MAORIS' POINT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 21, 26 January 1939, Page 13

MAORIS' POINT.

"NOWHERE TO GO." BORN AND BRED AT ORAKEI. j' MEETING NUT SUNDAY. There was a feeling of "concern at Orakei this morning when the Maoris were informed of the finding of the Royal Commission. "Well, where are we to go?" asked one of the natives. "This has been our home, and the home of our fathers before us." The news was received calmly, but it is evident that the Orakei Maoris still feel that they have the right of possession to the land which they claim. They pointed out that two commissions had investigated the involved affairs of Orakei, and both findings had-been in the native's favour. They cannot understand why a third commission should make any other decision. "I don't want" to go," said a Maori woman, and she broke off to console a weeping baby, although it was probable that the latter in no way realised what had happened. Then the woman went on to point out that the natives still held 144 acres of land at Orakei, two •nd a half acres where the well-known meeting-house, near the waterfront, is situated, the other 12 acres back on the hillside. She said the natives were not yet landless. The sale which marked the selling of the Orokei lands was a case of "ralTerty" rules, she contended, as some of the natives did not appreciate what they were selling. She added that there were over a hundred Maoris at Orakei now, and over twenty Maori children were attending the Orakei schooL

Xia Hira, the present chief at Orakei. sat in the sun porcli of his home and •razed at the blue water of the harbour. He commented briefly 011 the new development, said that the Maoris would now have to take the matter up with their legal adviser, and added that a meeting of Orakei natives would be held next Sunday afternoon to discus* the matter and make some decision. A grandson of the original chief, lie lias lived there all his life. He said that all his people were buried in the native cemetery there, and pointed to the spot where Governor Hoi won landed. He recalled a later period, when the flat land near the Tamaki Drive was the site of a six-furlong racecourse, and when Orakei race meetings were a very popular Auckland attraction. "You could not get a better place to live in," he added. Some of the Orakei Maoris have crops of maize, kumaras and jiotatoes, and they are wondering if they will be able to harvest them.