352 
MAMAKU. 
Government, and recommended the placing of a military force 
at Wanganui, for its defence, and without loss of time, for 
Mamaku would certainly return again with a larger force. 
Their advice was taken, and about Christmas a detachm nt of 
the 58th, under Captain Laye, arrived, and a stockade was 
made, the Putiki natives giving their assistance in cutting 
the timber required. 
In April, one of those unforeseen events occurred, which 
unfortunately interrupted the good understanding which had 
hitherto existed between the military and the Nga ti Ruaka. 
A young midshipman, who, with Lieutenant Holmes, of the 
Calliope, was stationed at Wanganui, in commaud of a gun¬ 
boat, had employed an old Chief named Hapurona, to make 
him a Raupo house, for which, when made, the boy (for he 
was nothing more) refused to give the stipulated price, and in 
joke pretended to be very angry ; he pulled out a pistol, and, 
with pretended fierceness, threatened to shoot him, unfortu¬ 
nately it went off, and the ball entered the Chief’s cheek, and 
lodged somewhere near the ear. The native thought it was 
done on purpose, and it was regarded as a wilful murder. The 
military, instead of holding an open court of enquiry, took the 
youth into the stockade, and shut the gates; this confirmed 
them in the idea that the act was intentional. 
On the evening of April 18th, 184G, a party of six young 
men, or rather boys, the eldest not being eighteen, and the 
youngest only twelve years old, relations of the wounded 
Chief, in order to have payment for blood,* and bring on a 
* Blood .—Tlie shedding of blood was always considered a most serious thing, 
although but a drop were shed, and that too of a person in the wrong, from 
being before the aggressor he became the aggrieved, and required an atone¬ 
ment. As an example, if a man caught a person in his karaka grove, 
stealing the fruit, he could demand a compensation for the theft; but were he 
to strike the offender, and cause a single drop of blood to flow from a scratch, 
native law would adjudge that karaka grove to the thief, as a payment for the 
drop of blood ; and were not the owner to resign the land to him, the tribe of 
the thief would feel itself called upon to maintain his right to it. A gentle¬ 
man entering my house, knocked his head against a beam and cut his eyebrow, 
so that blood flowed ; the natives present deplored the accident, and said that, 
according to their law, the house would have been forfeited to him, and as 
they were of his party, it would have been their duty to have seen it given up 
