LAID TO REST.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 238, 9 October 1933, Page 9

LAID TO REST.

TE RATA MAHUTA.

BUfiIAL ON TAUPIRI MOUNT. SON CROWNED "KING." Ceremony in every detail, age-old antiquity in every chant, distinguished the burial yesterday of the Maori "King," Te Rata Mahuta, on the sacred Taupiri mountain. He was buried according to the most exact Maori rites, and to the Christian burial service. The king is dead; long live the king—for again, according to Maori custom, the king's son, Koroki, was crowned at Waahi in the morning, while yet the whole pa, some 3000 natives, mourned- the passing of his father.

Both- ceremonies were impressive, a blending of the old and the new, the erstwhile customs of the Maoris, am! the newer doctrines of tlie pakeha and of Christianity—for while the new king was crowned by the placing of a Bible on his head, he was welcomed to the crowning by ceremonial chants given only to those o.f noble blood, which were heard in New Zealand and before ever Aotcaroa knew the Maoris, and perhaps beyond the misty memory of Hauaiki.

While yet the dead kind's kinswomen rocked themselves in grief beside the body in the marae, an escort of some 40, representing till the tribes in the pa, and for that matter in New Zealand, went down to the gates leadinsr to the royal quarters of the pa, to lead hence him who was shortly to take the place of his father at the head of his people. Thus escorted, he was taken back to (he flat space in front of the marae, whence his father looked on, to be crowned. As the band approached, they were met by chants and hakas such as are given only to those of high blood.

The Crowning Ceremony. A short service followed, a hymn, the 100 th psalm, a short address, and then the new king was crowned. The Bible was taken in the hands of the kingmaker, Tarapipi, of Morrinsville, son of Tupu Tangawaka, a kingmaker before him, and placed on the head of Koroki.

11l the afternoon, about 1.30, the attention of all present in the pa was arrested by the slow tolling of a bell. Struck by a Maori minister, it called the people together for the burial ser vice of the king, of him whose place had so shortly before been filled. Gradually the hollow square before the marae was filled in, and the service began.

The whole service was in Maori, s<: that few of the pakeha knew what was being said; but the general tenor of tin words spoken was easy to guess by watching the faces of the Maoris round about. They nodded, they smiled, they became solemn in answer to the appeal of the speaker. Tliere was nothing complex about the service. There were several hymns, and an address both to the body and to the people. The preacher took as his text the verse in Hebrews, which ends "... he being dead yet speaketh." He would turn to where "tin body lay, speak to it as though it lived, and then turn again to his audience which stood in utter silence. And then the Maoris sang; and the way they sam; was a lesson to many a pakeha con gregation. One hymn "was "Sun of My Soul." First Hie small choir, grouped round the open end of the marae, took up the strain, and gradually 2000 voices joined in. Two thousand Maoris singing in parts is worth listening to. Journey to the Mountain.

I Then the coffin was lifted out to be put in the hearse; and the wailing broke out afresh. The way was led "by old chiefs clad in ordinary clothes with rich mats superimposed, and the Maori clergy, similarly dressed. The coffin was scarcely visible under the mats which draped it. The cortege left the pa, at Waahi, for T&upiri Mountain, which is the- mountain sacred to the Waikatos. The funeral was a very long one, for tile "king" was widely held in honour. The special train from Huntly to the foot of the mountain was crowded witli Maoris, and as it drew to a standstill, just before the funeral coach arrived the sound of wailing was plainly to be heard.

Of all the ceremony, that enacted at the mountain was the most impressive and solemn of all. It was a grey day. the mountain head veiled in misty rain, as though in sorrow. The Maori women, still wailing, clad all in black dresses and wreathed in greenery, the Maori .symbol for mourning, formed in a single line on each side of the rough track up the mountain side, up which the coffin was to be carried. They chatted softly to themselves. As the coffin, on the shoulders of the pall-bearers, came to the foot of the mountain there was a thin, high cry from a very old and bowed woman, and the chant, which was both a lament and a welcome, began. At that moment Ratana's Maori band played softly a hymn much loved by the Maoris, "Go Bury Thy Sorrows"; aiid there again was the old and the new.

The ' pall-bearcrs were specially selected, and it was an honour to have a place immediately behind the coffin. Such places were given to the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates; Minister of Finance, and Mrs. Coates, Mr. H. E. Holland, Leader of the Opposition (whose death was to occur so soon), Sir Apirana Ngata, Minister of Native Affairs, the Hon. J. Trevethick, M.L.C., the Rev. A. J. Seamer, president of the Methodist Conference, and Messrs. W. J. Jordan, A. S. Richards, Taite Te Tomo and F. Langstone, M.P.'s. Graveside Ceremony. The chant rose again, the welcome c of the "king" to his last home: "Drag hither the canoe! to the resting place, the canoe!" The grey of the day, the swath-ng mist, the jrrccn against the black of the women's dresses, and, above all, the thin, high wail of the women made a fitting background for the'burial of a king.

As the pall-bearers, and a few elect, toiled to the summit where the "king" was to be buried, a faint cry came from far away up. There, clear cut against the sky, a ehant-haka was in progress. It was the ceremony of the grave diggers, and their bodies kept rhythm against the line of the sky.

At the summit the graveside service, short and reverent, was conducted by the Maori ministers; and the coffin lowered to the grave. Handfuls of earth were thrown in—"dust to , dust" —and the little party left to descend again. The last impression one had of the whole ceremony was the.sound of the green-decked women chanting at the foot of the mountain, and the sight at the summit, silhouetted against the sky, of aged women who crouched near the earth in their grief, and the niea who ■worked with, tia spn ;l;\s: ' ■