WHAT IS A RANGATIRA?

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18398, 16 May 1934, Page 10

WHAT IS A RANGATIRA?

(To the Editor of the Herald.) Sir, —Wo have had, in your_ issue ; of the Bth instant, more “Waitangi ; impressions” from the pen or taiahu of “Tamatea,” and. as I said in my last i letter, they ,are. anything but iinpres- ! sions. It would he truer to call thorn j imprecations, . for they are more. 1 satirical than impressive. Your contributor could have written his so-called , impressions even though lie wore never at Waitangi. it would have been move ! proper ii ibis ipiestion of -Maori chief tainships liad been discussed in a formal ■ debate by the Voting Maori 1 'arty, <>r Seven in a Math i nea spa per, instead of ; being ventilated' in the English press. ; At any rate, to: discuss the matter m a ! formal debate would have the advantage of avoiding any show of animus. I don't want to say much, for this l)e----iitiliifg of Maori chiefs by those whose misfortune it is not to be rangatiras: is nothing new: "Tamat.ea’s” one aim on his last two articles is to attack the pres.seut regime of Maori chiefs, with a view | to introducing a new system in its place, I more pleasing to himself anil his like, j This champion of the new regime, like '■ Don (Quixote, is frantically attacking, I with his taiahu, windmills which appear jto him like giant rangatiras. Briefly, ! ‘'Tamatea” contends the old rangatira, ! the Maori aristocrat, is passing and a 'new kind of rangatira is stepping into his place. It is 94 years since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, and at the end of that period it has fallen to the lot of “Tamatea” to make the discovery. To say there are no rangatiras in New Zealand does not come well from a Maori, unless, of course, it he 1 his wish there were no rangatiras at all. The wish is father to the thought. I dare say if ‘‘Tamatea’,s” identity were known, it would be found that he is akin to the author of articles that appeared in a Maori journal, who gave long pedigrees of chiefs and chieftainesscs, and who took upon himself the invidious task of deciding who were ‘‘paramount chiefs” and who were not. People who write under the disguise of assumed names have the privilege of saying anything they like even against their own convictions. “Tamatea” states “the rangatira is even as other men are,” and asks: “What Maori lias not got blue blood in his veins?” Well, if this he true, why worry? He knows perfectly well some tribes are still very strict in their observance of old customs —they permit only rangatiras to speak on public occasions. The order of the Maori rangatira may have its defects, but God save us from the rule of the upstart! All depends on what “Tamatea” means by the term rangatira. If he means by a rangatira the brute who when hungry ate the fattest in his tribe, who sold tattooed heads for a few shillings to trafficking white men. who gave away tribal lands without the consent of the tribe, who ran away with other people’s wahines (although even to-day that custom is observed by both Maori and pakcha in spite of the Treaty of Waitangi, the Magna Cliarta, and the Ten Commandments), if lie mean this kind of rangatira, then he is right, for the Treaty of Waitangi has eliminated the brute, but if lie mean the mail, “hv Divine right” born to represent, to lead, to guide bis tribe and. if needs be, to perish with it. then T say, with emphasis, the rangatira still holds. It is a well-known Maori saying. “Me rangatira be lion matenga moil kin kore ai koe e whakarerca,” “if perish you must, perish with a rangatira, for then you would not be deserted.” Tile rangatira is born, not made. The Maori people are passing through a crisis just now, and if there should come a crash it would bo the 1 born and natural rangatira, not the usurper, who would survive it.—Yours, etc., R. T. KOH ERE. East Cape.