AGED MAORI WOMAN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 4 May 1931, Page 8

AGED MAORI WOMAN

A DEFENDER OF ORAKAU NARROW ESCAPE FROM PA PEACEFUL DAYS AT TAUPIRI Of the patriarchal age of 105 years, Mrs Awhipera Nepe is still able to enjoy iife under simple, almost primitive conditions at her son’s home by the Mangawara river, near Taupiri, says the “N.Z. Herald.” The quiet monotony of her life is a fitting conclusion for one who can look back to the'time when the district was 'lie scene of much bloodshed and horror in the Waikato War. The other day she was found squatting in true Maori style in the bright autumn sunshine, beneath a tree on a sandy patch before her whare. She smilingly consented to pose for the camera when the suggestion was put to her through an interpreter, for Awhipera. knows no word of English. The weight of her years was little evidenced by the agility with which she rose and walked across the whare to face the camera. Her memory and other facilities are good, and as she talks of the stirring days of her youth her old face ligts up and her conversation is enlivened by animated gestures. She was bcrrn at Rarigiaohia, in the King Country, her mother being one of a number of Taranaki prisoners carried away into captivity by the conquering Waikato/s. Her father was a pakeha. who lived among the Maoris before the organised colonisation of the country began. The date of her birth is associated with a. certain “blanket meeting- ’ at Remuera. FAMOUS SIEGE RECALLED Probably the most exciting story she has to tell is of the siege of Orakau in 1864. She was herself one of the 300 or so "under the redoubtable Rewi, who made the famous defence of the pa. With scarcely any water, surrounded by a British force numbering nearly seven times their fighting men, susbisting on raw potatoes, the gallant band held out lor three days. She heard the memorable words of the dauntless Rewi, when called upon to surrender, “We will fight for ever and ever and ever,” and again the heroic reply to the offer to allow the women and children to pass fi’onr the pa unharmed, “The wbmen will fight as well as the men.” Then she tells of the plans for escape and the success that attended the wily Rewi’s scheming—how, in closely-packed formation, first the warriors and then the womenfolk, they broke through the surprised lines of besiegers. This part of the story stirred the old narrator to animation as she lived again those terrible moments. What followed, she said, was riot war, not battle, but murder. She herself escaped, carrying upon her back her younger brother. They fled into a swamp, where they hid until the friendly pall of night concealed their movements.

FLIGHT TO TARANAKI

In spite of the flight being interrupted by a body of Forest Rangers, so that few escaped, Awhipera, carrying her brother, travelled by night and hid by day, making her way through Te Kuiti back to her mother’s tribe in Taranaki. In striking contrast to that portion of her life were the years spent at the old mission station, at Taupiri, where Tarawhiti, the first Maori missionary in those parts, ministered to his people. - Awhipera |ells of interesting historic ■events associated with spots in this locality. . On the site where the dairy factory stands, she attended a great hui on the occasion of the death of Tawliia, the second Maori King, son of old To Wiierowhero. It is not easy to associate this Woman with the distant days when warfare still scourged the land. It seems a far cry from the camp fires of the Maoris and smoky oil lamps of the pakehas to the electric torch, with which the ;old Maori woman toyed as she let her memory roam hack to the troubled times of a, century ago.