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renegade and outlawDEATH OF KIMBLE BENT.iLIVED THIRTY YEARS WITHTHE MAOBIS.bush* Prom 1805 to 1S79 lie was never [ safe. On one occasion, soon aitcr ne' I bad taken tg the bush life, bo was out J camping in the forest on the Patca, I when bis companion, an old warrior, endeavoured to tomahawk him while lie was apparently ■ asleep. Bent; mastered bim after a struggle, and kept watch over him with the tomahawk for the rest of the night. At Tc 2sgutu-o-te-Manu he had some narrow escapes from Maori blood-Iust; once be bad to hid-' under a clump of bushes to escape the tomahawks of nien who thought he could not he trusted, and be would barebeen executed in that pa had it not beenfor the friendship of Titokowaru. in lSGfl, when hi* was lost in the bush at the back of Tauranga-ika, on a foraging expedition. Maoris w ere scouring the forest Peeking to kill him, in tho belief that be had deserted them. Even after the war, on the Waitara. where he was treated as a blavc. he narrowly escaped falling a victim to the anger of the chief who was then his “ owner ”TITOKOWAliU’S WHITE ilAN.ft was when living in Xe Xgutn-o-to-Mnu stockade, on the Waimate Plains, that Titokowaru gave Bent the protection of his maim tapu.” The pakeha-.Maori had been in considerable danger from gome of the malcontents of the pa;they wished to see him killed, as they be]ie\ed that he nag waiting an opportunity to escape to the Government forces and the men of his own race. TheJ6pecinlly Written for the Star*”)A few dajs ago theie died in tha Vfairau Hospital, Marlborough, a bed*ridden old man nho n.id fciirvjred some of the niOit extraordinary perils and ad\entmcs that ha\a eier fallen to the share of a dueller in a wild laud and amongst a savage people. This \\a*i Simple Bent, the pakuha-Maorij who tad reached the age ol scventi'~nin*‘ years. For ueark fifty \ears hie life had been spent almost w holly among thiJIaons, ami for sibont twenty years n-iUiat period he did not dare \enturc into ■white settlements, for a price was on his head as a deserter and a rebel.LITE IX NAYY AND ARMY.Kimble Bent was born in Kastpcrt,State of Mnine, I.S.A., in 1S37, the sou of a shipbuilder of that little town and a young half-breed noinan of the Mlt3-qua Indian tribe. His father's name ■was Waterman Bent. At seventeen li*1 ran away to sea, and spent threii year-5 war chief, m owler to protect his pro” on a United States training frigate, m tege, announced to the tribe assembled vhieli he became an expert gunner. *Iater ha found his way to Englard, where he enlisted in 1S5H in the 57thRegiment, the old Die-Hards. In 1SH3 tic regiment was ordered to Xew Zen-land to take the field against the Maoris, and Bent bad experience of barrack life in Auckland and Xcw Plymouth. His impatience of the strict dis-m the great meeting-house, Wharc-kura, that ho had adopted Bent as his mokopuna,” and that his nanuj hence- 1 forward would be Tu-nni-a-moa,. which had been that of his (Tjfcoko’s) gioat-grandfather.Long after the war, the worn old war chief Jay dying m Ins little kainga, near Manaia. It was in the year 1SS5. All his tribe bad assembled to reiei'c his parting exhortations and to see him die.cipline of an Imperial regiment culminated in an offence which brought him ............to a court-TuaTtial in tho cimp at ^lana- -timble Bent was at this time iking wapou, in South Taranaki, in the early [ jjjh the Maoris at Taiporolicnui. somarart of 1S64. He disobeyed a corporal,% fifteen mdes a nay- As the lt;,],) oluef lavJ m _ — Hi J J I T.hP^a TTld*?!^ ll i ^ _»-*-*» if __1 JL _ T_orders, and received a flogging of twenty-five lashes at the triangles, followed by a period of imprisonment. The severe punishment sent him to the Maoris as soon as he found an opportunity of deserting, He stole away from the camp ■jtj the winter of 1865, and made his way to the nearest Hauhau settlement, the pilisaded pa Obangai. on the rebel side of the Tangahoe River.BUSH LIFE.From that day onward ‘Bent, led the life of the Maoris, The Xgati Ruanui iribe to which he deserted received him with savage ceremonies, and be became a protege of a chief named Tito te Hanataua. The Hauhau prophet Te Ua. the founder of the Pai-ma-rirs *u*at’c religion, also befriended him anu bade the tribe give hospitality to any soldier deserted to them from tho forces. At Taiporohenui, Kefceonctea.Otapawa and other stoekadnd villages of the Ngati-Ruanui Bent h^ed with his “rangatira ” taking His share ,n all the work of the kamgasi he bad pictured to himself a of leisure amonj the natives, but be soon found that b,v as little better than a slave. His European Clothes soon wore out, and m* clothing for years was either some tat tered shirt or blanket, with a Maoriin at about Mu vi*UU he went barefooted and bareheaded iike the Mkcms and oe-came as hardened to the rongh busb liie us thev He was given a Maori woman “ X and died 1 * «asjm-Tided with a new 4-wabinc. bis chieic daughter. His first Maori name to ‘^ingirin=d” which the celebrated fighting chief, Titokowaru, hfe masterand protector Sor many years, after- ----------------- _ --------wards changed to Ta-nm-a-Moa, »niCTlsC(i 0f having actually fought agsmst ancestral name, by which Bent was uni- hjs fellow-whiteB in the war. However, vers ally known among the natives until 1 )le always strenuously declared that hethere, near his end, be was heard to ask, “Where is my grandson, Timui-a-moft?,)The Maoris at once sent for the w hitc man. Te Kahu-pukoro, one of Titoko-warua relatives and warriors, get out for Taiporohenui, and told Bent that the dying chief had asked for him, If youwish to sec him alive,” said To Kahu-pukoro, f*come back with me now.Bent at onee returned with the Maori and Tode into Titoko's camp. The old warrior lay there, with fast glazing eyes.} He looked up as Bent approached andsaid, l\E Ta, tena koe!”The white man pressed his nose to his rangatira’s, and uttered his Maori greeting and fa re iv ell.The grim old war-chief held bis white mokopuna'e baud feebly in his own. In a few moments he spoke again:“Remain you here,'1 he said. *‘l am going away. Do not desert the tribe. Remain with our people.”That was Titokowaru's farewell. Afew minutes later he died, and the tangj’s wail and the firing of guns ana a Maori pandemonium indeserihablc announced the parsing of the last great warrior of the plains.For some years after his old chicffc death Bent lived in Taranaki with hid Maori friends. About eighteen years ago he took up his quarters at Wairau native village in Marlborough with the little Ngati-Rarua tribe, and earned !his keep by carpentering and working in the cultivations. He was induced to tell tho story of his unrestful life, and this was narrated in a book entitled, '‘The Adventures oF Kimble Bent, written by James Cowan and published by Messrs, Whit* combe and Tombs five years ago.The old pakeha-Maori, was often ae-ibis death,BACK TO THE STOXE AGE.had never used a weapon against the troops, and Maoris who had been his(1f comrades, questioned on the subject,He gradually forgot e\ supported his denial. He *wus manybis pakeha tongue, E JD1 . VT ' t.imw renarted dead: Gudireon’s lmtorv ravage ceremonies of the Pai-Manrewith the nathes, he waT*j tomahawked in 1868. The historian aptushcraft and Maori methods of war ... .£times reported dead; Gudgeon’s hktorv of the Maori war states that he wasiare; he became a skilful canoe buildeu Long after the war. in aoaut lbiS, ncand a laori} when living in the lonelylittle bush vilhigc of Rukumoana, on the Upper Patea, actually cut out a canoe with stone axes, aided by the use cf fire in the manner of the MaorJs of a hundred years ago. Every pirt of the long and laborious task was done without* the help of European implements. He became also in time an expert us median e-man and a kind of to nnga. and a measure of Mtapusj surrounded him in Maori ey« m his later years, because of his close association with that great chief Titokowaru.AT CANNIBAL ¥ZASTS,In 1S68, when th£ Taranaki HauhaUBj at the savage Titokowaru’s instigation.inverted to cannibalism, Bent was present at at least Wo cannibal feasts in the bush. The first occasion was at Te Ngutu-O'te-Manuj after the defeat or UfacDonnell and the slaying of Majorvon Tempsky and about twenty othersoldiers, and the second was at Motu-roa, after Whitmore’s repulse. He saw the burning of von Tempekya bouy on a great funeral pyre, and he saw the body of one of the men who fell in the ,fight cooked and eaten in the village square in Te Ngutu-o-tc-Mauu stockade. At Moturoa again he saw a soldier» tody cooked and eaten* In an aecoun (not hitherto published) of the former gnm episode, which Bent gave the writer, he described a curious little incident in which Titakowaru and he were th'e chiefSgures;— .Bsut walked down to the cooking place, and watched the eannibl cooks at their work, When he returned to the house outside which Titokowaru was Bitting, glowering and reciting karakias, the old war-chief asked him wnere lie had been.“I have been watching the men cooking the soldiers body” said Bent,Titoko was angry. “Why did you go therehe asked. “You did wrong to go and wntcli them, Did you taste any the kiko-tangata (man meat) 713 “No,” said Bent, “I am not an eafcrtil human flesh.”“You should not have gone there/’ repeated the chief. 15 Your head perhaps has been enveloped by the steam from those tapu ovens. Sit you there;not enter the house until you are fred from the tapu.”So saying Titokowaru went into the tcuse and. returned with cooked taro his hand. With this he touched his Wiite adopted “ mokopuna ” fgrand-6oii} on the head, and recited a long incantation. This was for the purpose of frhakanoa-ing him, or expelling the dan^ fisroius bacilli of the tapu which otherwise niif^ht do him evil. Se waa now ^oa,” free and clean. Such was the of the pajran Maori so lately asMs.SOME HAIRBREADTH ESCAPES. Besides the risk of death in the buaii tattles and of execution by the troops hfi were wounded or captured^ Bent confronted innumerable times with the danger that )ay in. the innate savag-pears to have confused him with the deserter Kane, or King, cabled “Kingi” by the Natives, who was killed in that year byw Titokowam’s Hauhau6; in puniehment of his treachery after he had taken up his quarters with them*GERMAN PEOPLE DEJECTED.STRONG ANTAGONISM TO TH33EA1S^RSIGNS OF CIVIL STRIFE.Tho London Uaily Ghro'THele's'1 Amsterdam correspondent sent on May S an account of a visit to Germany and Belgium juat made by a neutral of high connection, who said;—“I was in Germany about three months ago, when hope was high; Verdun had not brought its disillusionment.But nowi I never eould believe anational spirit could change so completely. Theare hae been veritable revolution in feeling a.nd opinion. What astonished me more than anything else was the outbreak of feeling against the Kaiser. I could never have believedsuch a change possible—to the German people. And not only the people. The saino spirit of revolt shows itself among the others. The Kaiser, of couree, bas his bands of supporters, both in the army and among the people, and in this fact I sometimes thought I saw signs of civil 6trife, which is more and more threatening to rend Germany in twain. Ycry soon, unlees I completely misread the signs, it would be only pro-Kaiser and. a.nti-Kaiser, and one aide or the other will be driven out’ of sight.“At present, owing to the unwillingness ot the great majority to show theiT feelings openly, it appears the pro-Kaiser party is the stronger, but once there is an open breach I believe the others 1will prove immeasurably more numerous and influential. If the universal and deep desire of the entire people had any pow'er to nuikc itself felt in the councils of Germany, then peace oug^t not to ibe far away.As for the condition of Belgium, what strikes one there is the dreadful scarcity of food, For three months the people of Brussels have scarcely seen a potato. I oiten w’onderod what was happening to the stores which the United States is sending for the Belgians. 1 did hear a story which gave me someidea of what Le going on. It Ls the custom for the burgomasters of the smallerBelgian towns to send in a statement ot _tiheaurgent requirements to headquarters p]at Brussels- * ai“When the supplies arrived in these Clsmall plaoea there waa, of course, a tftremendous demand from the popuia- aition, but I was assured that before the •distribution to the public took place the cf officers of the German forces there first i w had their pick. When fchey had finished g| there often was not much left for the! jjualPGhiPdiutcstpiFki01fittGUJisFfeS'k? of the wild tribes -of the Taranaki [famished people.-C8CF
Newspaper Details
Auckland Star
Auckland, Auckland, NZ
Sat, Jun 17, 1916
Page 9
Full Page
Clipped by
Nick N.
IL, USA 29 Jan 2020
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