A MAORI CARVED STONE AT RAHOTU.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume I, Issue 96, 16 March 1881, Page 3

A MAORI CARVED STONE AT RAHOTU.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

Pungarehu, Monday.

At the new camp, ou the Pungarere stream, called Rahotu, from the name of an ancient pah on which the present station has been established, is a curved stone — a stone of great size and ponderous weight, whose iacial angles are completely covered with old Maori etchings. The usual curves aud intricate lines seen on the faces of aboriginals, which are tokens of a custom very soon to become extinct, are reproduced on this rough block of grey stone, which lies on the face of a small hill immediately facing the larger eminence, on which the old. Maori defences were, and the Constabulary defences are. Six feet by five and a half are the approximate dimensions of the block, and it would appear that at one time the whole face of the stone exposed to view had been covered with what might he supposed to he picture writings. " Bill Stubhs, his mark," is here reproduced in a different clime, by a different people, for the discovery of the stone by the colonists of New Zealand has led to as much conjecture as the far-famed inscription discovered by Mr. Pickwick. Natives know actually nothing of it as a land-mark, or as a gravestone marking the resting-place of a chief, hut say that had any such memorial stone been in existence, they would have known of it. They conclude that the carvings were uiarte by the man who lived on the spot, chief of his people, who gave his name to the pah, Rahotu ; made by him in his idle moments, whi h were many, for he is said by your correspondent's informants to have been the laziest man former generations of aboriginals knew. Work he would not, even for his own susteuance; hut with the lowest part of his back a fixture on the ground, he would await a time when his peculiar proclivities would find a fitting area of development. War was his forte, and he would " hold the fort " against all comers. Agricultural pursuits he despised, but he was a mighty man of valor, and waited for turbulence to develop the point wherein he shone. As wars were not continuous, although very nearly so, he had " idle hours," which natives conclude were spent in the cutting away of the stone spoken of as a vent to his pent-up energies. Could not, perhaps, some one enlighten us as to the Weka pass incriptions in the same manner ? It is very apparent that the propensity to write his name, or leuve his mark, is, and has been, as fully alive in the Maori as m the veriest Cockney who defaces some of the most beautiful of our public parks. Rahotu did it of old, and not a cutting is made in a native district which leaves a large smooth surface of hard earth exposed, but the names of Maoris may be seen in juxtaposition with those of Europeans.