Page:Adventures of Kimble Bent.djvu/144

116 "Patua, kainga! Patua, kainga! E kai mau! Kaua e tukua kia haere! Kia mau ki tou ringa." ("Kill them! Eat them! Kill them! Eat them! Let them not escape! Hold them fast in your hands.")

Should the Tekau-ma-rua meet with success in their murderous raids, it was usual for the leader of the party to chant in a loud voice, as the home-palisades were neared, a song beginning, "Tenei te mea kei te mou ki toku ringa," meaning that he had in his hand a portion of the flesh of a slain pakeha. This was called the mawé; it was an offering to the god of war. The mawé was almost invariably a human heart, torn from the body of the first man of the enemy killed in the fight.

On two or three occasions Kimble Bent witnessed the ceremony of the offering of the mawé, the ancient rite of the Whangai-hau. The heart (manawa) or other piece of human flesh, was brought into the marae and given to a man named Tihirua, who was the priest of the burnt sacrifice. He was a young man about twenty-five years of age, belonging to the Ngati-Maru tribe, of the Upper Waitara. "He would take the heart in his hand," says Bent, "and strike a match, or take a firestick and singe the flesh. When it was slightly scorched he would throw it away; it was tapu to Uenuku. This was an ancient war-custom of the Maoris; Titokowaru adopted it because he believed it would cause the pakehas