BACKBLOCK SETTLERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 162, 11 July 1925, Page 30

BACKBLOCK SETTLERS.

EARLY TARANAKI DAYS.

(By W. K. HOWITT.)

No. xvn. ; x It is a "beautifully weird old story, the Maori legend of how Egmont, called by'the. Taranaki, became separated from Ruapehu and Tongariro. The three mountains dwelt together for a long time in peaceful blies, then they had a row and commenced to spit Are at one another. Egmont, still belching forth fire from its mouth, left its enemies, went across country to its present position, and has remained there ever since, the glory and the admiration of all beholders. It is not a daring-Statement to make, or is there anything-very new in the statement that Egmont has been in eruption during the last thousand years. It was -well known to the very early white people who came to the country that hot springs, which of late years seem to have wholly disappeared,' were known to exist in some of Egmont's secluded ravines. When we think of the severe earthquakes which took place after the white occupation, no one would doubt the evidences of volcanic action on behalf of the old sentinel, which now looks so staid and quiet, whose conduct ia all that could be desired, hut the quiescence must have been gradual. There was a big earthquake as late as the 'sixties, which rolled the earth backwards and forwards in such an alarming manner, continued over a long period of time, that every drop of milk was swished out of the settlers' milk pane, set on the shelves of their primitive dairies to let the cream settle on top of the milk. ' It is Well known in South Taranaki that in a fairly straight direction from the mountain slopes as far as Hawera, 30 miles away, there is a submerged forest, not a great depth down, which had not many hundred years before been covered up by an upheaval caused. by volcanic action, and tbat stones and ash had been hurled from the mountain peak down into the valleys below and covered up everything as it went along. It is common knowledge that the prosperous and modern town of Hawera is built on the foundation of an old submerged forest. Are we not on safe scientific ground when we say that in all probability fire was seen coming from the cone of the great; mountain, which threw so much stuff such a great distance from its mouth, which caused such destruction? Is it not in keeping with the regular order of things that the native legend of how the mountain spat out fire at its enemies was founded on fact, and that the .natives had in their minds the time when the internal fires were toning down in- their volcanic activities, and the mountain was only intermittently belching or spitting out strong flames of fire? It is not much. more than half a century ago that the early settlers often declared that after a severe earthquake they saw steam rising from some of the prominent places on the mountain, which would disappear after a time, till the next earthquake took place. I was born on the northern slopes of Mount Egmont, and, after a lapse of many years away from Taranaki, I came back again, and for five years 11/ ed on the southern slopes of the mountain, fully 900 ft or 1000 ft above sea, level. "' During that period the earthquakes averaged a good few each year, and I will never forget the most ' severe earthquake I ever felt there. I was in a paddock not far from the main road logging up dead trees to burn, when all of a sudden I felt the ground under mc tremble, and at the same time the telegraph poles on the road fell almost right over, but almost immediately were back in their upright position. Then in quick succession, as in waves, every tree and standing thing did exactly the same thing. Not a chimney over a wide range of country stood the test, the top being wrenched off at the roof in every case. Knowing something of geology, and the history of. this country, and coming through 'experiences such as have been described, wOuld anyone doubt what has been written about the mountain being in eruption within the past thousand years? It is all so puerile to fix any dates or times about these, matters. It is the same in regard to 'fixing of a time when the Maoris came here. Who is it that speaks with authority so that we should exactly know? The old Maoris, steeped in their native lore, told us Of genealogies that must have reached . back a thousand years. Will anyone deny that Rupe sailed through between the North and South Island ten centuries ago? Or that Toi or Turi came here not long afterwards. It -would be hard to : believe that the old Maoris lied about their ancestry, because what object had they in. doing so? The great excavations and earthworks oh many a scarred hillside were not made in a few generations, and our greatest authorities to-day tell us that long at times before the white races in Britain kept much record of their own beginnings and happenings, the Maoris had started to keep records of their genealogies in these fair Southern Seas. My mail matter has simply been enormous since the articles on "Old Taranaki Days" have appeared. Probably twenty writers have said that they, have kept a diary of the> early days, which they intend to print before they die. What a conglomeration of detail we would have if such wore the case! But probably not one-twentieth of it will : ever, see the light of day. One of my critics Sas publicly written that he did not think that old Titokowaru was ever- a cannibal.. sin his subdued old age of course he was not, but it is wicked from' an historical point of view to say that Titoko waru in the heyday of his ferocity and his<- youth was not a capnibal, for he gave no quarter to an enemy, whether of his own or the white race, and indulged in many a cannibalistic feast. Till the end of his days wily old Tito was always a sulky old savage, who never smiled and who hated the pakeha to the last, and most of all because the white man had once put a price on his head because of his brutal and savage conduct to settlers living in isolated places. I passed through the Waimate Plains in 1878 before Manaia was in existence, and when, Hawera was in some respects on the very • outskirts of "civilisation, with a blockhouse as its most prominent, feature. • It is my privilege to know/a.good deal of the history; of the Taranaki district, and. ; probably there is hot a road or a battlefield in it that I have hot visited. - Most Taranaki people knoiv all about the ftoyal Commission oomndsed of _\c Dillon Bell and Sir William" Fox, and. their- generous treatment of. the natives after their land had been confiscated in 1864,.and no one knowing the facts could possibly

confuse the finding of that Commission and its results with Sir Julius Vbgel's immigration policy, or the settlement of Inglewood. This, however, is known, that Southern Taranaki was also settled by a large number of immigrants who came to the district in small steamers which traded up the Patea River,, and for a time were housed in the large immigration barracks erected in Patea in the early seventies, and were . rationed by the Government till they found suitable homes. Titokowaru's mana declined, and the old rebel was made a . back number when the white people came in greater numbers into the country, and Sir Julius Vogel's immigration policy brought about this happy result more than anything else did. I remember the Sunday well when the white settlers with big sticks went and drove the Maoris away from the pakebas' land where they had been ploughing. Some oi the white settlers had had their parents killed by old Tito and his rebels, and one Jim Patterson, a young ..man " of big build and strong physical strength, whose father had been .ambushed and killed not many years before, wielded his waddy with such effect that he accounted for scores of natives, and gave them the biggest thrashing .they had ever had in their lives,' and they learnt a lesson they never forgot. Dr. Ada Patterson, so well known in New Zealand as a medical, officer,, is a daughter of the young pioneer who, with others, did such effective work that day.. • (Concluded.)