RELIC OF TE KOOTI.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21131, 14 March 1932, Page 6

RELIC OF TE KOOTI.

SCHOONER'S OLD ANCHOR. reappearance at chathams ANCIENT LAW OF " TAPU." When the steamer Tees pulled up her anchor in Waitangi Bay at the Chatham Islands recently, another anchor came up with it—the old-fashioned anchor of a sailing ship. The Maoris screamed that it was tapu, and should not be touched; and when it was being got aboard it struck one of the crew on the head. It looked as if the curse (hat was put upon it by Te Kooti, more than 60 years ago, still held. For if the anchor is the one that the Maoris and old residents think it is, it turns back the pages to a piece of romantic early history. Captain A. Anderson, master of the Tees, which arrived at Lyttelton last week, told the story to a Sun reporter. So old and rusty that when it was being got aboard the cable dropped oS it, the anchor that was fouled by the Tess* anchor is thought to be a relic of the seizure of the schooner Rifleman by the famous Maori chief Te Kooti, who, with a large party of other Maoris, was a prisoner at the Chathams. Kooti had been deported to the Chathams on a charge of having been in communication with Ilauhau rebels. After two years—a year longer than his sentence —he was resentful of his treatment. A commissioner had found that the Maoris imprisoned with the chief at the Chathams were badly treated, and that they resented the Government's having broken its promise to let them go in a year.

The prisoners, Captain Anderson, who gathered the story from residents, says, were placed in the charge of the settlers and of three guards. The schooner Rifleman, 82 tons, was chartered by the New Zealand Government in 1868 to take provisions to the islands.

Te Kooti, who afterwards proved himself to be an extremely daring and resourceful commander, decided to grasp the opportunity that the presence of the schooner offered. He and his men on July 4 overpowered the settlers and the guard, and took their gold and silver. They boarded the Rifleman, taking her crew by surprise, and gave the crew thejr choice between taking the 160 fighting men and 130 women and children back to New Zealand, and dying suddenly. The crew decided to live. Tradition and History.

Here there is a difference between the Chathams tradition and history. The islands story is that the captain and crew of the schooner were burned, and the mate forced to go with the escaping Maoris and show them how to handle the ship. The historical account is that only orie of the guards, w ho resisted too strongly, was killed, being hit with a tomahawk. Besides the Rifleman there was another schooner in the bay, and Te Kooti feared that she might be used for pursuit. So he slipped bar anchor, declared her lapu, and watched her run on the rocks as he escaped. The remains of the wreck can be seen on the beach at low wafer, and it is this schooner's anchor, Captain Anderson and the Chatham Islanders believe, which has just been found. And the Maoris of to-day believe that the tapu still holds. Mr. G. S. Cooper, who was sent by the Government to inquire into the seizure of the Rifleman, reported: "Upon looking back on this extraordinary episode in the history of New Zealand, it is difficult lo say whether one's wonder is excited more by the precision, rapidity and completeness with which the enterprise was planned and executed or by the moderation shown in the hour of victory hv a gang of barbarous fanatics, who, in a moment, found their former masters bound at their feet and their lives entirely at their mercy." Sacrifice to the God of Storms. The whole rising and the capture of the ship took only two hours. Head winds soon developed on the voyage, a.'.d Te Kooti had a relative, an old tied up and thrown overboard as a sacrifice to the gods of winds and storms. At once the wind changed, and a week's sailing took the Rifleman to New Zealand. The Maoris landed at Whareongaonga, near Young Nick's Head, Poverty Bay, on July 10, keeping their word and letting the crew go free. Then they went inland, and Te Kooti, keeping his vow of revenge for his imprisonment, became one of the worst problems of the Government. Ultimately he was pardoned, and died 20 years later, peacefully. That is why the anchor that the Tees fished up can be regarded as historically valuable.