AUTHORITY ON MAORIS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20893, 8 June 1931, Page 11

AUTHORITY ON MAORIS.

DEATH OF MR. W. BAUCKE.

" W. 8., OTOROHANGA."

NOTED STUDENT OF RACE,

The death of Mr. William Baucke, of Otorolianga, who has been well known to the reading public as "W. 8., Otorolianga," for the past 20 years, occurred at Otorolianga on Saturday. The career of Air. Baucke, who was in his 84th year, lias been an interesting one. Mr. Baucke had been a regular contributor to the columns of the New Zealand Herald for many years upon matters connected with the history, habits and customs of the Maori race. This was a subject which he made distinctly his own. and on which he was able to speak and write with authority, from a long arid intimate association with, a people whom he loved and whose mental methods ho knew through and through. He was the author of the book "Whero the White Man Treads," which first appeared in serial form in the Herald in 1903, and in more recent years he had been engaged upon the preparation of a volume of reminiscences. Until within a very short time of his death lie continaed and published the writings which had occupied the latter years of his very interesting life. His last contribution to the Herald, in which he recalled rubbing noses with Te Whiti at Parihaka, appeared on April 11 this year. In his letter covering that contribution, which he suggested might, appear in the following Saturday's supplement, he wrote, "Should I see it there I shall know that you are expecting to know why To Whiti offered me his nose, and other matters I think that will interest new readers." The article was published on the date he suggested, but no further communication came from him. Knew Many Languages. Mr. Baucke was a native of the Dominion, having been born at the Chatham Islands on July 7, 1847. His parents hailed from Bavaria. Very early in the history of New Zealand as a British possession they came out as missionaries of the religious body known as the Moravian Brethren, to Christianise the Maoris, landing at Nelson in 1841, and sailing thence to the Chathams, where they carried on their labours among the Morioris for many years. At the Chathams William Baucke learned as a child the Moriori and Maori languages, in addition to English. Recently he was probably the only person living who knew the Moriori language and he was the last link with that vanished race. His ambition as a boy was to become a civil engineer. On the other hand, his father prepared him for the work of South Sea missions. For economic reasons, however, the paternal plan was never carried into effect. At 14 years of ago he was sent to Wellington to school and four years later he returned to the Chathams, where his father and his two associates carried on a sheep station of 50,000 acres, and he became the schoolmaster of both pakeha and native. His thirst for knowledge took him into languages. He learned French, German, Italian, and Greek, Greek in particular, for the sheer love of it. The needs of the life made him smith, carpenter and mechanic. Life in North Island. The vocation of smith came first in his estimation. "It obsessed me," he once said. "I was happy in the work. 1 consider it most rangitira. You must remember that armour-making was a regal occupation at one time." He also became possessed of a wide knowledge of the sea and seamanship. When the family property at the Chathams passed into other hands William Baucke came to the North Island. He settled in the King Country when it was being opened, and, finding a congenial sphere, he became a Maori interpreter. His mana among both pakeha and Maori was great. He was in action in the Maori wars under Von Tempsky, and a slash across his foot was a reminder of those campaigns. His was a rugged exterior, but it enshrined a heart of extraordinary tenderness, a spirit of true fellowship, a mind of remarkable capacity, and, with all this, a natural pride and sensitiveness, the gift of the proud people whence ho sprang. To the last the .Greek classics were his constant study and his unfailing friends. Mr. Baucke's illness was not a long one. Ho collapsed on the pavement at Otorolianga on May 29 and was taken to a private nursing home, from which he returned last Tuesday, apparently in better health. On Saturday afternoon ho had just left his home when he collapsed and died.