Green’s Dictionary of Slang

hemmel n.

[? Maori hemo, dead, in a coma]

(N.Z. gay/prison) assaulted, beaten up.

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[NZ]W. Ings ‘Trolling the Beat to Working the Soob’ in Int’l Jrnl Lexicog. 23:1 73: [F]rom boobslang, hemmel (badly assaulted), which Looser [...] suggests is a corruption of the Maori word hemo meaning dead or in a coma.