The Tomahawk

Maori traditionally used dried heads of enemies to raise war-parties. After the ambush and slaughter of troopers by Hauhau at Ahuahu on 6 April 1864 (see my post  “How Captain Lloyd Lost his Head” below) their heads were cut off on the spot and later dried as trophies - according to Maori custom. The Hauhau were an aggressive development of the original teachings of the Maori prophet Te Ua who founded the peaceful Pai Maririe religion in Taranaki in 1862. Shortly after Ahuahu Te Ua revealed that he had been visited (again) by the Angel Gabriel - whose instructions were that Captain Lloyd’s head was to be carried as a victorious religious tropy throughout the North Island in a stirring (but peaceful) recruiting drive to draw Maori to the Pai Maririe cause: which was basically an attempt to stop the loss of tribal lands to predatory carpet-baggers and land-sharks from Britain. Below; the Angel Gabriel: However, the militant emissaries entrusted with this task instead saw their role as en

Graveyards are always sombre places to visit, and the early-settler Heads Road cemetery in Wanganui is no exception - with all-too-many memorials to infants. There are also several military graves here from several 19th century New Zealand War engagements which took place in the vicinity. On my visit in November 2018 I found the graves of the Hunter brothers and Lieutenant Colonel Hassard at the rear of the site, amongst others, however I did not find the headstone for Lieutenant Thomas Johnstone (killed at Nukumaru 24 January 1865). * Wanganui/Whanganui = “large harbour”? * Nukumaru = “a wide sheltered expanse” I could not find the original gravestone. Several of the New Zealand War memorials at Heads Road have been recently been updated. Major William and Lieutenant Henry Hunter are buried together - they both died in battle against Titokowaru’s Hauhau: Lt Hunter was killed at Te Ngutu O Te Manu in September 1868 (aged 20), then Major Hunter fell at Moturoa two