Passing Maori Memories

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 7193, 27 June 1933, Page 6

Passing Maori Memories

147

NGA.KAIPTJKE PUMAHU (Steamy Vessels). [Recorded by “ J.H.S.” for the Times. ] The fii'3t steamer to visit Taranaki was H.M.S. “Inflexible” on February 20, 1817. It created a sensation among tho Maoris and the wondering Pakeha. The European children and the Maori hordes were stricken with awesome fear when the noisy donkey engine began to raise cargo from the hold, the crowd rushed behind the sand hills. His Excellency Captain George Grey and Mr Donald McLean accompanied by Wi Kingi had come from Waikanae to settle the question of more land for the increasing number of white settlers. The Ngamotu and Puketapu Maoris said they were determined to hold all their lands, and defied tho Governor and his soldiers. Captain Grey threatened them with a bombardment from the ship’3 guns, which as intended, caused them to exhaust their wordy fireworks. Me McLean, a man of superhuman patience, whom nothing could disturb, came quietly forward and invited tho whole crowd to be the Manuhin (guests) of Quini Wikitoria at the Hakarl (feast) in which five of their canoes were “to be converted into steamers”! With tho aid of a portable engine from the warship the Maori canoes were hauled ashore, twenty huge pots used at Kapiti for whale oil were landed from the warship, and were soon boiling a thousand gallons of water. A ton of flour and nearly as much treacly Jamaica sugar were emptied into the canoes. Twenty sailors with buckets poured the boiling water on it and stirred the mass with paddles. Amid cries of “Erima nga waka kcmomaliu” (five steamer canoes), they consumed an average of two gallons each of the sweet pasty mess of pottage. Too full ot “lillipee” and gratitude even for words, each man straightway made a shaky tohu (mark) on a deeu, and so parted with their birthright of CO,OOO acres at 1/6 per acre. That was just how an old tattooed Maori participant told the story sixty years ago.