of other good land to be had. No need for us to covet this, fertile as it is; no need to make a commonplace farm out of that picturesque old battle-ground. May it long remain just as it is now--a lovely natural monument to ancient Maori valour, a quiet undisturbed resting-place for the warrior dead, the patriot chivalry of the Ngatewhatua!"
A great friend of ours, and a near neighbour, is Tama-te-Whiti, the old Maori. He is not _the_ chief of the Ngatewhatua, but as he comes of the royal stock he is _a_ chief. He belongs to the caste styled tana, or chieftains, a degree above that of rangatira, or simple gentlemen-warriors. In the old feudal times--for the ancient Maori system may be so designated--Tama would have held a delegated authority over some portion of the tribe, just as a Norman baron did in the elder world.
Now the tribe is very small, having been almost exterminated by the Ngapuhi fifty years ago. Three or four families form the section over which Tama presides. But civilization and European colonization have abolished the old order of things, so that even a head chief's authority is now more nominal than real.
In his youth Tama was a warrior, having taken part in the battle which ended with the affair at Marahemo, as described in the previous chapter. A fugitive from his own district, his hopes of one day becoming a lordly ruler over some large kainga of his own being shattered by defeat, he fell in with Samuel Marsden, and by that Apostle of New Zealand was converted to Christianity.