MAORI FORTITUDE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 9160, Issue 9160, 9 March 1910, Page 2

MAORI FORTITUDE.

o ' 4N OLD WOMAN'S WONDERFUL ENDURANCE. FOODLESS, WATERLESS,. AND COLD. Probably no instance of the extraordinary vitality of the Maori race in former days better than that given to a Taranaki Herald reporter by Mr S Percy Smith, the well-known authority on Maori and Polynesian matters, has been recorded. Mr bmitn was being interviewed regarding the lost Pink and White Terraces, and the conversation had drifted on to the topic of the general effect of the Tarawera eruption, when Mr bimth remarked: "By the way an incident illustrating the remarkable fortitude of the Maori came under my own observation at that time. The story has not been published yet, but you may use it if you choose. . "In June, 1886, I was at Wairoa Village on the seventh day atter the eruption, with my party of Europeans, consisting of Mr Alma Baker, surveyor and Mr Blythe, engineer, continued Mr Smith. ."The whole place was then covered with ashes and mud from the volcano. Houses were buried so deep that of many only the roofs were to be seen. There was a party of natives there who had been digging out some of the buried people They had just opened up what had been the road in front of McRae's Hotel, and found the body ot a woman and her child lying flat covered by about three feet of volcanic mud and duet. They had also broken into one of the houses and there found an old priest, named Tuhoto, who had been buried in this house since the eruption. He was alive, but very emaciated through want of food and water, but he had been under

shelter the whole time. SITTING ON THE MUD. "1 heard these natives talking amongst themselves, and referring to aii old woman they had seetti the night before, across a valley, about a mile distant from Wairoa Naturally, this interested me, and I ascertained from the men that no attempt had been made to rescue her although she appeared to be still alive. They replied "to my reproaches on their want of humanity by saying: 'Oh! she was only a very old woman What good is she ?' After a good deal of persuasion I got four of the Maoris to accompany me, with my ions in an endeavour to find the old woman. After travelling over a mile or more of the most dreadful and tenacious mud that I have ever experienced—it was of the same consistency as mortar or cement—we finally saw the old woman sitting on the cold surface of the mud, which was then in a semi-frozen condition, owing to the extreme cold. We found her alive, but her mind was wandering. She was clad only m cornsacks, one around her shoulders and the other around her waist. I gave her gome biscuit soaked in whisky, bne had with her a tomahawk and a burnt-out fire stick which she had brought from her home. I hen we took the sack off her shoulders, and,

using it as a stretcher, all gettang around the edges, we earned the old woman over that dreadful mud to the Wairoa Village. THE NIGHT OF THE ERUPTION. "There Mcßae gave her some hot tea and we found amongst the debris of thf hotel sufficient clothing to cover her. Then we took her on to a native village (Rotokakahi) at the far end of one of the lakes near the Wairoa, where the natives from the latter village had taken refuge after the eruption. The next morning I went to see her and to get some particulars as to her adventures, bne told me that on the night of the eruption ehe and her old husband were in their hut, near Waitangi, on the shores of Lake Tarawera. When the stones and mud cast out from the volcano began to fall through the air they were terribly alarmed, and they thought it was time to get away and try to join their own people at the Wairoa.' And so they started. The old woman carried a tomahawk m one hand and a lighted fire-etick in the other. They had not gone in the terrible black darkness, in which one could not see his hand before his face, more than twenty or thirty yards from the hut when a <« s P ut £ arose between the two as to which was the road to the Wairoa Village. The old man went off on his own course, and perished. His body was never found, though a thorough search was afterwards made. No doubt it had been buried under the falling stones and mud from the volcano. SEVEN DAYS AND NIGHTS. "The old woman kept on her course, which finally proved to be the correct one. Had she possessed sufficient power she would have reached the village, but she fell exhausted m the place where we found her. That old woman, over seventy years old, had been there for eeven days and seven nights, with nothing to eat or d'rink, pitting, scantily clad as she was, on that fearfully cold mud, the temperature of which was very nearly down to freezing point. Yet, when I interviewed her on the morning after we rescued her, she had quite recovered from her awful experience, had regained all her senses, and was quite happy except that all she wanted was some matches, which she got. Very ( few instances are on record that illusUrate better the extraordinary vitaI lity of the Maori race in olden days."