MAORI HEROINES. "HE WAHINE TO A."

Otago Witness, Issue 2536, 22 October 1902, Page 70

MAORI HEROINES. "HE WAHINE TO A."

(For the Witness.)

By James Cow ax, Auckland.

In the schoolbooks in my boyhood's days there used to be an affecting story of a Highland mother's devotion. Caught in a wild winter snowstorm on her way homewards, she stripped herself of her shawl and most of her clothing, and ■wrapped her infant child therein, and after stowing it away snugly in a sheltered cleft in the rocky hillside she rushed, thus scantily clad, into the snow again, to seek help for her litt'.e one. In the morning she was found frozen and lifeless ; bub when the outer coverings were taken off the -wellprotected bundle, of infant humanity found by the wayside, "the babe looked up and sweetly smiled." She had given up her life for her child. Of that olden tale of the Scottish mother's self-sacrifice I was reminded .when 1 read that press telegram the other day of the Urewera woman's perilous adventure on the forest ranges of Huiarau. She was travelling on foot, carrying her 'baby, from the shores of Lake Waikaremoana to the Native village of Kuatahuna, the central settlement of the Uiewera country. The distance was 20 miles, through an awfully rugged bush district ; the road the roughest of bush tracks. A heavy snowstorm came on. The woman made her way to the most sheltered place she could find in the forest, and there she remained for nearly three days, without fire or food, until the storm abated. When she reached Kuatahuna she was almost dead witli cold and exhaustion. She had, however, shielded her infant so well that it didn't suffer. " The woman has now recovered." Bald and void of detail though this tele- , graphic narrative is, it is none the less a touching example of privation v and maternal love, as touching in all but the sequel as the sad tragedy of the Highland mother. r I cal well imagine the situation of that j poor half-frozen "wahine" in the terrible bnow-bKzKard on the sierras of Huiarau ; for I have been there myself — am one. of the few pekehas who have travelled that mountain trail between Ruatahuna and the great silent lake of Waikaremoana. My pilgrimage was, however, in the genial summer weather, when the creeks were comparatively low and the tracks dry, and my travelling mate was an old but active Maori ex- warrior — one of Te Kooti's fighting men — and as we camped by the forestshaded beach of the lake we had a cheery fire going to warm ourselves and scare away the prowling unseen "taipos" of the bush. But picture the plight of that brave Maori motlier. B.u-cfooted and thinly clad— with her baby bluns; at Tipv bp.ck in v shawl, its little black head and blight beady eyes peering out over the toi'.ing shoulders — she plods away up the langts, now descending into deep gorge*, fording waist deep swift rivers of icy coldness ; then un the narrow, slippery bush track ; up and up into tbe cloudy heights of tbe mountain*, two thousand feet above the lake We I—the1 — the war road of the olden figh'injr days, the only road even, to-day from Waikaiemoir.a to the secluded valley of Ru;it.ruuna> mid the plains of Galatea ' Presently <h p howling storm rushes ■ down and bii-vjs with it th*"snow; such | innws too. as f.ill in these ffild ranges, i where i/i the »v;ir limes the Government ; forces of friendly Natives and the bar- ' b.irous bands of Te Kooli were alike snowed up for days ;uid lost men through the sheer cold. Darkness fulls while ihe poor mother ( is still struggling up the mountain way ; | the cheacted snow piles up on the tree boughs and heaps in deepening masses wheie the branches allow it to sift through. Undei an over-arching tref she cru\v'.«-, shivi'iing to the. bone ; >vet all 3ut the shciwl and the precou« content*. A ravage wilderness of forest clitf and creek sepe xatsg h&r f(om. U& ftfiaftilt habituUsm oi

man, many miles away. She has no food, for she had reckoned on making Ruatahuna in time for the people's evening meal ; no matches to light a fire. So there, through the howling black night, she huddles, her darling little whimpering "potiki" pressed tightly to the only warm part of her body, her bosom. Still falls the enow ; falls all night long. The sough of the wintry wind, the thunderous roar of a near-by waterfall in the rock-strewn gorge below, the crack of the branches breaking under the weight of snow — these are the voices of that terrible night. The mother croons to her child a sad little "waiata, 1 " a Maori lullaby,, a mournful song whose thin cadence blends weirdly with the stormy terrors of the night. There is no sleep for her ; tlie cold would keep one awake even alongside a bivouac fire, and she is afraid to let slumber come to her, for in it there mar be death for both her and the child. At dawn she bunts for such poor foods as the bush may afford — the moss-like wharawhara lichen, or the fern tree's pith. Then such another night, and another day and another night. The mother almost gives up hope, but wraps her baby all the closer in its thick shawl, and prays to the pakeha God and perhaps, too, murmurs some half-for-gotten pagan Maori incantation for life and safety. In the ni^ht time she sees dreadfjil visions — grinning distorted "tipua" and demons' and uncanny " patupaiarehe" dance to and fro among the grim threatening tree trunks, and ghostly voices chant wailing dirges up in the creaking snow-laden branches. At last the rky clears ; she kilts her wet gown again, swings her poor littla "potiki" on to her shoulders, and tramps on with frost-bitten feet ovei range and through creeks and over fallen trees, till at last the dark forest leaves her, and away down in the green, open valley before her lie the totara-bark-roofed whares of Ruata.huna. th-3 great carved house oi Mataatua, and the steam-wreaths curling ir the frosty air from the- uncovered fooJ-hanjyis. She staggers down to the little mayae, more than half-dead, and as the wandering people run to meet lier with pitying ejaculations, she falls half-fainting to the ground at their feet, but murmurs as she falls : " E — e ! Kua. ora te tamaiti ! " (The child is saved !) Brave Maori mother! It vra. an experience that woul'l hive killed nine out of t<?n while women. But there is many another instance of the endurance and courage of the wahine Maori. Deeds of wai as well as of adventure by birsli ami stoim and flood, for the bluelipped fair ones of Maoriland could — and can still if need be — fight as well as the m?n. Some instances of Maori femininity rising to the heroic occur to me. There is the doughty romance of my old friend Hori Ngakapa and his good wife Sarah Puna. Hori is a deeply-tattooed old rangatira. with a white head of leonine ruggedness; he dwells on his 'ancestral lands at Puawhcnua, on the shores of the Hauraki Gulf. When the Waikato war of 1863 began, Hori took his .stone mere and bis double-barrelled gun and set out on the warpath at the head of a band of young bloods of his tribe, the Ngatiwhanaunga. At Martin's Clearing, near Drury, be ambuscaded a detachment of the 18th Royal Irish Regiment, under Captain Ring, who .were escorting a stores convoy through the bush to the froat at the Queen's Redoubt. Five soldiers were killed and 11 wounded. In the fight Hori himself very nearly lost the number ot his mess. He had just firrd at a soldier, and, both hi» barrels being empty, hi was starling to reload when another soldier covered him «vitht hi* rifle, and was about to fire. Instantly H'n-i's brave wifi Hera (&arali), who accompanied him, jumped out and stood in front of her husband. '•£ j-^l Gei GMi of. tk&t I" ;yell«4

the astonished soldier. "Clear out or Til ■ shoot you!" But he hesitated to fire on a woman. "Oh, shoot away, pakeha, shoot away !" < cried Sarah. Meanwhile Hori had leaped behind the shelter of a tree, where he reloaded at his leisure ; and Sarah, when she saw that lier husband was safe, followed his example. And both he and his spirited wahine still live to tell the story, though that "was by no means their last battle against the pakeha. And now, in the -winter of their days, they dwell in peaceful serenity in their snug raupo cabin at Puawhenua ; and, unlike some of his neighbours, Hori doesn't "hammer" his wife! He remembers too "vrell that touch-and-go incident in the historic ambuscade at Martin's Clearing. In a lonely little settlement near Lake Taupo there lives at the present time a bent old dame, who will tell you that her name is Ahumai, and show you a hand terribly crippled; by a bullet-wound, inflicted nearly 40 years ago. Ahumai is the sister of the fine old warrior chief Hitiri te Paerata, one of^ the garrison who so nobly defended the Orakau sPa in 1864 against the British forces in the Waikato war: and her name enshrines the memory of a deed as romantic and heroic as that of any Maid of Saragosra. Many "women were besieged with the men in the Maori redoubt, women with their hair cropped short, their breasts inflamed with Amazonian courage. They made «artridges, and loaded the guns — aye, and fired them too. . Ahumai, then a young and bouncing woman, was witu her relatives of the Ngatiraukawa tribe, who formed a section of the valorous little garrison. About midday on the third day of the siege, General Cameron sent a summons calling on the rebels to surrender. They refused. Then, said the General through the interpreter: "If you persist in fighting, send out your women and children, so that they may not die." Up rose dauntless Ahumai amongst her women inside the earthen walls of the beleaguered pa, her eyes flashing with unconquerable battle pride, a gun in her hand, • cartridge-belt strapped round her waist, and, voicing her fellow wahines, said: j "If our husbands and brothers are to die. what profit is it to us that we should live? ' Let us die with the men !" | This brave resolve of the women put fresh life into the .men, and, though starving and thirst-racked, they renewed the defence with the desperate valour of despair. In the fierce firing which followed, and in the Avild rush for life when the Maoris at last left the doomed pa, the brave Ahumai •was wounded in four places by the British troops. One bullet struck her in the right aide, going through her body and coming out on the left. Another ball hit her right 6houlder and came out at the back, and she was also shot through the hand, wrist, and arm. Yet- the valiant Ahumai, sorely wounded as she was, escaped; and it' was only the following year that she performed another deed which deserves to live in history. She was at Tataroa, a little village in the bush just to the north of Taupo, with an armed body of her people, in whose minds •till rankled the bitterness of their defeat at Orakau. At their head was the savage old Hauhau priest and chief Te Ao-Katoa ("The Whole World "). Quite unexpectedly a wandering pakeha, accompanied by a Maori guide, innocently rode into the kainga, and before he knew where he was lie found himself surrounded by truoulent Hauhaus with menacing guns " and tomahawks. The white man was Lieutenant Meiide, of the Royal Navy, who had left his ship (the Curacoa, I think) at Auckland , while he undertook a trip through the dis- ! turbed districts to Taupo in company with Major Mair and others, and, having left | them, he was now returning. j Some of the Natives were for immediately killing the pakeha— this bird that had flown straight into the snare of the fowler. But Te Ao-Katoa, the "prophet, priest, and long" of that murderous taua, insisted on laving the thing done in proper order. So first of all the gathering — m«n, .romen, and children — marched with wild chants round the niu, the sacred pole, on which the warflags were flying, and "The Whole World" recited his wild Hauhau incantations. Then i came the korero, and things looked bad for Meade, who sat beside his guide, with a sentry standing at their backs ostenta- ! tiously feeling the edge of his short-handled tomahawk. The speeches were fierce and bloodthirsty ; there were cries of "Kill the pakeha!" A few more moments would Lave seen a grim tragedy in that village square. But just at the height of the barbarous council, a woman wrapped in a shawl rose from the squatting crowd, ■walked slowly across th« marae, and without a word sat down at the young naval officer's feet. She was Ahumai ; her terrible wounds of the Orakau siege only just healed. She had abundant reason for bitterness of eoul, for her father and uncle and brother had been killed at Orakau. Yet she was generous enough to forgive all that and to go out of her way to champion. the friend'ess pakeha when the grave was opening for him. Her action and her high tribal rank redeemed Meade's life; he and his guide were allowed to leave the kainga in safety. Brave Ahumai had saved the pakeha 1 s head. The few Europeans who may notice that tattooed grey-headed dame as" she hobbles into Tanpo townshin monthly for her oldage pension only see, perhaps, an ordinary decrepit old wahine, and the ignorantly fastidious "new-chum" tourist perchance gives her a wide berth because she is "just an old Maori woman." But in Ahumai I lecognise a truly heroic spirit, a woman ■who could face death without flinching, and defy all in order to save the life of one of her enemies; simply because he -was friendless and no arm was stretched out to rescue. Long may Wave Ahumai live to draw her little pension ; and when she passes to the gates of the Reinga, may this pakeha scribe be alive to pen a last tangi to the memory of the heroine of Orakau. She is what the Maoris — slow as they are to compliment their womenfolk — delight to

Instances of Maori women's heroism in other quarters than the old-time battlefields are not wanting. Most New Zealanders have, I suppose, heard of Julia Martin(Huria Matenga), the plucky wahine of Wakapuaka, Nelson, who in 1863 swam to the rescue of the shipwrecked crew of the American brigantine Delaware, and at the risk of her life succeeded (with the assistance of her husband and another man) in saving the sailors, by £aking a line to the beach from the vessel and then assisting the ship's company ashore along it. Julia is still alive to tell of her cold swim that wintry morning, and she fully deserves her sobriquet, the New Zealand Grace Darling. Here, too, up Hauraki way, we have a Maori heroine, a wiry old lady named Rahuite Kiri, who onc3 distinguished herself in an even more perilous marine adventure than that fine swim by Julia Martin. Rahui's husband, Tenetahi, a well-known Maori mariner and scow-owner on the Auckland coast, was sailing merrily along one day in his crack cutter, the Rangatira, past the rocky shores of the Great Bander Island, * when a sudden, fierce squall tore down on them, and struck the cutter with irresistible force, and before Tene could let go the halliards the vessel capsized and sank. Tene and his wife, who was with him in the capacity of sailorman, were left swimming for Ihcir lives. For hours — how many they could never tell — they were in the water, vainly endeavouring to reach the island, before they were picked up. Tene, a strong, burly fellow, became so exhausted that he gave up, and that would have been the last of him had it not been for the pluck and endurance of Rahui. She supported her husband, floating and swimming, until she too was almost drowning, worn out by the superhuman task. Rescue came just in the very nick of time. Neither Tene nor Rahui talk much about that day when both so nearly made food for the barracouta and the shark that haunt the Barrier coasts. But old Tene's eyes shone with a rather unwonted, tender light, tough sea-dog as he was, on one particular occasion when I spoke of it; and looking across at Raliui, the blue-tattooed descendant of a long line of great-hearted rangatiras and chief tainesses, he said, in the quaint English that was one of his characteristics : "Ah, my ol' woman, he slick to me like what you call t'e brick, ne? He t'e good ol' woman, te wahine toa !"