THE PROPHET RUA.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 64, 15 March 1916, Page 6

THE PROPHET RUA.

AW AMAZING STORY. MAXIM GUN AND MAUSER PISTOL. f FOLLOWERS WELL ARMED. (Special to "Star.") WELLINGTON, this day. An amaziDg story of the condition of affairs in the Urewera country is told by , an Englishman who has arrived in wei- t lington after residing for some time >" the vicinity of Rua's stron-Uold. Ac- , cording to this gentleman, things are , very serious regarding the attempts to , arrest "The ProjAet," and the arrest , iWill not be effected without (to say the , least) considerable unpleasantness. lne j gentleman is Mr. E. F. Bressey, who has jbeen teaching in the native sc.vool at !Te Whaiti, and is now on his way to join the British Army. I Hegarding a recent attempt to arrest Hua, Mr. Bressey says that a force of five went out under police control, ami t came upon Rua some distance from Maungapohatu, which is his headquarters. He had about one hundred of his followers with him, and he was out lifting the tapu off a certain dwelling house. Thie he was doing in the capacity of high priest. The head of the polic-a party read Rua the warrant for his arrest, but Rua refused to accompany ' the expedition back to civilisation, say- j ing that he would never be arrested by ■, any Government men. He took off hia I coat and dared them to take him. WILL RESIST ARREST. "There is no doubt." continued Mr. Bressey, " that Rua and . some of his followers are armed, and he is not moving about now without an armed bodyguard. I am certain he intends to retist arrest, but as a British eubject, the thing that I object to is the fact that the King's warrant cannot be executed iv the Urewera district. A big principle h involved, and the present unsatisfas-t-ory state of affairs is having a very dangerous effect on the Maoris. If he can do this there is some reason for their saying that he must have come nfcs-sterious power. Moreover, if he breaks the law; and then defies the police > others are sure to emulate him." WELL ARMED BODYGUARD. There is a deeply sinister side to tha story. Jt is suspected very strongly that German inlluence has crept into even the Urewera country. Rua is believed to have a machine-gun at his stronghold, and it is taken as an accepted fact that lie has a fair store of other arms. Mr. j Bressey says that Rua told him that he ', was possessed of a maxim gun, but Mr. i Bressey did not see it. However, he ■ did notice that Rua carried a Mauser' pistol. If the wily Maori is ac ; well armed as men who know the Urewera reckon he is, and is prepared to resist j arrest,-there may be considerable trouble in taking him. The country is of a most inaccessible character, and Maungapohaka is scores of miles from anywhere, with" little in the way of reading to get there by. The distance from Rotorua is So miles, and the distance from Whakatane 66 miles. The wp|y in from Gisborno is said to be strongly guarded by the followers of the man who is defying the officers of the Crown. This system of defiance has been a valuable asset to Rua according to Mr. Bressey. 14 WIVES AND 25 CHILDREN. '-His roana has been derived through »^'n ng w,° G ° vernment over and over X\ he , n l WaS there at Christmas, 1914 he had 14 wives and 25 children. thin «?" alO r d t0 d 0 that kin « Of thing that no white man vrould be allowed to. It may be said for him that it was right under old Maori custom, out that supposition in wrong, for Rua is not a rangatira, but is slave bom, and j therefore is allowed only one wife. A Ii? 4. it S c^ en been B P read in tl,e Urewera that the Germans arc going to take New I /Zealand and give back to the Maoris the land now held by the white men. MISGUIDED FOLLOWERS. I "Rua started very shrewdly. In the ! first place he said to the natives, 'You have a lot of laud here. If you don't Jook out tne Government will take it. \ou had better give it to mc, and I will ook after it for you.' They gave him the land, and one day one of the natives found himself warned off property<Vhich had been held by him for years before the cession to Rua. Rua told the former owner that the land was now his, and if anyone wanted to use it they must, of course, buy it from him. The result was that Rua sold the land back to the Maoris in quarter-acre sections or rather a small portion of the land A BANK THAT "BUSTED." "Then Rua said: 'We must have a bank. So the Maoris had to sell everything (curios and all), and the money was banked. The terms were that Rua was to pay them 5 per cent on all money left there on fixed deposit, and that they were to pay him 20 per cent on all withdrawals. The bank is now (as the Maoris say) 'bust.' RUA'S BIG TEMPLE. "Rua's temple at Maungapohapa is an extraordinary structure. It is a huse circular buildi»g, with a very flat roof unsupported by pillars, and the 'Prophet l naturally docs not miss the chance to explain that it is sustained by faith In the middle is a raised dais, around which sit the twelve apostles. The apostles are permanent fixtures,' but when they take their seats they do not know which particular apostle they are to be for the occasion. A revolving'table with a dozen , divisions holds the secrets. Into each division is placed the name of an apostle and when the table stops revolving each , follower of Rua discovers whether he is : Peter, Matthew, Thomas or John by ex- ; trading the paper from the division i which stops opposite to him. Rua as ( the Meesiah, has a little cupola up near the roof and well above the apostles. ' "Such is the man whom the police seek to arrest. The whole thing is regarded by some as a recrudescence of Te Kooti ; Rua says that the mantle of Te Kooti ' has fallen upon him. To a great extent he has gone out of the Messiah business ■ He is the Maori Kaiser now " t .