SHRINES OF HISTORY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 189, 11 August 1934, Page 1 (Supplement)

SHRINES OF HISTORY.

WAIKATO MISSION CHURCHES. TE AWAIHUTU AND RANGIAOWHIA.

(By J.C.)

Thoso two high-steepled churches of Selwyn-period architecture, St. John's at Te Awamutu and St. Paul's at Rangiaowhia, are monuments of missionary endeavour and of Maori war turmoil and tragedy that are of particular interest just now because of the coming centenary celebrations. It will be a hundred years on August 23 since the Rev William Williams and his party landed at Mangapouri, on the Waipa River and began the arrangements for tho foundation of Church mission work in this heart of Maoriland, and it is this event that is to be taken as the datum-point for the "Rongo Pai" celebrations in To Awamutu parish,' although the churches were not built until about twenty years later.

This Waipa country was a land of cannibal wars long after peace and Christianity had . been established in the North, and it was not until 1542 that the real pioneer of the Waipa mission, the Rev. John Morgan, founded the station that is now To. Awamutu. The Rev. B. Y. Ashwell—"To Ahiwera" of the Maoris —whose station was on the Waikato River opposite Taupiri, had made occasional visits to the district, but "Te Mokena" was the man to whose labours and visions these spires of history stand as heaven-pointing memorials. He not only spread the new religion, but sowed broadcast also the seed of English grass and wheat and introduced fruit trees, especially the peach. Through his efforts, seconded by Governor Grey, the Waikato tribes became farmers, and by 1850 there were many hundeds of acres under wheat at Rangiaowhia, Kihikihi, Orakau, Te Awamutu and on the Waipa; and many of the villages were embowered in , peach groves. The first churches were large thatched whares; then the funds were raised among Maoris and Europeans which enabled the present churches to be built. , , Memories. One's recollection of those antiquepatterned churches of pre-war associations go back to youthful days when Tβ Awamutu and the neighbouring townships were frontier villages, and when ex-Forest Rangers and Waikato Militia men and time-expired British soldiers lived on their, farm sections along the border. Those veterans and the Maoris who lived on the south side'by the Puniu—the people who once worshipped, in these churches, from which

they had been driven—all had their stories of the war; it was not difficult then to learn something of local history from thoso who had helped to make it. St. John's Church, with its graves of soldiers and pioneers, and its beautiful stained-glaes window, is , a shrine of oldtime, haloed for me with tapu and the tragedy of a dispossessed people.

But east further back on the trail of time, back to that day in March, 1803, when Rewi Maniapoto and his eighty armed men marched down from Kihikihi—the headquarters of Ngati-Mania-poto-—and raided the church mission station. They camped on the road between the church and the mission houses when young John Gorst conducted the Maori industrial school and edited that short-lived anti-Kingite newspaper the "Pihoihoi Mokemoke." That raid, the seizure of the Government printing press and the expulsion 6f "Tβ Kohi" are matters of familiar history. The point of present interest is the fact that one of the Ngati-Maniapoto warparty, the last survivor, is still living a few miles from Te Awamutu —the last living link with Te Awamutu's beginnings. This ancient man—he was.born about the year 1840—is. Te Huia Eaureti, a nephew of Rewi Maniapoto. He lives at Mangatoatoa, on the Puniu River, within sight of some of his olden battlegrounds. Ho fought in the defence of Orakau pa; he and the late Pou-patate, of Te Kopua, were two of the bodyguard of young warriors who. kept close to their chief Rewi on the retreat through the swamp of death when the pa fell. Te Huia and some of his comrades, led by Aporo Taratutu, carried out the printing press when they so summarily suppressed the "Pihoihoi," and took it in a cart to'Kihikihi. From there, Maori authority having thus been vindicated, the young men, at Rewi's order, carted it a few days later to the river landing, and it was taken by canoe down the Waipa arid . the Waikato; presently it was restored to the Government in Auckland. "We were very careful," Te Huia told me, when we went over those' scenes together in 1920, "not to interfere with the church or the mission house. We had great respect for churches and the missionaries were our friends. All- Rewi wanted was to expel Tβ Kohi and silence the voice of 'Pihoihoi.'" Rewi and the Mission Station. But there was a revulsion of feeling when, in 1804, Cameron's invading force marched through Te Awamutu and attacked Rangiaowhia. The fact that Bishop Selwyn accompanied the armyhe" fodo with the general on-the'night march to Te Awamutu—gave .colour to the- Ma,o~i belief that he was'guiding the troops, a belief that prevails to this day among the old people of Ngati-Mahia-poto. It is not easy to demolish such errors. Rewi immediately decided to march to To Awamutu and . rack- the mission station. A statement was made recently in a letter from the vicar of Te Awamutu, published in the newspapers, that the church and mission, station we;« saved

from Rcwi by the sister of Potatau te Wherowhero (the first Maori King), "who placed niakutu, or Maori magic, on the church and its surroundings, and threatened Eewi with dire penalties should he molest them."

Knowing that this was not quite accurate, I put the question to Te Huia Raureti, and his reply, dictated to hie son, makes it clear that the Waikato chieftainese (most probably To Paea, sister of King Tawhiao, not his father, Potatau) had nothing to do with the escape of the mission station from Eewi's "muru" party. She may have proproclaimed a tapu or rahui over the place, but Rewi was a law unto himself, and the very fact of Te Paea making threats against him would only have confirmed him in his opposition, for NgatiManiapoto had no particular love for Waikato. Peppering the Churci. "It was only the capture" of Hairini by the British soldiers," says Te Huia, "that saved the mission station in Te .Awamutu. I was one of the 200 armed men who gathered at Kihikihi immediately we heard of the capture of Rangiaowhia, and the killing of our people there. We marched for Te Awamutu next day, intending to plunder the place in revenge, but a messenger came with the news that the . troops had stormed the entrenchments at Hairini Hill (half-way between Te Awamutu and Rangiaowhia), and were marching back to camp, so we returned to Kihikihi without sacking the station. But we left several bullet shots in the timbers and windows of St. John's Church."

The old warrior's statement sufficiently explains the escape of the mission houso from Maori "muru," and also those bullet marks in the church to which the vicar referred in his letter. The Maoris, of course, would not have destroyed the church, but eonie of the young bloods could not resist putting a few shots into it.by way of indicating their opinion of the bishop and his pakeha friends.

There was no actual fighting at Te Awamutu, but the church at Eangiaowhia was in the middle of the battlefield of February 21, 1864, and shots came from the windows; many Maoris had taken refuge there. It was near this mission church, the place of worehip of Ngati-Apakura, that Colonel Nixon, of the Defence Force Cavalry, was mortally wounded. He was shot from a wharo which was defended determinedly by its ten men; all were killed.

The effort of the Rev. Stephen Wareing, vicar of the parish, and his committee to raise £1000 by donations for the Testoring and renovating of the two churches is a cause that eliould bring support from many besides Waikato and Auckland people. The preservation of these sanctuaries of history is really of national concern. The memory of the pioneers of civilisation in the Waikato will bo honoured at the centenary gatherings. One would like to eee an honoured place at the celebrations given to Te Huia Kaureti, the last of the old patriots whom we do not call rebels today for they were defending their own country. Ho will not bring hie doublebarrel gun to Tβ Awamutu this time.