TRAVELS OF RATANA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18772, 28 July 1924, Page 4

TRAVELS OF RATANA.

<e'V?-> .-v.- !' :lAORI HEALER IN ENGLAND. " 1 * r „j: -:i- v aV' * '* • f -. ' / *' ; {< '■ ; -'V ' ° 'J ' - IDENTITY' NOT DISCLOSED. - ' } < * 5 *" % "' V • ' v . i, ~' ' */ ' ; CAMOUFLAGING TACTICS. •' "* ' ' >'"* - •' &mong the: London wjio paid : special attention to the arrived in E.ojKt • >j; l a n'd last month of Ratana and his bajtid : or Maori followers . v?ai ; a member of the : staff of thi» ManchesterGuardhin. In the course of a lengthy ■ article h<i saysl • have, lieen Ratana.. That is to sa,y. I have jp.v Uen tbo forty-three Itfaori men, women • and boys who have arrived from New -.Zealand, and .1 know that h« was one of the , "middlis-aged men in the party, I saw them all in the charabancs when they alighted on the pavement outside the j hotel near Paddington station where they/ will' sta v for the next few months, bat who of them was Tahu Wireran Ratana feimseii I not know. "Ratanalhas come to visit the Wembley Exhibition He will probably travel about England, but his secretary, Mr. Moko, a youngish, ligbtrcomplexwned Maori, told me this evening that all his followers are under an obligation not to disclose his identity, to anyone. Yon will net- to able to prevent people finding bun c-at, I said. We travelled fnj three years all over . Now Zealand, Mr. Moko snswered, "without anyone reicopiising nnd if we could do that in his own country, wo can do it beife. on the boat on which we travelled foj° two months pone of the Europeans discovered him, small os tho scope the decks was. ! k Bouquet for Eaiana"u Wife. "Probably it was with the 'idea of camouflaging their leader and enabling him to move about undisturbed that oo krge a party came with him. Mrs. Ratana and their young son «,ie with him. T fancy that Mrs. Ratana was tho handsome woman in the hotel lounge to whom another woman handed the bunch of. English rosea I had brought for the head of the women's section, but ihe did not indicate that fact." After a reeital of his personal impressions of the party, in the oourse of which rc refers to soma of tho younger women as "typical Maori beau tie".!." the (writer states that , Mr. Moko told him that "Ratana will not see any European journalists. 'During the five years I have been with him he has not seen one. All theijr information comes through me. Ho v keeps himself apart, for be has work to do, and if it wera allowed he would bo kept busy with visitors. During tha year 1921 two thousand. Europeans and Americans came to New Zealand hoping to see him, bat people must write to him when they want to be healed. All his work is diono by correspondence.'' /■:-;: The Necessity-sorSPaiUi. Asked "whether Ratana would continue his work of; healing in England, the secretary said that depended on the applications" made to him. ; 'The applicants must have faith. "If he had been here last week,-' the interviewer asked, "do you : i think he could have healed a child I was snjcious about. who died of meningitis?" .■ijv "If she had faith he might have done." "But she was unconsriouji; how could ahe have faith T" -'Then if her parents had- faith.: There must be faith. It is the faith that does it, not Ratana." Ho added, that during the past three years Katisna had received 165,000 letters from sufferers in many parts of the world, and iOO.OOO of them had received benefit; . Mr. Moko said that Ratana refused to accept money from any of the people he Ihis healed. The money was always retnrned. . Altogether a hundred thousand pounds had been returned, most of it. to England and America, but a large sum to . other countries. "We have not sent back quite all of it," said Mr. Moko, "Somfc- ; ■ times when it has been in notes, of foreign currency we have Kept - a note as a souvenir." ' Another interesting statement by Mr. Moko wa3 that ' 'out- of the 52>,C00 Maori inhabitants of New Zealand, 40,000 now mnza themselves under the spiritual : ' leadership of Ratana." -■ -.v....