HISTORIC CANTERBURY.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12533, 30 June 1906, Page 7

HISTORIC CANTERBURY.

m TUAHIWI-HOME OF A REMNANT. (spectaixt wbittex fob, " toe press - '.) (Bt Moko.) Tuahiwi main street straggles between uneven tows of houses which are English in material and structure, but Maori in their absence of some small re- ; finements. Their doorsteps do not shine I with whiteness, their gardens aro untriramed; some curtains, hanging much bedraggled, when I last saw Tuahiwi, looked like bed sheets which had seen more use than folding. Perhaps they were a makeshift on account of washing day, for it was Monday afternoon, and the week's wash, careless of rents, hung on several barbed wire j fences. A small brown boy, wearing a , football jersey, with black and flaming ' yellow stripes, swung lazily upon a gate. A large native woman sat in a huddled heap upon the floor within the open door of ons house. Her black hair fell in front of hex, and in full view of tho road this child of nature combed it through her hands. Tho first impression was not quite a fair one, for I was assured !>y a good friend of the Tuahiwi natives, to whom most of what is interetting in these articles is due, that the interiors of some of tlie houses are not only comfortably, but luxuriously fur- , nished, and that as many as nino families have pianos. And yet, despite ; the twinkling eyes and laughing faces of its people even, Tuahiwi does give, : t) a stranger at any rate, an impres- i sion of sadness. [

For here wo are in the midst of that historic Canterbury, where many of us livo and move, not dreaming of its existence. Here, in thia mock European fashion, there dwells the remnant of a nation. Was not tins, within the shadow of great Kaiapohia, capital of tho Ngai-Tahu people, storehouso of food and precious greenstone, strongest and proudest of tho pahs of tho Waipounamau, tho South Island? In tho small cemetery on tho north sido of Tuahiwi may still be seen tho sito of tho "Tua-ahu" (snered place), wherein the tohunga consulted the "Atua" (a small, grotesquely carven image), prior to tho fall of Kaiapohia. Tho wiso man, after having prepared himself bysuitable prayers, would approach tho Tua-ahu very solemnly and slowly, chanting his prayers, and stooping now and then to pluck some blades of grass from a tussock. If tho grass broke in his hand the omen was a bad one, and tho tohunga returned to ins hut, but if uio grabs came away ironi tho roots it was a good omen, and ho went on until ho reached tho Atua. Then, prostrating himself before it, he made known Ins desire. On returning to his people bo delivered tho message from the Atua. Doubtless it accorded with the of thu onions and his own desires. We know what it might well have been upon that last calamitous occasion. An ancient prophecy to an Eastern people would have tilted well tho event: — A day ehall come when sacred Trey shall perUh, And i'riuui and his people shall bo slam. Tuahiwi is not tho actual sito of the old main pah, which was a couple ot miles to tlio oast. A tall column ot white stone, crowned witli a grotesque figure carved in tlio imago ot a tiKi, and surmounting a fine grotto, marks the accurseU 6pot where t.ho warriors of Kaiapohia fell round tho burning wal;s ot iJieir stockade, as the northern followers of Te Ruuparaha burst in on them. It bears the inscription, in Maori and English:—"This monument stands on the sito of Kaiapoi as a memorial of the first pah founded by Ngai-Tahu after their invasion of this tho Waipounamau from Aotearoa. Tv jCakaiuaiu and his tribes iounded this pah, and he named it "To Kohnnga 0 Kai Kai a Wnro." His descendants named it Kaiapoi. It was tho capital of tho Ngai-Tahu tribe. Unveiled 3rd April, 1809, by tho Right Hon. R. J. Seddon, Premier of S.Z." Tho sito of the old pah, covering somo eight acres, has never been cultivated, as no Maori could eat food 1 grown oil ground on which the blood of his relatives had fallen. Tho place is let to a European, who grazes sheep upon it, for though it would bo wrong to eat food grown thereon, it is not wrong to take the pakeha's money, upon which no "tapu" can lie. It was ar■Tangcd to hold a picnic at the stono every Easter Monday, to commemorate its erection, but the Kaiapoi sports proved too great an attraction for the natives, and the picnic has fallen through. Tuahiwi, indeed, is only one of a large number of villages, which, before the dayß of To Rauparaha, were scattered over tho North Canterbury plain. An informant, who knows well South Africa, says that these villages resembled, for tho most part, the Kaffir kraals there, consisting of a few huts only, the site of each village being selected for its nearness to wood, water, and fißh. Probably two only of these wero pahs in the correct sense of the term—that is, fortified villages. lie following formed a line of pahs, so called, reaching to the mouth of *U» Avon :—

Te Tuahiwi pah, near the cemetery at St. Stephen's, four miles north-west of modern Kaiapoi. , Te pa Tuhawaiki, now a cemetery, at the south of i-uahlwi. To Pakiaka pah, near Moody's iter, on the North road. To Hiwi pah, now the sandhills cemetery To Rua Taniwha pah, near the Kaiapoi factory. To o Poareare pah, a large one,, on tho north of the Avon estuary.

To Karoro pah (gulls' pah), on tho New Brighton road, south of the Jfcon. All these pahs were inhabited at" the same /time, tho inhabitants moving from place to place to catch fish, gather a species of wild turnip, and collect large quantities of young cabbage trees. There were a number of hill pahs aw,ay to the west, but these gradually became deserted as tho visits of pakeha whalers became more frequent. The Maoris then settled nearer the coast, a fact which has given' rise to the erroneous belief that the natives in this island rarely formed • inland pahs. After tho fall of Tuahiwi, which prethat of tho main pah, the majority of tho Maoris who escaped lied to Taumutu, on Lake Ellesmere, whero there is still a native village. So great was the alarm, however, that the whole pah decided to removo to Tomuka, to tho To Wai o te Ruaatii pah. When they arrived there it was night, so "they quietly removed one ot the palisades and crawled through. One of tho tohungas then pulled a handful of grass and went to the "runanga," or mceting»house, and knocked. On being asked who was thero. ho replied, "9 omo outside to our 'patiti' " (that is, grass). Tlie chief tohunga then came out and took the grass to tho saerod place to ' 'whaka noa" the fugitives—that is, to make them free, for all refugees aro common enemies till freed from the "tapu." Having prayed beforo the Atua, ho led the fugitives into tho meeting-houso, where they were received with demonstrative joy. During tho last five years tho last of these refugees, good men of the old have passed awiTy. It was a sig* t to see the flash of the eyo and stiffening of the muscle as tbese old men recounted tho deeds of vi"?olir done in the stirring dnys that are past. At Temuka a war party was for the succour of Kaiapohia, then invested by Te Rauparaha's forces, but it arrived too late. Standing on the site of tlie eld pah, one can easily picture the last scons. The "inaccessible cliff of God." as Kaiapohia was called, was surrounded on three sides by a lagoon and marshes. A stream flows round tw ; o sides of it now, and on the eastern side aro swamp and flax and raupo, extending to tho sandhills of the const. For days tlie northern warriors, unable to take tho strong walls by aseaizlt, had stacked manuka branches against them, at great cost of life, that they might fire the pah. Gradually the pile grew until it filled tho outer trench and reached far np the stockade wall. Then, with a strong nor'-wester blowing, the desperate garrison determined to set light to the pile them«>lvefi, and trust the favouring wind to boat tho flames backward from the stockade, destroying only the threatening brushwood. The pile was fired, and all at once tbe treacherous wind changed to the opposite quarter, driving the flames against the posts and palisades, and whelming the defenders in dense smoke. Quickly Te Rnupiraha's men charged through the blazing gap, and the bewildered garrison fell like sheep before them. A remnant fled and escaped capture, hiding in ths surroundi-njf swamps till they could get away to join their Peninsula kinsmen. Standrnjp on the pah site to-day one can see again in fancy the fires of Te RaniM-raha'a camp, where the captives d_v*rf?d to the manes of the dead wero fastened to poles fixed in the ground. a*td bled to death, afterwards to bo cooked and eaten as tho lart hnmiluition of the vanquished. From behfhd that flax birch, from among thoso tuwocks, pwT, in fancy. eyes of shaking warriors who lie hidden, and the wind sighing am«d the rauno wails the requiem of tho departed.