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Updated: June 2, 2025
As we cast anchor, my attention was suddenly riveted by a strange spectacle a white wilderness of long fluttering vague shapes, in a cemetery on the steep hillside, rising by terraces high above the roofs of the town. The cemetery was full of grey haka and images of divinities; and over every haka there was a curious white paper banner fastened to a thin bamboo pole.
But we want to give her also a very, very small haka because in the time she was with us she often said that she would like a very little haka. And the stone-cutter has promised to cut it for us, and to make it very pretty, if we can bring the money. Therefore perhaps you will honorably give something." "Assuredly," I said. "But now you will have nowhere to play."
Birds nested in her temple, and ate from her hand, and learned not to perch upon the heads of the Buddhas. Some days after her funeral, a crowd of children visited my house. A little girl of nine years spoke for them all: "Sir, we are asking for the sake of the Bikuni-San who is dead. A very large haka has been set up for her. It is a nice haka.
I cannot see them all, for the rock roof of one chamber has fallen in; and a sunbeam entering the ruin reveals a host of inaccessible sculptures half buried in rubbish. But no! this grotto-work is not for the dead; and these are not haka, as I imagined, but only images of the Goddess of Mercy.
And all around the dripping walls of these chambers on pedestals are grey slabs, shaped exactly like the haka in Buddhist cemeteries, and chiselled with figures of divinities in high relief. All have glory- disks: some are nave and sincere like the work of our own mediaeval image-makers. Several are not unfamiliar.
Be-times we pass a scattered multitude of sculptured stones, like segments of four-sided pillars old haka, the forgotten tombs of a long-abandoned cemetery; or the solitary image of some Buddhist deity a dreaming Amida or faintly smiling Kwannon. All are ancient, time-discoloured, mutilated; a few have been weather-worn into unrecognisability.
A Maori haka was sometimes responsible for the discharge of many cases of enemy ammunition. During the hours of darkness many huddled forms lay in the bottom of Mac's trench, overlapping and cramped, but, nevertheless, peacefully sleeping. Here and there stood a sentry, his figure warmly cloaked and his face periodically lit by the glow from his pipe.
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