NATIVE CENTENARIAN.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 155, 3 July 1922, Page 13

NATIVE CENTENARIAN.

A SOUTHERN WHALER'S WIFE,

A woman who imd {nused a> »p»n of 100 years on the Southern coast of New Xealaad died recently at Colac Bay, near Rivwrton, in Southland, being one of the last members of the dying race of the I Xjraflhni Hairapa tribe of Maoris. Mrs.! Kathaniel Bates, the daughter of a ifaori mother and one of the English vha-lers of the very cany days, was ■within a week of * her 100 th birthday when she died, and from her family of j seven sons and five daughters she had 54 grandchildren, and 53 great grandchildren scattered throughout New Zealand. Mrs. E. Williams, of Miller Street. BUerelie, is one of the grandchildren, and her daughter is one of the fourth generation. Mrs. Bates' mother died when she was quite a child, and the little girl went to eea in the whaling ship with her father, and was left in, charge of "the lighthouse keeper at Otago heads when her father went back to England with his ship. She was fourteen, Tears of age when the famous whaler "Johnny Jones" arrived in Otago to make fortune and create local traditions en that Southern coast. Later she went to live with her tribe on Codfish Island in Foveanx strait, and was married at the age Of 18 years to Mr. Nathaniel Bates "by one of the earliest missionaries of the South, Mr. T. K. Woblers, at the Maori stronghold of Ruapuke Island. Throughout the rude -whaling days, and later in the -'roaring forties" Of the gold digging days of Southland she lived round about Riverton and Colac Bay, and both .-»«■ arxt took part in man- events that have passed into the tradition* of the South. Included in her experience* was tliat of earing a wagoner who Ifid £Ot into difficulties in crossing the tidal mouth of the :Ap*rima Rirer at Riverton on his journey from the Wakatipu diggings. Later the wagoner repaid th* debt by assisting in the management of en open boat in which he, with Mr. ami Mr*. Bates, had made a trip of iOO miles along the stormy Southern roast (c) Thmedin to take" their sick child to »"«}ical aid.