A CENTURY AFTER.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 13 February 1925, Page 5

A CENTURY AFTER.

BONES OF MASSACRE VICTIMS RECOVERED.

The reverence for the hones of . their ancestors shown by Maori people was evidenced in a striking -manner in Whangarei recently. At the request of Dr. Buck, who desired to make comparisons wtih a vjew to ascertaining the peculiarities of the particular tribe, Mr W. M. Fraser, curator of Poor Knights Islands, brought four skulls to Whangarei from the little-known sanctuary. A war parbv, led by Hongi 115 years ago, landed oil the Poor Knights* and, surprising the members of Ngatiawa' tribe, whom they cut off from their fortified pa, they'massacred all but one old man,'a baby boy, who was lowered over a cliff on a rope and thus escaped detection, and some girls. During the session (just concluded) of the Tokerau Maori Land Court, in Whangarei. the story of the massacre was related by a descendant of one of those who escaped., Tears were shed, and all the relatives became distinctly agitated. As the story of the massacre, which lasted for a night and a day, and of the carrying away in canoes of about 250 bodies—all’decapitated with, sharp-edged weapons—was recounted, the descendants heard that Mr Fraser had the skulls. Later they approached him, and, after viewing the remains of their ancestors in tearful silence, they asked to be allowed to take them away so that they could he laid in the burial cave of the massacred chief, Tatua, which is in the Whanaki district. Mr •Fraser acceded to their request, and the natives gratefully thanked him. A grandson of the bov who was saved made a box. and. amid the cheering of the other members of the trilie, packed the skulls in it. mounted his horse, and rode off to perform his mission in accordance with the ancient rites of his people.