A Maori succession

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33965, 4 October 1975, Page 11

A Maori succession

Tuhuru, a chief of Mawhera, Greymouth, who died in 1854, had two sons who succeeded him as chief — first Tarapuhi, who died in 1864, and then the younger brother, Werita Tainui.

Both these chiefs are commemorated in the names of Greymouth streets. Arthur Dudley Dobson, under contract' to survey the coastal belt of Westland in 1863. had a great admiration for Tarapuhi; in his reminiscences he quotes a conversation with Tarapuhi about staff returning to Canterbury for fear of being drowned. Tarapuhi said: “White men no good at this work. You should use the Maoris; they know how to work canoes on the rivers and where to find them. They' know how to catch eels and birds and find mussels.”

Werita Tainui would be called today a “character.”

He had a strong influence with his people in the transference of the West Coast to European control. James Belgrave Hammitt, travelling to the Government depot at the Grey River, records in his diary of August 7, 1863: Swag carried “When about to cross the river I saw two men coming towards me. They were Mr Townsend and Chief Tarapuhi. "The old chief immediately rushed into the water, carried my swag over, and then wanted to carry me— but I preferred walking over, keeping hold of his hand.

“1 had often heard what a fine old man chief Tarapuhi was. I firmly believe he would risk his life or share his last potato with any white man, without thought of recompense.”

At the final tribal meeting with Mackay at Okarito when the deed of sale of the West Coast was signed, Werita said that his title was incontestable as he had eaten the former owners of the land. "Old Tainui,” as he came to be called, was a goodnatured person of medium

races gave rise to such a Portuguese Parliament, as had never been heard in the town — on the one hand a score or two of frightened Orientalshuddled by their loads, and. on the other, armed with sticks, about 30 excited Maoris all talking and gesticulating. A crowd of spectators soon arrived, and as the Maoris refused to allow the Chinese to proceed without paying a poll tax of two shillings and sixence it looked as if something serious was about to happen. However, on the arrival of Mr G. Greenwood. native agent, the Maoris were persuaded to forgo their demands and the Chinese were allowed to proceed. The “Grey River Argus” of December 2, 1880, has the following:

“The venerable chief Werita Tainui died on Tuesday evening. He was nearly 80 years of age. He had been hale and hearty but for the last few months was totally blind. A kindly old gentleman was Tainui, who will be missed by the children with whom he always liked to converse.”

Double service It was his express wish that he be buried in a cave with his kindred. Mr Kempthorne conducted the service in English; and a Maori missionary, a son-in-law of Tainui, Mr Mutu, conducted the service in Maori. In 1885, when it was decided to use the limestone hill at the back of the Mawhera Pa, as a quarry site for rock to make river retaining walls, it was realised that the cave would be destroyed. A Tohunga from the North Island came to remove the tapu from the burial place. All the remains were removed. Tainui, and perhaps Tuhuru and Tarapuhi, were reinterred in the burial plot with the iron cross near the access road from the old Cobden bridge to Mount Street. Iron railings There is some uncertainty about the others; there was a sub-pa near the lagoon and it is probable that the others were reinterred in the Maori cemetery along Preston Road, Blaketown; for I remember my father many years ago taking me to see this cemetery and I can recall the bent iron railings which surrounded it. The traditional view was that it was the burial place of “slaves and inferiors.” Ihaia Tainui was cheif after Werita died. He had very close contact with the European community and was elected to Parliament as the member for Southern Maori,