Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/456

 fashion, the face being elaborately tattooed. The remainder of the figure was painted, showing a black tie, a low black waistcoat, and black trousers and shoes. It looked as if the upper part had come from a Maori battlefield and the lower from a ballroom or a banquet hall of the twentieth century.

As it was with this carved and painted pedestal, so differences distinguish the Hauhaus of to-day from their warring forefathers. The Hauhau faith was established in 1864 at the base of Mount Egmont by the mild-mannered Te Ua. About the same time its believers started a war against the colonials, and for seven years their war-cry of "Father, Good and Gracious," accompanied by right-hand passes and the cry "hau," was heard from Taranaki to the Bay of Plenty. When they marched to battle a sacred party of twelve warriors preceded the army; and when in action bullets were rendered harmless, they professed to believe, by mystic hand and barking "hau." When a warrior fell, loss of faith was given as the cause. Chief of all the Hauhaus was Te Kooti. By his followers he was regarded as a demigod, and by the troopers, who were three years effecting his capture, he was admitted to be an accomplished Artful Dodger.

Not many religious sects, if any, are more tolerant than the Hauhaus of to-day. Where, for example, has there occurred an instance of one Caucasian religious denomination giving one of its important yearly meetings into the hands of widely differing believers? The Hauhaus have done so. A Mormon missionary told me