ROTOITI.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19892, 10 March 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

ROTOITI.

A RAID OF A CENTURY AGO.

BY FERGUS DUNLOP.

Rotorua, Rotoiti, Rotoehu, Rotoma, the twin lake, the little lake, the dirty lake, the clean lake—that is the string of lakes that one passes on the left hand as one's car plunges and bounds and swings over and along the pumice road from Rotorua to the Bay of Pleity. Though all are essentially, of course, the same—sheets of fresh water in pumice basins—each seems to have its own definite characteristic, more or less implied in the name. Rotorua, with its flat low shores, from which rises the steam of geysers and mudhoies, its low circle of fern-hills at whose bases gather the clear evening mists, the island of Mokoia standing solitary in the centre, and the town set. ding its tall spirals of smoke into the air, is somehow suggestive of quiet and warmth and comfort. .

Rotoehu, the dirty lake, is actually dirty. Its waters are murky, and wash along shores fringed with raupo and brown water weed. On all sides the bush hangs low to the water's edge—or rather to the reed beds, but there is no reflection in the waters, no gleam, to clearness. Rotoma, on the other hand, the clear lake, is also surrounded to the water's edge with bush. There are no reeds, but water of an unforgettable clearness and "blueness reflects in diaphanous depths the glow and gleam of the rata, the hinau, the pohutukawa and the swinging clematis. Its beauty is unsurpassable. But Rotoiti, the small lake, differs if most ways from all the others. In the first place its name belies it. It is not small, but the largest. Again, though most of the lakes are circular and present an even coastline, Rotoiti is long and i. arrow, a great deep cleft through the country, a coast line broken in bays and headlands, peninsulas and islands. Do you yearn for flat shores and reaches of shallows, for geysers, fern-hills and steam-jets, as at Rotorua ? At Rotoiti also here they are. Do you admire rather tho bush-clad shore, the rocky headlands and the reed banks of Rotoehu ? Thei. seek them also at Rotoiti. Is your heart set on the clearness and tho gleam, the colour and the beauty of Rotorua? At Rotoiti also you shall find it all. Rotoiti has in 'its timo been the scene of much activity, and the "urupas," or graveyards, that stand all round its shores mark the resting places of generations of a large population of days gone by. For it 1 these places where nature is kindly and forbearing the Maoris flourished exceedingly. The warm clear waters lured the crayfish and the whitebait, the sheltered frostless shores and easily worked pumice soil suited admirably the taro and potato, while the bush swarmed with native game . and berries sweet to the native palate. An annual visit to the seashore, not far away, for a winter supply of dried fish, relieved all commissariat anxiety. Hongi's Said of 1823. But Rotoiti was, in the day of its glory, swept by two storms of destruction that left it, it' early "pakeha" or civilised times, almost d eso ' a te; the one was the epidemic of 1810, the other, Hongi's raid of 1823. Hongi seems to have had more excuse for attacking the Arawa tribe of Rotorua than was usual to his diplomacy. A war party of his valued kinsmen and braves had been done to death by Arawas at a little island in Lake Rotokakahi. They had been foully murdered at the instigation of that wiliest of savages, Rauparaha, himself afterwards to play no small part upon the old New Zealand stage. It seems that Rauparaha's people had giver grave offence to Hongi's tribe of Ngapuhi, and a party from the Bay of Islands set forth to seek for Rauparaha to discuss the matter with him. Rauparaha happened to be among the Arawas at the time, at their pa on the Green Lake. The Ngapuhi party arrived, and, unaware of his presence, called across the water to Arawa, "Bring your canoes and take us over to you." Arawa demurred. "You will eat us," they replied apprehensively." "Why, no," replied Ngapuhi. with gestures deprecatory and conciliatory. "We seek larger game. You are safe from us." A long discussion ensued, echoitg in sonorous Maori all the long summer afternoon across the still blue water, and Arawa agreed at last to send canoes. It was done; but after one half of Ngapuhi were safely on the island and the other half ashore, Rauparaha, by vile arts, flattery and promises whispered in the Arawa chieftain's ear, perverted his integrity and honour. Ngapuhi were slain or.' the island in the presence of their comrades on the shore, who, vainly with threats and imprecatious firing of their muskets at the murderers, ultimately returned and told Hongi the tale. Therefore it was that the end of the following April (1823) found Hongi and his fleets and allies paddling, poling ar.d hauling up the Pongokawa stream, the outlet from Rotoehu. The stream for several miles runs under ground, and, Hongi, arrived at the great gushing springs and caverns of its emergei.ee, hauled his canoes ashore, and, clearing a road over the saddle dragged them to Rotoehu. Crossing this lake, he cleared a track through the low neck of bush between, and dragged them to Rotoiti, about one and a-half miles away. Thence to Mokoia, in Rotorua lake, where the Arawas were assembled for safety, it was water all the way, and to Hongi with his muskets the rest was easy. A Curious Monument.

There is one tale told of the campaign that is worth recording, it seems that, at the first onset, a, party ol' Arawas of rank escaped the muskets and, after a wild canoe race across Ilotoiti, were overtaken in the bush by Hongi's men. Here a chief named Te Aiuotu showed a great heroism. Single-handed if a narrow defile, he held back the advancing hordes of the enemy long enough to secure the escape of his comrades before ho himself fell.

But now comes the comic opera touch of absurdity that gives an air of the fantastic and u'idiculous to the most grave legends of the Maoris of the early pioneer period. The mot ument chosen to mark the grave of Te Amotu and commemorate his deed was an old top hat, annually and reverently renewed upon his grave. He fell in 1823. In 1848, Arawa were out of hats for the ceremonial, and made a bargair. 1 with Mr. Spencer, a missionary, to supply them while he remained in the district. In 1874 Captain Gilbert Mair, hearing the legend, visited the grave in the forest, and found the top hat duly' in place. So the fact is reliably vouched. \ Why the top hat was chosen, I do not know. Possibly the chief wore one in the hour of his glory. If so, it would have been his only apparel, barring tattoo marks. It was about this date that Mr. Punch used to depict in caricatures the King of the cannibal islands in a top hat. It may be that the story of Amotu reached Mr. Punch's ears, and inspired the idea. It is more likely that an old and well-thumbed copy of "Punch", car-' ried on some whaler or mission schooner, had fallen into Te Amotu's hands, and created in his mind the impression that the hat was the most suitable garment to nrfnrn the princely poll of a "rar patira." Either sequence of cause and effect is possible. However that may be, ifc is a curious enough memorial. To the ?ail his coranot, to the king his crown, fo Amotu his hat. "Si mormmentum renuirjs, ecce galcam!" Behold, the helm!_