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The Old Testament offered laws which seemed framed for his own case, and, in studying his Bible, Tamihana was struck with the important part which was played by the nationalism of the Chosen People.
Together with a strong desire for knowledge there was a certain dourness in Tamihana's nature, and when he applied for admission to St. John's College, a question is said to have arisen about smoking. The rules of the institution prohibited this pleasant vice, and Tamihana would not give up his pipe. Strange to think of the tremendous consequences which flowed from that simple refusal!
"I will go with them," he exclaimed; "as well die there as here." The older men were loth to let him make the venture, but he would not be kept back. It was at length resolved that Henry Williams should accompany him to the south, and help him to settle among the Ngatitoas. "We were all very happy that day," wrote Tamihana; "our hearts cried, we were very happy!"
After breakfast, he found Tamihana at his plough: "The day was wet; he was soaked with rain and bedaubed with mud. The great man for such he really is was dressed in a blue serge shirt and corduroy trousers, without hat, and toiling like a peasant." The latter part of 1861 saw a temporary improvement in the situation. War was for the time suspended.
Patriotism and religion formed a continually strengthening bond. "It was this that disquieted the heart of Te Rangitaake," wrote Tamihana, "his church being burnt with fire." His own heart was disquieted also; and though he would not yet adopt Rangitaake's cause, he could not prevent some of the hot-heads of his tribe from going south to join in the Taranaki war.
Tamihana was touched by this appeal, and made another attempt to induce Rangitaake to submit his claim to arbitration. The chief refused, and the king-maker was driven to the conviction that his power was beginning to decline. It was passing into the hands of the more violent Rewi, who longed for war with the pakeha as keenly as some of the Taranaki settlers longed for war with the Maori.
He convened a great meeting on Oct. 23, 1862, at Peria, to discuss the Waitara and other grievances. It began with solemn evensong, and on the following Sunday morning Tamihana himself preached an eloquent sermon from the text, "Behold, how good and joyful a thing it is, brethren, to dwell together in unity."
In vain a fourth chief, Tamihana, shot a Hau-Hau with each barrel of his tupara, speared a third, and cleft the skull of yet another with his tomahawk. Two bullets brought him down. It was Haimona Hiroti who saved the day. Calling on the reserve, he stopped the flying, and, rallying bravely at his appeal, they came on again.
But the abandonment was not for long, nor had the work already done been in vain. Waharoa died a heathen, but he complained before his death that his sons, under mission influence, were becoming too mild and forgiving. The case of one of these Tamihana has already been noticed.
Sickened by the brutality of men whom he had hitherto unwillingly tolerated, Tamihana came to the British general and swore allegiance to the Government. "Let the law of the queen," said he, "be the law of the king, to be a protection to us all for ever and for ever." But his patriotic heart was broken, and during the next year he fell into a rapid decline.
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