HISTORIC GROUND

Hawera Star, Volume L, 10 April 1930, Page 22 (Supplement)

HISTORIC GROUND

HAWERA AND NEIGHBOURHOOD

THE WAHINE WHO DEFENDED THE LARDER.

(By C. E. Major.)

The Hawera district affords the visitor unlimited scope for interesting ami pleasant drives. The roads are good, and the many well-bridged streams tlie traveller meets with in all directions greatly enhance tlio pleasure attached 1 to viewing a magnificent tract of rich country. A visit to tlie mouth of the AVaingongoro River, about six miles from Hawera, gives the visitor some idea, of the fertility of laranaki land. A relic of old New Zealand, is there in the shape of an old Maori fortification. It was here the -Maoris dug themselves in when shelled by H.M.frS. “.Lizard,” if memory serves aright. To those of an ethnological turn of mind, a plateau of kitchen middens, about two feet deep and covered by a layer of earth about the same depth, and exposed by the earth having broken away in two or three places, is an evidence that the native population along tlio coast must have been, at one time, very large. Old natives say that' formerly the denizens, during their annual seaside sojourns, were “para kiore. ” like an army of rats: It is here that Sir George Grey, when Governor, with the late Sir .Tames Hector, collected a large, quantity of mon bones, a bend near the mouth of tlie river being where, according to an entertaining article contributed liv Colonel .McDonnell to the magazine published by the Wellington Philosophical Society, the Maoris about 100 veais ago drove these monster birds with the aid of torches at night time into deep water, and- there slaughtered and feasted upon them. In all directions the traveller meets with decaying native fortresses. At the mouth of the Waihi stream, some 21miles south of the AVaingongoro. there still remains evidence of the great labour, in the shape of earthworks, undertaken by tlie former inhabitant's to prevent their pa from surprise, and also of the long-headed old warriors who selected sites to which nature lent a hand in making them impregnable. It was at this pa, according to an old tradidit ion, that a most gruesome circumstance in connection with Maori warfare transpired: It seems the natives occupying it wore known to be only a -few in number, tlieir hapu having beer, decimated by a fight with some north-

oni enemies. They, nevertheless, being d 1: itii industrious bout, and possessing good provender-supplying capabilities, had stored a winter supply of food toothsome to the Maori palate. The inhabitants of this pa were envied, for at the mouth of the Waihi stream the pawui was obtainable, a uourishing and satisfying shell-fish known in the northern hemisphere as Ormers, a corruption of orielles do mer. A tana of young warriors from a tribe further north looking for renown, after watching the owners depart on a visit to some nearby friendly hapu, hastened to make themselves acquainted with the quality and quantity of their neighbours’ store and the story runs their intentions were both bloody and nefarious. After arriving, the party duly reconnoitred and this being satisfactory, commenced the ascent in single hie by a; steep and narrow path to the pa from the beach, and as each man reached the top, he threw himself liat and entered by a small aperture ibout C or seven feet through; just