EDUCATION IN KING COUNTRY

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 86, 11 April 1922, Page 7

EDUCATION IN KING COUNTRY

. 11 SCHOOL STOPPED BY MAORIS. TIMBER AND TOOLS THROWN OUT. A clashing of will between pakeha and Maori has caused a deadlock at Te Kuiti, and while police and other authoritative assistance is being procured a school that was to have been ' by now well on the way towards completion is represented by no more than a few odd ends of timber lying about a bare paddock, and the ruins of a shed that has been wrecked by the Maoris. The whole trouble arose over the action of the Education Board in deciding that eight acres of a 120-acre native reserve at Piopio should be a school site. The eight acres were pegged off, levels were taken, pegs were placed, aiid otherwise all the preliminaries of a school building were duly set in order. But this was not done without some interruption, for the block was owned by an aged veteran of the Maori war rramed Nui T'atimera. He: absolutely objected to the scheme of building a school there, because he said it was sacred as a "urupa,"' or burial ground. This caused the Commissioner of Lands to order another careful survey, and it was discovered that all ihe old graves were outside the eight-acre plot designed for the pakeha school. I Then Xvi passed away, and hi* place j was taken by Patupatu Tuhoro. She is a venerable wahine. aged at least SO.! who declared that the deceased Xvi was ■ her adopted son. aud therefore what | had been hi* lands were now hers. ] Further she would have none of the | school, and although carpenters were, already at work s!.o d«e! ; W t'-t O--, I school should not be built. Too Old J herself, she deputed one Npawherau 'Iβ: 1 Mura, a vigorous young Maori woman ] who was in some way a relative, to take her place. Mrs. Ngawharau is tall and strong. She has health and strength, and a fine I fighting spirit, so she led a band of men j of her own race to the prospective j school site, and there they called upon j the carpenters to cease building, and j gave further trouble. The request evidently was not supported by sufficient authority, so the carpenters went on with their work. But next morning; they found their former day's progress destroyed. This occurred again and again, despite the diplomatic efforts of the local "polite to do away with the misunderstanding. The last actual L-lash between the two parties was a day or two ago, when Mrs. Xgawharau, with a six-weeks-old baby bound upon her back, and surrounded by a party of her people, held a conference with Ser geant Matthew, of the Hamilton police, and other people, and it was then hinted that Patupatu would sell the eight acres if the Department bought the whole block of 120, and gave her her price— £3CO-"an acre— for it. Since then the work of the carpenters has been discontinued, and the erections they had made have been demolished by the Maoris, who have also taken timber and tools from the school site and thrown them upon the road. The situation now is clearly to the advantage of the energetic native disputants, and meanwhile the local authorities await instructions from headquarters -as to how they may proceed.