THE NORTH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume I, Issue 310, 9 November 1864, Page 5

THE NORTH.

In tlie popular ferment occasioned by the state ot" lawlessness existing in certain districts in the North it is scarcely to be wondered at if exaggerations sometimes fmd their way into the public prints. Of such a nature, if not -worse, is the twice repeated statement made in the Southern Cro-i* that Tirarau sent the following message to his tribe. On the last occasion it appeared in the Crosx' Supplementary .Summary for England, and is as follows : —■' A remarkable message has been sent by Tirarau, a loyal chief in the North. to some of his tribe. It is this : —* These are my words.—lf the Waikatos come oyer from the the East Coast, and the Goyernor tells you to light them, light them ; and if the Goyernor does not tell you to iiirlit the m.Jiqht the Goyernor.' " In the original document — substantially the message is correct —the word " fight.'' which we linvo italicised, does not bear the signification which the words " fight.'' preyiously used. bear. In this case a word having a compound sense is j used, which means "fight with the tongue," j and when read in this light the whole signification of the message becomes altered. Tirarau simply means that '* if the Goyernor does not mean you to fight them, tirc/ue the point, or remonstrate with the Goyernor." We felt quite certain when we read the paragraph that our eotempornry had been misled liy the ignorance of the translator of the message, and we think it is only due to Tirarau, v.iio is, we believe, a thoroughly loyal native, to put the matter in its proper light. But whilst Tirarau remains loyal, there are others, though men of less note, who take a very different course. Among these is I'arata Mata, a Ngapuhi chief, of the Poatahi, He too has issiftd a proclamation, of which there can be no two renderings. He tells his people to this effect:—An evil has come among them, that it is no new evil, since it has existed since the execution of lxuarangi (a near relation), that his mind was dark then, but that it had grown darker now. There can be no mistaking language such as this from a Maori. Fortunately the tribe over which Pa.ata Mata rides is but about fifty in number. Already we learn they have thrown aside the Christianity which has been taught them, and have adopted a new fana+ieism, the " tekera," or literally, the tea-kettle." They have an old kettle from the rebel pa which has been blessed, and this is cherished among them as the ark of their religion. It is set full of water before them; the water is blessed by one of their number, and sprinkled over the rest. It is supposed to cure disease, to afford invulnerability in battle, to remit all sins. They have, in fact, given themselves up to this species of idolatry, and though laughed at by the more sensible of the trft)es, onh" the more doggedly hold to this new faith. We learn that numbers of the escaped rebels, whom the other natives designate as " Heriheris," come and go between Omaha and the different Kaipara districts. The escape of the Kawau prisoners is fast doing its work. The leaven of rebellion has been introduced into many a hitherto peaceful hapu north of Auckland