New Zealand
9781465615060
108 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The voice of lamentation and the noise of weeping were heard in Hawaiki; for men's hands were lifted up to slay their own kin: so that father slew son, and son smote father, and brother strove against brother, until nowhere in all that pleasant land was there peace. Wherefore, little children hid themselves for fear; and women, having cut their cheeks with sharks' teeth, and gashed their bosoms with sharp shells and pieces of tuhua, raised the tangi for the warriors who every day passed through the portals which give upon the Waters of Reinga. But Ngahue, being a great chief, might not weep; so he sat apart in his whare, neither eating nor drinking, while he prayed to the gods and to his ancestors that they would make a way of escape from the threatening doom. For Ngahue was sore stricken, having been worsted in the fight, and well he knew that for the conquered was no mercy. Wherefore, he sat with bowed head and covered face, and prayed for light.
