Page:Pounamu, notes on New Zealand greenstone (IA pounamunotesonne00robl).djvu/39

Rh War-clubs were generally buried with the chiefs, but were seldom allowed to remain permanently in the grave. Other articles of value might be allowed to stay in the earth; but the mere, being the principal badge of leadership, was recovered when the dead chief’s bones were taken up for the second burial. It is well known that many mere have been hidden in the North Island, and in some cases subsequent mortality in the tribe has obliterated all knowledge of the hiding places.

Occasionally mere that had been lost were found and recognized to the great joy of the tribe. In 1864, just after the Gate Pa affair, a soldier of the 68th Light Infantry, one of a burial party at the cemetery at Te Papa, near Tauranga, came across a long buried greenstone mere, which he shewed to a party of Maori passing the spot in a canoe. They at once landed and claimed it at head-quarters, on the ground that it had belonged to one of their famous chiefs interred at that place; and the English commander gave it up without demur, as was tika or correct.

A Maori warrior, faced with violent death, would elect to be killed by a patu rangatira, a chief’s patu, and would calmly await the death stroke, content to be despatched to reinga, the next world, even with his own good mere, comforted by the knowledge that it was no mean weapon that touched his proud head. Mr. Elsdon Best, in Notes on the Art of War, tells how a chief named Potiki pursued his enemy Kahu and ran down the fugitive, who was burdened by the weight of his child. But when Potiki raised his hatchet to slay his enemy, Kahu cried “Let me not be slain with a one-edged hatchet,” and drawing his own good greenstone mere, Te Heketua, from his belt he surrendered it to Potiki, saying, “Here is the weapon to slay me with. Let me