IAORI WAR DAYS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 71, Issue 6141, 26 September 1945, Page 5

IAORI WAR DAYS

pMPSES OF EARLY KIHIKIHI ASCRIPTION BY JAMES COWAN The following early history of vihikihi, “Hui-Te-Rangiora,” and the Maori war days, written by James Cowan, the noted historian, is reprinted from the souvenior booklet of the diamond jubiiee celebrations of the Kihikihi Presbyterian Church: Kihikihi township has associations linking .primitive-made past with the iWlverfidrous frontier settlement era of half a century ago and which identify also the site of the Presbyterian Church with a storied ground famous in the tradition and poetry of the olden people. For many generations Kihikihi —(the flam'd' means cicada or locust) —was one of the principal homes of the Ngati-Mania-poto, and at the time of the coming of the first English missionaries and traders to the Upper Waikato it was the most northerly large village of that powerful tribe, a kind of Maniapoto salient thrust into Waikato territory. Here in the days before the Waikato War Rewi Maniapoto had his home; and here stood th e celebrated council house or wharerununga of the tribe, a large thatched building decorated with wood-carvings of ancestral figures and PolynesianMaori deities. This house, the centre and focus of social and political life in Kihikihi, stood on the gentle slope a little to the south-west of the ground on which the Presbyterian Church stands. Its name was “ Hui-te-rangiora,” a beautiful and meaningful name famous in the ancient legendary lore of the race. It claims a little explanation before I go on to sketch the story of Kihikihi up to the time of the building of our first church on this spot. The classic name is one that should be honoured by pakeha as well as Maori. Rangiora is an ancient Polynesian name; it signifies health, beauty, well-being and joyfulness, and a great deal more. “ Huit-te-rangiora ” means a place w here all those desirable qualities are assembled. Traditions narrated to me by Ngati-Maniapoto wise men now passed away tell that in the shadowy past in the ancient home of Maoris there was a certain great and sacred house of instruction of the name, a kind of temple, a sacred place blessed by the gods, the assembly place of all manner of wisdom and delightful things, or which the high chief and priest was a wise man of supernatural attributes named Miru.

He was sometimes described as ar atua or god; he is also spoken of as

a Patupaiarehe, a fairy-like or spiritual being. The gieat sacred house stood in the place called Te Tatau-o-te-Po, otherwise “ The Door of the Other World.’’ Here was the home of arts and learning; Miru taught all kinds of prayers and charms and ceremonies. Arts of skill and the joyous games and amusements that bring pleasure to mankind were also taught here; everything that the wise people thought it desirable to teach and preserve was handed down here from generation to generation. A most curious bit -of folklore this and one of much beauty when unfolded in full. There is an ancient poem which enumerates the branches of knowledge taught in the sacred house at the gate of the nether world. For many a generation there have been carved houses of this name in the headquarters of Ngati-Maniapoto. “ Hui-te-rangiora ” was the name given to the building in which Rewi and the tohunga Hopa te Rangianini—(well I remember that intellectual old chief with the wonderfully tattooed face, whom I often saw in my youthful days at Kihikihi)—and other tribal leaders met to discuss political and religious and social problems in the community. Those problems and topics were mostly peaceful until the tragedy of the wars that began in 1860 and brought ruin to the industrious old agricultural age in Waikato.

The late Te Huia Raureti, of Mangatoatoa, Puniu River, the last Ngati-Maniapoto survivor cf the defence of Orakau Pa, gave me in 1920 his account of the momentous deliberations in the Kihikihi council house in 1860 when the first Taranaki War began, the preliminary to the Waikato War. When the news of the British attack on Wiremu Kingi at the Waitara reached Waikato- th e runanga of Ngati-Maniapoto* discussed the question of sending a contingent to Taranaki to the assistance of * the .tribes there.; j This; -runanga coflsftted of Rewi Maniapoto (th e tumuaki or head of the council), his cousins Te Winitana Tupotahi and Raureti te Huia Paiaka (father of my friend the narrator), Epiha Tokohihi, Hopa (Job) te Ranginanini, Pahata te Kiore, Matena te Reoreo (the clerk to the council), and several other chiefs. The councillors assembled in “ Hui-te-Rangiora ” did not act hastily. They decided to despatch a delegation to Taranaki to investigate the rights and wrongs of the case. Raureti Paiaka and Pahata were the chiefs chosen. They travelled to the Waitara by way of Mokau. Their investigations satisfied them that the Maori cause was just. On the return of the delegates the council again met to consider their report. Rewi then went down to Ngaruawahia to lay the matter before old King Potatau (father of Tawhiao) and his council. The king consented to a war party of Ngati-

Maniapoto marching to Taranaki to’ assist Wiremu Kingi and his Atiawa; but he forbade Wjaikato to go for the present. So a strong war party armed with gun and tomahawk assembled at Kihikihi, and after a war dance in front of the council house they set out for the Waitara, and arrived there in time to take part in the battle of Puke-te-Kauere, in which the British force lost heavily. The fiery Rewi was prominent there. Kihikihi remained the place of council and the gathering place of war parties as long as the Taranaki wars lasted. Then the meetings here became more important still, for after the eviction of Mr Gorst from Te Awamutu in 1863 war was brought nearer home.

The printing press of the “ Pihoihoi Mokemoke, ’’ Gorst’s Government newspaper-gazette, was brought to Kihikihi and placed in “ Hui-te-iangi-ora ” until it was decided what to do with it. It was soon carted off to the Wjaipa at Te Rore, and thence was returned to the Government, together with the type. Ail now was war preparation and turmoil. Kihikihi, Orakau, and Rangiaowhia were the chief centres of food supplies in the Waipa district, and all the available man, woman, and child power was engaged in getting together the commissariat for the campaign, from the cultivation grounds, the eel streams, and the bush. Then Kihikihi soon was deserted by all except the young children and the very old people; all the rest were off to the war. As the British troops slowly fought their way up the Waikato and across the Waipa Plains, most of the NgatiManiapoto fell back on Kihikihi, after the great Paterangi Pa was evacuated. On 23rd February, 18’64, Kihikihi saw the first British bayonets glittering in the sun. A strong reconnaissance force of soldiers marched in from Te Awamutu. No attempt was made to defend Kihikihi; like Rangiaowhia village, it had no entrenchments. The Ngati-Mania-poto retired before the troops, driving off their cattle across the Puniu. The village was looted by the soldiers, who set fire io the council house, and “ Hui-te-rangiora ” went up in smoke and flames. Thereafter the history of Kihikihi is pakeha. The pretty village, with the many peach groves, was a camping place for the troops for many months, and a large and strong redoubt was built on the highest ground, commanding a wide view all over the country. The redoubt was first garrisoned by detachments of an Imperial regiment and afterwards by a force of the Ist Waikato Militia under Captain (afterwards Colonel) T. M. Haultain. From here

and from Te Awamutu the tisoops moved on 31st March to the attack on Orakau Pa, the story of which does not need recounting here. • After the war the Kihikihi Redoubt continued to be garrisoned by troops, first the Militia and then, aftefl 1868, by the Armed Constabulary. It remained a military post until 1883-4, twenty years after it was built; in fact, the last Constabulary detachment was withdrawn only shortly before the building of our pioneer Presbyterian Church. The name- of the redoubt hill, by the way, should not be forgotten. Te Huia Raureti gave it to me. as Te Rata-tu (“ The Standing Rata Tree ”), probably- because when the ancestors of thefr present people first settled here a»tall and. conspicuous tree crowned the hill, where a pa was built. The redoubt unfortunately was demolished about 1886 by the residents of the township; unluckily, the value of historic places was n.ot realised then. My contemporaries in Kihikihi will remember well this redoubt, with its deep trench and its thick- earthwork parapet. We boys who attended the old Kihikihi one-room school which stood beside the main street, near the post office and facing redoubt hill, now and again invaded the barrackrooms when the Constabulary were all away camped for road-making and we had some lively little battles with sods and bricks, one side attacking from the trench and the other defending the walls, crumbling away in places, and the narrow trench-plank at the topen gateway. The place where the old entrenchment stood is on the crown of the hill behind the police station. There were lively scenes, too, in the township at Native Land Courts, when there were large encampments of the Ngati-Raukawa and other tribes in and around the place. There was a greatly exciting week in 1881 when King Tawhiao and six hundred cf his people, many of them armed with guns, camo in on their peacemaking march through the frontier townships. When the old king, riding in his buggy, escorted fore and aft by his armed bodyguard, on foot, came round the corner between Anderson’s and Corboy’s hotels and marched past the little school on their way to Rewi’s house, our good old schoolmaster, a*stocky, sturdy Nova Scotian Highlander, Mr Norman Matheson, Jiped us up on the fence and, wavirg his hat, shouted for cheers for the Maori king. We hiphoorayed rvfith him and watched the martial procession of Kingites, feathers in their hair, a weapon of some kind in every man’s hand, pass along to ’the new “ Hui-te-rangiora,” the fine big house that had just been built by the Government for old patriot Revi. Manga was the name by which he -was more generally known now; be had taken a new name in the war-time. All the Maoris in this shawl-kilted brigade were Hauhaus then. They

were extremely punctilious in their religious ritual, devout in their observance of the Tariao, Rangatu, Pae-mariere,’ and other forms of the faith that had its beginning in the Pai-marire war-cult of the sixties. Night and morning—in fact, several times a day—the faithful were called to prayer. Each tribe had its own quarter's, round Rewi’s house, and “ Hui-te-Rangiora ” heard the solemn musical chanting ®i the Kingites’ prayers. There was a strange wild thrill in those devotions, the cadence

of many voices rising and falling in perfect unison. Often by way of variety there would be a vigorous haka, as the people paraded to welcome visitors. All the old tattooed rangatiras of the King Country were there, with their young men. It was the first time many of them had come cut since the war. There were some warriors who dared not come out. Te Kooti and sundry others were still “ wanted ” men, until the General Amnestry of 1883. How sedate and settled these times seem since those frontier days when the King Country was a wild, mysterious land, purely Maori, all but unknown to the pakeha I The building cf the Presbyterian Church on the gentle isouthward-looking slant of Kihikihi that once 'rang with war dances and Hauhau chantings marked in its way the end of the primitive old ways and the beginning of the new. Now \ye may regard the successor of the original church as a new “ Hui-te-Rangfioraf’ the abode of wisdom and light, the place where the treasures of knowledg eare imparted by the sacred instructors. Of the early ministers who preached in their pioneer pulpit of Presbyterianism in the township I remember only one to whom I listened in my boyhood, and the memory of his earnest face and luminous eyes is with me still. He was lean and ascetic; his thin black beard accentuated the pallor of his features. The scholarly Rev. James Bruce had come

to New Zealand for his health. His spirit burned too ardently for that frail frame. The robust climate and the rough travelling carried him off. As the Maoris say of a beloved son who died young, “ E hara ia he tamaiti no tenei ao ” (He was not a child of this world). THE MUNICIPAL ORCHESTRA Sir, —I was very interested in a letter which appeared in your paper in reference to the Municipal Orchestra. I think it was splendid of the writer to make public expression of his admiration, but what a reflection on Te Awamutu folk, who have to be tcld from outside what a splendid social amenity we have in the town. I sincerely hope that the next time the Orchestra puts on such a musical treat as it did recently that the good people of Te Awamutu will get firsthand knowledge of the type of music, these artists produce. No one can tell me that we are not lovers of good music in this district, and I am quite sure that, once heard, people will support the* Orchestra when it presents another concert. Our mutual friend, A. Growler, has stirred us up once or twice in no uncertain terms about our lack of appreciation of good music, and I think we ought to take some notice of this rooster, because I know that he appreciates good music as well as good pictures (paintings). Let us look at the set-up. Here we have a body of enthusiastic ladies and gentlemen spending hours at practice, not so much for their own pleasure as for ours; in the conductor we have a man whose duties during the day are arduous enough to preclude any other activities at night, but we all know his profound love of music; therefore we should realise the amount of hard work he has put in to keep the Orchestra up to its magnificent standard. Well, good people, let us help iffie Orchestra by showing our appreciation. I am going to pay for the next advertisement announcing the Orchestra’s next appearance in public, and you can come along, hear this talented musical combination, and judge for yourselves.—l am, etc., SILVER HILL.