"_Upoko-kohua!_" she cried vehemently, with hate flashing in her eyes; "_Upoko-kohua! Ka taona koe ki te umu, he utu mo taku tungane kua mate, ko Te Waka-tapa-ruru! Mehemea ko au i tata i taku tungane i te takiwa i mate ai, ka kainga au i te karu o te tangata nana i whakamatea Te Waka!_" ("Boiled heads! Cursed heads! Soon ye'll be cooked in the oven, as payment for the death of my brother, Te Waka-tapa-ruru. Had I but been near my brother when he fell, I would have swallowed the eyes of the man who slew him!")
Then, throwing away her stick, she sat down again, and fell to weeping in the very abandonment of woe, for the savage woman of the woods loved her grim warrior-brother greatly.
Some of the Maoris proposed that the bodies of the slain whites, the "Fish of Whiro," should all be burned or buried.
But up leaped Timoti, wildest of all the wild Waitotara tribe, the cannibal Nga-Rauru, a thin, savage-faced fellow, very dark of complexion, as active and agile as a wild cat. He ran up and down in front of his slain enemies, turning from one side to the other, _pukana_-ing--only the whites of his eyes showing--and his tongue protruded in derision and defiance. He flashed his tomahawk in the air; he yelled, "We must have one body--one body to cook in the _hangi_!"
"Yes," said another of the clan, "the customs of our fathers must be observed. What is the use of killing so many _pakehas_ if we cannot have one to eat?"
No man making objection, several Hauhaus jumped up and ran to the heap of slain Constabulary men. They selected a body, and dragged it off to the cooking-place at the rear of the _marae_. "He is the fattest of the _pakehas_," said the saturnine Timoti.
All eyes watched them, but no man said a word.
Bent, after a while, rose with some of his Hauhau companions, and walked over to the cooking-_hangis_, and watched the cooks at their horrible work.
They were roasting the white man's body on the great fire of hot stones, in a hollowed-out earth-oven. "It was being cooked," says Bent, "much as you would roast a piece of mutton; they turned it over and over until it was thoroughly done, and then they cut it up for the feast."
When the cannibal meal was ready, it was brought on to the _marae_ with much ceremony in flax baskets. Potatoes had been steam-boiled in other _hangis_ at the same time, and these were carried to the assembly-ground, to be eaten with the man-meat. Bent saw the flesh of the soldier eaten. The man-eaters, he says, all belonged to the Waitotara tribe. Ten of them consumed the _pakeha_, or as much of him as was borne to the _marae_; the rest of the people did not share in the feast. Titokowaru himself would not eat human flesh, because of his _tapu_.