ANDREW POWERS. 
371 
chopped about in the face with the hatchet, he thinks was not 
preserved. The bodies of two of the victims were cut up and 
eaten. Afterwards, when Powers had been some time with 
them, he asked what had become of the third man who was 
killed, as he only saw two of their heads. They told him, 
when he was killed he cried, and their atuas said, they were 
not to eat the bodies of men who cried from fear of death, 
lest it should make them cowards; so they buried his body 
in the sand. 
At the time when this affair took place, there were no 
natives residing near the sea. Putiki had been destroyed two 
years before, by Te Rauparaha. The men who seized the boat 
where Taupo natives, and immediately afterwards went up 
the river. Powers accompanied Tapuae and his son Wetu. 
The black man going with another division of the party, 
he saw no more of him. The party of Wetu returned by 
Wanganui-a-te-ao and Rotoaira. As they went up the river, 
the people of some pa they stopped at, gave Tapuae and 
Wetu a basket of human flesh, and were going to give some 
to Powers, but Papuae told them not to do so, as foreigners 
did not eat that kind of food, and Tapuae said, neither would 
his son eat it; he therefore returned the present. The natives, 
astonished, enquired, what is he tapu, that he cannot eat human 
flesh ? No, replied his father, the smell of it always makes 
my son sick, (a convincing proof there were some at least whose 
feelings revolted at such unnatural food). 
On reaching Taupo, Te Wetu said, he must take him to see 
the king; so they went to Waitaha-nui, and there placed him 
in the verandah of a house. In a little time a native brought 
a new floor mat, and spread it upon the ground, and bid him 
sit upon it. Shortly afterwards, they said, our king is coming, 
and a very stout majestic native made his appearance, who 
came and sat by his side on the mat; this no doubt was Te 
Heuheu. 
The king spoke to him very kindly, and asked him if it was 
true that his men had killed and eaten his comrades. Powers 
was afraid to reply, and therefore pretended not to understand 
what he said. He then sent for a little slave boy who had lived 
n b 2 
