Infatuated Maori Boy Takes Own Life

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 55, 6 March 1937, Page 4

Infatuated Maori Boy Takes Own Life

GIRL’S PARENTS REFUSED MARRIAGE (Special to “Times.”) ‘ROTORUA, Last Night. A love affair between a young Maori college boy named Frederick Oneroa, aged 16 years, and an attractive Maori girl, Queenio Katene, aged 17, ended tragically yesterday wheu the youth committed suicide by shooting himself with a single-barrelled shotgun after a desperate effort by a Maori woman at the Horohoro pa to take the gun from him. At the inquest evidence was given to the effect that the boy bad learnt that the girl’s parents would not consent to the marriage because they wore too young. Oneroa was a student last year at Wesley College and was homo on holiday. He saw Queenie Katene and told her he intended to take his life. She told the Coroner she did not take tho boy seriously even w r hou she received a letter saying she would hear shots and he would then have passed to the “great beyond.” She still did not think Oneroa would take his life and had not shown the letter to anyone. Erina Nekorine, aged 22, detailed dramatic incidents just prior to the shooting. The boy’s father had gone to the milking shed and when the boy got out of bed ho said he was going after rabbits. As he left the house she tried to take the gun from him as he was too young. He punched her severely in the face so she ran to tho milking shed for the boy '3 father. They returned to the house to hoar shots from the front. They then discovered the youth dead.