Te Kooti refers to the enmity and hatred which his
proposed visit to the East Coast has caused, and he asks his
people to abandon this ill-feeling.
His reference to alcohol at this point may be partly
metaphorical: when nineteenth-century Māori poets spoke of
behaviour that is disturbed and irrational, they sometimes
likened it to the effects of drinking rum.
Those people feeding on shame and hatred were the ones who
still held ill-will against Te Kooti; Hoani Ruru, whose
relative was thrown overboard as a sacrifice when the
Rifleman encountered foul winds after the escape from
Chatham Island, and Pakeha whose relatives were executed in
Te Kooti's "utu" raid in 1868.
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