AGED MAORI'S DEATH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23115, 13 August 1938, Page 22

AGED MAORI'S DEATH

MRS. M. A. MATHIESON MEMORIES OF EARLY DAYS [by telegraph—own correspondent] HAWERA, Friday The death occurred yesterday of a well-known resident o£ South Taranaki, Mrs. M. A. Mathieson, known to tha Maori people as Mary Ann Hawai-iki, at the age of 91. Her life was spent wholly in New Zealand. She had a personal knowledge of tlio Maori prophets Te Whiti and Tohu, and remembered when the first sod of the railway was turned in Taranaki. Among her recollections of the early davs in New Zealand was the existence at "Taranaki of a whaling station. Mrs. Mathieson traced her parentage from information given her by a member of the crew on the boat commanded by her father, Air. John Hunt. She learned that tlio vessel was ultimately broken up, and that it lormed part "of the Queen Street wharf at Auckland Mr. Hunt was then engaged in hewing timber at Mercury Bay. When Mrs. Mathieson and her mother first came to Taranaki they resided at Parihaka, being members of the Ngati-Tanewai, a sub-hapu of the Ngats-Ruanui tribe. As a young woman Mrs. Mathieson was a nurse among the Maori people, and looked npon as a Maori doctor.