That morning, when the very air seemed full of rumours of battle and death, Tutangé was girded with the sacred war-mat, the _maro-taua_.
[Illustration: TUTANGÉ WAIONUI, A HAUHAU WARRIOR.
This photo, taken in 1908, shows Tutangé--who was one of Titokowaru's best fighting men--stripped and armed for the war-path as he was in 1868.]
"My father's sister," says he, "called me to her, together with certain other young men who were of _rangatira_ rank, and who had not yet fought the white man. She was a chieftainess, by name Tāngamoko; she was of _ariki_ birth in the Ngati-Ruanui tribe, and being possessed of _mana-tapu_ and of a knowledge of charms and incantations, she was as a priestess amongst the people. She called us to her, and told us that she was about to make us _tamariki tapu_, that is, sacred children, for the coming battle. She girded us each with a fine waist-garment, the _korowai_, made of soft dressed and closely woven white flax, with short black thrums, or cords, hanging down it. These flax vestures, falling from our waists to our knees, she had made herself. They were the garments of war; she had _karakia_'d over them and charmed them so that the bullets of the enemy should not touch them, and so that we, their wearers, might conquer in the fight. And very proud and confident _tamariki tapu_ we were now, parading the _pa_ in our bullet-proof _korowai_, and dancing our weapons in the air as we leaped with our elders in the _haka_ and roared out the great chorus of the war-song beginning, '_Kia kutia--au--au!_' and that other one which our fathers had chanted when first they set up the Maori Land League, '_E kore Taranaki e makere atu!_' ('Taranaki will not be cast away from us!')
"One of the songs which we chanted as we wildly danced was this:
"'_Whakarongo ai au Ki te koroki manu Whakaorooro ana i te ngahere. I na-wa e!_' ('I'm listening for the voices, The singing of the birds, Sounding, echoing in the forest!')
The 'singing of the birds' was a figure of speech for the voices of the soldiers on the march.
"That _maro-taua_ was all the clothing I wore in the fight. Round my brows I bound a handkerchief, which held in place my _tiparé rangatira_, my chief-like war-feathers. My weapons were a double-barrelled gun (_tupara_), and a short-handled tomahawk, which I carried stuck in my belt. Round me I had strapped a cartridge-holder. _E tama!_ Now I was ready for my first battle."