Page:Adventures of Kimble Bent.djvu/216

188 natives called to him to come out. What he saw he will tell in his own words:

"When I walked out on to the marae, I met two Nga-Rauru men I knew from Hukatéré village, on the Patea River. They had come to Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu with a gift of gunpowder to Titokowaru. With them I presently went down to the cooking-quarters to see what had become of the body that had been dragged away. There we found a large earth-oven full of red-hot stones, and there they were engaged in roasting the white man's corpse. They had prepared it for cooking in the usual way, and were turning it over and over on the hot stones, scraping off the outer skin.

"The cannibal cooks looked round and asked me savagely what I wanted there. They threatened that if I did not leave instantly they would throw me into the oven too, and roast me alive.

"I returned to the marae, and was sitting amongst the crowd there some time later, perhaps an hour, when I saw a man's hands and ribs, cooked, carried up. The human flesh was placed in front of the two powder-carriers from Hukatéré, who were sitting close to me. The meat was in a flax basket, and a basket of cooked potatoes was set down with it. This present of food was out of compliment to the visitors.

"The two Maoris refused to touch it, saying, 'No, we will not eat man!' So the other natives ate it.