WAITANGI CELEBRATIONS

Evening Star, Issue 21636, 3 February 1934, Page 18

WAITANGI CELEBRATIONS

MAORI ORATORY [Per United Press Association.] WAITANG I, February 3. A very large meeting held last evening was'addressed by various speakers interspersed by numerous chants, ana laments. One party sang Hongi’s wife’s lament over the death of Hongi, recounting > his exploits and the leading incidents in his life. The principal speakers were Mr Taita Te Tomq., M.P., and Mr Rewete Kohere, from the East Coast. Mr Te Tomo referred to the Treaty of Waitangi as having died several times and been resurrected several times. He championed Sir Apirana Ngata, and advised the Maori people to keep him in Parliament, as nobody else could take his place. Chief Kohere replied on behalf of the East Coast tribes, and, particularly the Ngatiporou tribe. If the treaty were dead, he said, he would bury it, and he recited part of the burial service. He contended that the spirit of the treaty still had life, and it could only show that life by kicking, speaking, and seeing. He hoped the Ngapuhis would make the meeting successful, and repay all people for the trouble gone to in coming here. The speakers were graphic in driving home their points. , “ This is my first visit to the Bay of Islands,” said Reiviti te Kohere, a visitor from the East Coast, “ and there are spots round the bay which are the most historical in New Zealand. Before I landed at Waitangi I took off my hat and when I trod on the soil 1 felt like taking my shoes off, as was said by Moses: ‘ Take the shoes from off thy feet, for the ground on which thou standest is holy ground.’ “ We come from the land of sunrise,’ continued the speaker, “as did the wise men who came from the east to worship the Saviour at His birth. We come to the shrine where the Government was born, and to the shrine where the church of New Zealand was born, and we bring gifts, not of aloes, frankincense, and myrrh, but of affectionate thoughts and help, and, I may say, of appetite.U