The tactics of using adultery to end a war

OPINION: Dennis Ngawhare’s thought-provoking article on Riwha Titokowaru in the Labour Day Taranaki Daily News contains some self-evident truths and other truths that are just as evidently debatable.

Dr Ngawhare is correct in buying into James Belich’s assertion that Titokowaru was ‘arguably the finest general New Zealand has ever produced’ for he never lost a battle where he commanded and was without peer on either side or in any theatre of the New Zealand Wars.

However, I believe his assertion that Titokowaru’s downfall was caused by his reputed adultery with the wife of a senior commander may overlook motives other than the obvious. Two issues arise here, and both need a closer look. As a man of two worlds, aristocratic lineage, immense learning in things Ma¯ori and the heir of Te Ua Haumene, Titokowaru had a status that was almost royal, and it is in that context that the accusation of adultery needs to be assessed.

For European history is rife with royal mistresses who enjoyed the attentions of those combining the functions of head of state, head of religion and war-leader, precisely Titokowaru’s status among his own.

To offer a parallel, British sovereigns have been forgiven much in the way of licence, for the position of royal mistress was one of honour. It is arguable, therefore, that what Victorian society termed ‘adultery’ would have raised no eyebrows whatever among Titokowaru’s contemporaries, especially given Belich’s assertion that Titokowaru ‘may have been very active sexually with (women).’

Dr Ngawhare notes, again correctly, that the tale of adultery came through James Cowan from Kimble Bent, whom he disparages as ‘a liar, thief and drunkard.’

But this did not make Bent unusual. What did make Bent unusual was that he was an American enlisted in a British Army that flogged, drilled and brutalised all the initiative out of its soldiery so that they would blindly implement the blunt instrument that was battlefield tactics at that time. As a citizen of the Great Republic, Bent was very far from being the product of a social system with its behavioural roots in the middle ages.

The story of his flogging for insubordination and his subsequent desertion is well enough known to need no further elaboration, but what is often not understood is the kindness he received when he eventually linked up with Titokowaru.

In return, he became extremely useful to a beleaguered war-chief with munitions and logistics problems, and it’s not surprising that the matua’s treatment of him engendered a deep gratitude that found expression when, only 30 years later, Bent recounted a credible ‘explanation’ of TaurangaIka to James Cowan in terms intended for those still alive at the time and who knew something of Titokowaru’s predilections.

But another explanation may exist for the events of TaurangaIka. Titokowaru’s staggering successes had been achieved over colonist armies only. These units, lacking cohesion, esprit de corps and professional leadership had been no match for Ma¯ori guerrillas fighting for their lives, their families, and their freedom under the direction of a military genius.

For the colonists, 1869 brought a very real possibility that the entire west coast was one battle away from calamity, and Tauranga-Ika was to provide it.

However, this raised the possibility that a Whitehall deploring the mess that colonial government had made of ‘selfreliance’ since the withdrawal of imperial troops, might well reverse its intention to withdraw, and intervene to sort out the mess once and for all.

The nearest imperial troops that could be called upon in numbers necessary to do the job would likely come from British India, where only ten years previously the line regiments of regulars led by just such men as Major General Trevor Chute had put down the Indian Mutiny with a scorched-earth savagery and ruthlessness termed, then and today, ‘The Devil’s Wind’.

Under the circumstances, one more victory for Titokowaru would in all probability be a Pyrrhic one. At the least, it would lead to direct rule of New Zealand from Britain, even as it had for India where, we now know, any form of self-determination or independence would take a further 80 years to attain. At worst, it could involve ethnic cleansing and genocide. Titokowaru’s choice was as simple as it was stark: win a battle and invoke the Devil’s Wind, or walk away from his greatest victory and hope for some kind of co-existence on whatever terms could be gained.

But how was that to be done? Having swept all before them, but lacking Titokowaru’s vision, the Ma¯ori soldiery would need a much sounder reason indeed than ‘being tired of the violence of war’ to retire from the field. In modern terms, why should they change a winning habit?

So Titokowaru manufactured one in terms they would understand, not only doing nothing he arguably hadn’t done before, but ensuring also that it was viewed as an insult that would provide the excuse sought.

To that extent, then, a truly great man (rather than a European historian) took his own mana, and Kimble Bent, interviewed in the early 20 century - a time in our history, we are told, when the extinction of the Maori race was apparently imminent - not only loyally kept faith with the patron, mentor and friend who bought his people’s survival with his own honour, but ensured that it was enshrined within the victor’s record as Titokowaru wanted it to be. MJ Burr is the author of ‘‘An End of Honour – a novel of Titokowaru’s War’’.