REMINISCENCES OF THE LATE MR. C. MARSHALL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8986, 17 September 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

REMINISCENCES OF THE LATE MR. C. MARSHALL.

[Concluded.] While on the theme of murder, I may mention an episode that occurred between two individuals personally known to myself. Mauukawehi, a slave belonging to a chief of one of the tribes of the Waikato, ran away with his wife' to the Ngatipaoa in the Thames but, having discovered some impropriety in the conduct of his wife, and having no lawyer to advocate his cause or Divorce Court to appeal to, he thought he would simplify the matter by making away with her; he dug a hole in the ground, cajoled her in the dark to Ae edge, tripped her up into it, and buried her, as he hoped, alive. Thinking that he had finally disposed of her, he went back home, chuckling quietly, and keeping his act a secret. During the night the wife, only stunned by the blow, contrived to get out of the hole, went up to the house where her husband was sleeping, sat at the door, and added fuel to the fire, which had nearly burnt out. On its blazing up the man awoke, and, perceiving his wife sitting at the door covered with earth, just as she had risen from the grave, took her for a ghost. Frightened was no name for him ; down he went, squatting and groaning, with his head well covered up in his mat. The wife seemed to enjoy his bother ; and after resting a short time she got up, left the settlement clandestinely, and reached Auckland. The man kept his own counsel; the woman remained in Auckland unseen by her husband and that section of natives residing in his vicinity; and it was generally believed that she had run away, until one day the husband confessed to having killed her. She was subsequently seen in Auckland, and was looked upon as a spirit until she explained how she had managed to escape. It was not an unusual thing for husbands to kill their wives for incontinence, or to inflict other modes of punishment as their fancies might lead them. I have known several instances of chiefs killing their wives for infidelity. ARRIVAL OF MISSIONARIES AND INTERVIEWS WITH ROYALTY. It was in 1834 that the missionaries paid their first visit to the Waikato, and a very narrow escape they had. One of the Wesleyan body, with several Ngapuhi natives, after surmounting many difficulties and passing through uninhabited localities, at last reached Waikato. A portion of our party had gone down the river in a canoe when they fell in with the pakeha and his suite, all seated on a moki made of raupo, and propelled by poles instead of paddles. The Ngatipo were going in the opposite direction, and their first impulse on hearing the voices and recognising the Ngapuhi dialect was to blaze into them, supposing them to be enemies and the advance guard of a warparty. Fortunately for them, their pakeha made himself conspicuous, which induced a parley, and the object of the visit was then explained; they were brought to the camp, supplied with provisions and a canoe, and sent forward rejoicing the following morning. On the mission supplying me with books and slates, I undertook the instruction of the natives, and found, to my surprise and gratification, they exhibited a great desire to learn, and the facility with which some advanced was astonishing. I continued to instruct them until I left for Sydney, when I remained away nearly four years, but I occasionally corresponded with them and they with me. In one of Te Uira's letters he requested that I vymld select and forward down a missionary, as they wished to have one of their own, independent of the other tribes. Wheu the missionaries had established themselves at Mangapouri, they wished their wives to join them, but a difficulty arose—the absence of chimneys to their dwellings; there was no stone in the vicinity available, and transport of bricks was next to impossible, and without chimneys the houses would be untenable by the ladies Not hiving entirely lost my gallantry I was induced, out of empathy to the ladies and children, to undertake the superintendence of a manufactory of a sufficient number of bricks for the fire-places of two houses. The result far surpassed my expectations, and it was only the other day, after a lapse of 38 years, that I saw pieces which had been left on the ground after the chimneys had been pulled down, and even then they were quite sound, and almost as hard as stone. The manufacture of those bricks, verified the saying, that " A man does not know what he can do till he tries." , , Accidents fcom the heedless way in which gunpowder ?ras landed and stored were of common occurrence. The indiscriminate use of the pipe, even while men were employed in serving out powder, on the opening of a cask, or in manufacturing cartridges, etc., led to a good many. On one occasion the Ngatitamaho, anticipating an attack from the Ngapuhis, had opened a cask of gunpowder to distribute amongst the people of the tribe ; it was placed in an open area in front of the dwelling-houses, the recipients hail formed themselves ia a circle round it, and the dispensers were at work. About two-thirds of the quantity had been disposed of when To Rangiratahu, a lad of about 13 or 14 years of age, a son of the chief of the tribe, walked up smoking a short pipe with a. lighted coal in it, and leaned over to look into the cask ; the coal naturally fell from his pipe, and there was a very pretty blow up. Cask staves and fire were sent in all directions; Hika, one of the senior chiefs, was killed; Te Rangiratahu, and several others who formed the circle, were severely burnt; and altogether there was a jolly row.I was sent for to attend Te Rangiratahu, and found the front part of his body burnt from the waist to the crown of the head; at the time of the accident he had but a native mat wrapped round his loins, so that all the upper body was exposed. I took him in hand, and, to exemplify the healthy state of the natives and the quickness with which their sores heal, it is a fact that, by means of simple remedies, I had him convalescent and without a, scar in three weeks.

In 1862, a short time previous to the war, Wiremu Tanjihana convened at Peria, in the Upper Waikato, a meeting of all the tribes in the Island to take into consideration the course to be adopted with regard to their king, whom they were determined to support in opposition to the Government. Anticipating a collision with the pakeha, and foreseeing the result of such a war, the unsettled and harrassing life they would lead, he had collected and had cooked as food for the meeting all the indigenous roots and berries that their ancestors had formerly lived upon, to show them that they would probably have to fall back upon the natural products of their country. Matiy subjects were brought forward for discussion, but one speech above the rest did Wiremu Tamihana great credit. A question was asked, " What should be done with respect to debts due to pakehas?" and this was given to the different runangas for consideration; the majority gave it as their opinion that they should not be paid, and some that they should. It was then given to Wiremu Tamihana for his opinion. He scrutinised the numbers on ea-m side, and then spoke very much in these words : " I see the majority are not for paying; but if any of us have incurred a just debt we are in duty bound to settle it; don't let .us fall back, as the pakehas do, upon a law (the Statute of Limitations) to free ourselves from our debts; if any of us have incurred a just debt, let it have been incurred when it will, we are in duty bound to pay it. If it should occur that we have a rupture with the pakeha, let us go into war with clean hands." After so much chat about war and politics, it is high time to introduce another subject that of love and matrimony. In civilised countries the gentlemen often divide their love amongst favoured belles; but in New Zealand the favoured belles have often been divided literally amongst their admirers. I have known a case in point, where two parties contended for the possession of a female—women and land being, by the way, at the bottom of almost all intertribal wars; neither party, in this case, had the best of it, and so they went in for an application of Solomon's judgment, and they coolly each—took half! not for the purpose of kai, but to prevent its being said that the one side had, after all, the entire woman ! The female branch of the family are considered the property of the mother's tribe, who have the right to appropriate their labour, to betroth them or give them in marriage, as the case may be, the father hardly having a voice in the matter; but in such marriages de convenance it has occurred that the lady had a secret lover. The knowledge of this sometimes coming to the ears of the betrothed husband's friends, they would prepare to abduct her; but, on the other hand, the lover's friends would also muster in his behalf, and the result would be a regular case of "pull devil, pull baker!" the lady being the chief sufferer in the operation. At the beginning of such a struggle some little consideration might be shown for decency; but, as they warmed to their work, the girl would get completely stripped. Sometimes both parties would be equal in strength, and a compromise would be effected by the lover giving a consideration and obtaining the lady. I have heard of a case where the lover's taua was the strongest, and every probability existed of its being successful in opposition to the wishes of the lady's relations, when one of the latter sprang forward, tomahawk in hand, exclaiming, " She shall not go with you alive ; if you persist in wanting her, you'll only get half r And a

few cuts with the tomahawk on the body as it was being dragged almost asunder by the two parties soon did the trick. It was formerly the custom, and, indeed, still now obtains on certain occasions, that, when a chief of rank died, his remains were buried secretly in-some place known only to the tohunyas of the tribe so that his enemies might not have the satisfaction of disinterring his bones in revenge for offences committed whilst in the flesh. A man of rank departed this life, and was accordingly interred with all due mystery. Some time afterwards it happened that his tribe had to leave the district, on account of some attack upon them, and did not return to it. Time passed on, and a family connected with the tribe, but of low rank, happening to journey through the country, lit accidentally upon the old chief's grave. They had suffered some injury at his hands, and this was a fine chance of paying him off; so they made fish-hooks out of his bones. This fearful desecration leaked out, and spread general indignation among the dead mail's relations, who at once prepared for revenge. A taua was organised, came up with the offending party, and killed and ate the man and his wife ; the children being made slaves.