PRIDE OF ANCESTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 229, 27 September 1930, Page 8

PRIDE OF ANCESTRY.

The old clan feeling is still the dominant note in Maori politics, and in the Western Maori seat contest to be held presently it will not be much use for a man from, say the Bay of Plenty, to seek the suffrages of the Tai-Haruru, the Tasman Sea coastal tribes. Tribal pride and exclusiveness are appealed to in political affairs just as among the. pakehas various prejudices and local interests sway the electors. I have just turned up an election address made many years ago to the Western Maori voters by an old-time chief -of i the Ngati-Toa tribe, Tatana Whataupoko, a fine burly figure of a man, with a tremendous voice,-as I remember; he had a farm on the ancestral; lands at Poroutawhao, in the Manawatii country; he was a. near kinsman of the celebrated warrior Eangihaeata. Tatana invoked ■his ■ noble forefathers with confident voice. In his appeal to the Tai-Haruru tribes he said: V^ote- for me, O friends, and I will bear your burdens. • Though my back be small to carry the weight -the ; strength to do so has descended to me ' from- imy great ancestors. O' orphans, O widpws. O,:the-poverty-stricken, vote for me! O -ye chiefs, ; . vote for me! Oye tribes of Aotearoa, .do.not;have two hearts in the matter. Am I not , the descendant of Mango Taringa-tahi and the great Kaihamu-waha-mana? Am I not also descended from Rauru-ki-tahi and from the renowned Maniapoto? Therefore, O people, be ye strong to lift me to the summit on polling day and, prove that all the Maori people are in one canoe." • Unfortunately for the big man of Ngati-Toa, with all his illustrious ancestry, the victor was a man with fewer pretensions to aristocratic ■birth. It was rather a pity perhaps that Tatana did not reach the Parliamentary halls. He would have overtopped, physically, all others in the House, and his great voice, with its uncommon endurance capacity, would have been a bastion of strength in a stonewalL —J.C.