Soon after day-break on the morning of the day of the funeral, June 21st, 1906, Maori mourners began to assemble at the Parliamentary Buildings. There were several hundreds of them, and they represented nearly all the New Zealand tribes. A few tribes, who were not present, sent messages of sorrow.
At 7.45 a.m., the coffin was carried into the lobby of the House of Representatives by a company of the New Zealand Permanent Artillery. It was followed by the Hon. W. Hall-Jones (the new Premier) and other Ministers, and Mr. Seddon’s sons and other male relatives. Some of the chiefs had placed on the floor, beneath the picture of Queen Victoria, some beautiful flax cloaks and mats. These were the “hopaki,” or wrappings for the coffin. Treasured ancestral weapons, taiahas and mérés, were placed on the floor beside the coffin. They were gifts in honour of the dead.
Behind the chief mourners and the Ministers there followed several old friends of the late Premier. They remained there for a few minutes, and then quietly left the lobby, which was given up to the Maoris.
A woman’s high-keyed voice, raised in the opening cries of a tangi-wail, was heard, and the Maoris, in a compact body, with the women in front, marched in. About fifty women formed this advance-guard of the “bringing of the tears,” as the Maoris call it. They trod slowly, turning this way and that way, but always keeping their heads bowed, until the front rank was close to the coffin. All the women of the tribes were of high birth and station. Most of them had blue tattoo marks on chins and lips, the cherished “tohu.” All were dressed in black. From their ears, hung by black ribbons, and around their necks, they wore greenstone ornaments and glistening white sharks’ teeth, as in olden days. On their heads and shoulders there were green leaves and chaplets, the ancient insignia of mourning. They carried green branches in their hands, and kept time with these to the shrill dirge: “Haehaea! Ripiripia!” “Score the flesh; scarify your bodies as with knives!” This was the burden of their opening song, and they kept time to it, drawing their hands
