"TE HAMANA."

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 303, 22 December 1926, Page 20

"TE HAMANA."

AND HIS MAORI FRIENDS. | STORIES OF THE REV. HAMMOND. (By J. C.) The Rev. T. G. Hammond, whose death at Lichfield was announced in the ''Star"' on Friday, was a particularly accurate speaker of the Maori tongue. He learned it among the Ngapuhi people of the North, whose language he always maintained was the softest and most correct form of the 'Teo Maori." When, after nearly ten years at Hokianga, he took up missionary work among the Taranaki natives, he found the local tongue less pleasing than the Njrapuhi; in South Taranaki it had a rather harsh, clipped sound after the familiar northern speech. "Te Hamana," as the Maoris called Mr. Hammond, became very friendly with Te Whiti, Tohu, Tauke,*Te Wakataurua and other leaders of the Taran.iki and Ngati-Ruanui tribes. But that friendship was not quickly established. The Taranaki chiefs continually kept "Te Hamana" aware of their resentment against the Government for the wrongs inflicted on them by the war, by the confiscation of their land and the leasing at low rents through the Public Trustee of the greater part of those lands which they retained. The "rape of the Waitara" was never forgotten. Thus the missionary in time came to sympathise heartily with his Maori people and to understand from the inside their reasons for rebelling against ; pakeha domination. It was only when they came to know Hammond well, and to realise his genuine friendly character and his insight into the Maori ways, that they gave him their confidence and opened their hearts to him. Many years ago, when I made several little journeys about Taranaki with "Te Hamana," I had opportunities of observing how he had been received into the inner councils of Ngati-Ruanui and their kin. For old Tauke in particular, he had a real admiration. This venerable man lived at Hokorima, on the Waimate Plains. The white-headed sage was the chief repository of sacred lore among the Ngati-Ruanui, and he took delight in schooling selected young members of his tribe in the ancient beliefs and rites. One of the little -stories he told Hammond, by way of a satirical little joke, was this: A pakeha preacher of some brand or other, -who spoke Maori, once visited him, and in a rather patronising way, asked him: '"Would you not like to have your sins forgiven ? " The old man looked at him creadily awhile, and asked: "What sins ? " The preacher went through the Decalogue seriatim—as if Tauke didn't know all about that! "Oh," said Tauke, when hia pakeha catechist had finished, "I perceive that you are the kind of man who would open your mouth at a gnat and swallow a camel. Now, just you go down to Wei-* lington and ask the Governor to sret forgiveness of his sins, for he has stolen my land." There was a Wanganui Maori of whom Te Hamana used to tell who said: "Oh those missionaries! Do you know why they were ■■ Jent to us ? They were really sent to break in the Maoris as men break in a wild horse—to rub them quietly down the face to keep them

quiet, while another lot of pakebas took the land from them." Titokowaru, the great war chief of the Waimate Plains, Mr. Hammond first met in the year 1874, at Omuturangi, when riding through the Maori country with the late Mr. William Williams and the old warrior Katene Tu-Whakaruru, a man with a heroic fighting history. It was a wild exciting meeting and not without peril, for while Titokowaru was friendly—it was five years after the close of the Taranaki wars —there were many men among the "band who had an intense hatred of all pakehas. But the old war-leader cast the maim of his protection over young Hammond and invited him to live among them and be their minister. It was not, however, until after Titokowaru's death that he settled iv Taranaki. One of Te Hamana's stories he told mc one day as we sat on the top of the old hill-pa called Pa-matangi, on the Whenuakura River —we had been treas-ure-hunting there, searching for greenstone relics (the missionary's favourite diversion) —concerned one of his old flock at Hokianga. When he left Hokianga in 18S7 he sold his sporting rifle to a young Maori friend from the Waima Valley. The Waima was the scene in 1899— twelve years later —of Hone Toia's armed but bloodless rising against pakeha authority. When the principal Maoris surrendered to Lieut.-Colonel Newall at Waima village (the present writer was an eye-witness of that episode) one who laid down his arms was this man who owned the sporting rifle. The day before that he was one of the seventy men of the Mahurehure tribe who lay in ambush on the bush road acheing to let drive at the troops if the order to fire were only given. (Fortunately Hone stayed his hand just in time.) He told Mr. Hammond of this in 1900 when the missionary revisited the place, and he laughed as he told how he lay in ambush with his finger on the trigger. "Why do you laugh?" asked H»m» mond. "I laughed because it was a great joke," replied the Maori, "to think that it was your rifle, the gun you sold mc, that I was going to shoot pakehas with —the missionary's gun." "Well, well," said Te Hamana, "I had quite forgotten selling my rifle to you. But, tell mc, did you surrender it to the Colonel when you all gave up your arms?" "No," said the Maori, with a grin, "I wasn't so foolish as all that, Hamana. I put it away in a safe place and I gave the Government an old broken muzzleloader tied up with flax. That was all the gun I had for the Government!"