“PASSING MAORI MEMORIES”

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 283, 27 October 1934, Page 2

“PASSING MAORI MEMORIES”

(Recorded by J.H.S. for “The Manawatu Evening Standard.”)

Ropata Waha waha. (The Shark’s Mouth.)

Possibly so named because of his large mouth and his small stature, Ropata, the intrepid and ever loyal leader of the Arawa and Ngatiporou “Friendlies,” struck terror to the hearts of all Hau Hau fanatics who crossed his path. His followers were hardy mountaineers who differed from the average Maori. They were smaller and more active than dwellers of the plain, and did not use the almost universal Moko (tattoo) of other tribes. They were tireless and watchful as a cat, and had never fallen into an enemy ambush, a Maori art in which our British soldiers were so often entrapped. It was asserted that Ropata’s men “could smell the enemy with the acuteness of the Maori dog.” When Te lvo-oii (Coates), the Chatham Island escapee, broke away and took refuge at Ngatapa, that impregnable, cliff fortress, it was under Ropata’s guidance that Colonel Whitmore tracked him through the forest. Every tribe from Opotiki to Taupo feared Ropata and were thus deterred from joining the Hau Hau rebels. Kereopa, the murderer of the Rev. Volkner, was captured by Ropata. The prisoner was surprised that any Maori could, under such atrocious circumstances, refrain from killing him on the spot. But Ropata, imbued with the judicial attitude of the Pakeha, reserved his prisoner for a British trial and a Napier rope. Te Ua (the backbone), a powerful chief, threatened to capture Auckland and drive every Pakeha into the sea, as “kinaki mo nga mako” (tit bits for the sharks). To Ropata, Renata, Tareha, Karauria, Karaitiana, Tomoana. and other wellknown Hawke’s Bay chiefs is the credit due for having averted such a catastrophe. Their moral force added to their military powers were the main factors by which 50,000 fighting men were dissuaded from joining the rebels.

Hoea Mai to waka. (Paddle your own canoe.)

Before the days of horse racing, which came to be a science with the advent of historic sires such as Riddlesworth, Don Juan, Figaro, and Fifeshire, we enjoyed the welter weight, grass fed, three mile hurdle or flat races on Te Aro and Burnham courses. Also before the whaleboat and the outrigger, was the far more exhilarating racing Waka manned by twenty or thirty muscular Maoris, with shining bare bodies and paddles moving in unison, as though controlled by revolving mechanism. Each canoe about fifty feet long, cut by stone axes and shaped in symmetry from a seasoned totara log. The figure-head designed- to strike fear to the heart of an enemy, with protruding red tongue, glaring eyes of opal-like paua shell, and three fingered hands crossed on the puku. The paddlers, joined by a thousand men, women and children on shore, would jump in the air and chant a weird waiata (song), every contortion of the body and note of music in absolute unison. The crews of seven canoes numbering over 200 would float each vessel, jump to their places, and make their strokes from start to finish as one man. Time, in all things, was instinctive with the Maori. The course was from Te Aro (the curved shore) to Pito one (the end of the sand) and back round Somes Island. The race was a struggle between the several crews of the two contending chiefs, E Puni and Wi Tako, who showed the same friendly rivalry in their hospitality for the pioneers of 1840. Despite the long and strong pull the canoes came up the sloping shores of Te Aro with the same swift precision as they had left. The crews jumped ashore and at once led the haka and carried out the wondrous contortions of their bodies and the abdominal movements which formed the very first lesson in bodily health given to every boy and girl from early childhood.

Kitenga Hou. (First Discovery). Men and women, boys and girls of to-day wonder why the Dutch navigator Abel Jansen Tasman and former Portuguese, Spanish, and. R renen navigators failed to make contact with New Zealand in the same effective-way as the British hero, Captain Cook. As the records seem to imply, it was probably due to Tasman’s Dutch density and caution, as much as to Cook’s British understanding and enterprise. Two Dutch vessels, the Heemshirk and the Zeeliaan, sighted Cape Farewell on December 13, 1642, and anchored in Golden Bay on the 14th. Five days later, one of the Zeehaan’s boats with seven men became involved in strife with two Maori war canoes. Naturally the Maoris misunderstood the unfamiliar grimaces and gestures of these strangely clad Dutchmen, against whose intrusion they knew but one way to protect themselves. Four sailors were killed. Strength, courage, and _ cunning were the only weapons the simple Maori could use to dispel the whiro (Devil) who used a Pupuhi rakau (a blow stick) to throw fire a hundred yards, and to burn holes through their bodies and their canoes. Tasman lost a great opportunity of telling the world of his wonderful discovery. Without even getting the much needed wood, water, and green food, or discovering Cook’s Strait, he put to sea. No less than 127 years passed before the world gained any further light upon the charactei of the country and its primitive but philosophic people. It was reserved for the great navigator Cook to first give us minute and reliable information about them. Seventy years after Cook’s visit came our first settlement, and our tardy recognition of his heroic life arid death. A hundred years after his > death, we sought to honour his birth place by changing the name of a North Island village known hitherto by an unmentionable Maori epitliet to “Marton.’