DAUNTLESS SPIRIT

Taranaki Daily News, 10 June 1931, Page 3

DAUNTLESS SPIRIT

AGED WOMAN’S MEMORIES HARD WORK, FEW PLEASURES. LIFE IN CHATHAM ISLANDS. Memories of the Chatham Islands in the “fifties” and of the Hutt and Wairarapa iu tho early days, were recalled by Mrs. Emma Kibblewhite, of Masterton, in an interview with a representative of the Dominion. Airs. Kibblewhite, who is 81 years of age, was born in Wellington. Her father, Mr. Henry Winteriugham, was a veterinary surgeon and came to the Dominion with Lord Peters, when he brought a string of pure-bred horses out to the colony. Lord Peters returned to England after a few years and his stud was dispersed. The lure of gold then took Mr. Winteringham, snd with him his young family, to Australia, where the Ballarat gold rush had started. His mining operations met with some success, but he turned “the rush” to profit in another way. There was a scarcity of foodstuffs, especially of potatoes. Mr. 'Winteringham saw his chance and, chartering a sailing vessel, commenced trading with the Chatham Islands, where the potato had been introduced, and the natives, Maori and Moriori were engaged in its cultivation. Tho W'interingham family took up their residence in Waitangi Bay. At this time there were only two other families on the island, the Wests and the Hunts, and two German missionaries, Boakie and Hinz. There were also two Spaniards who, with native labour, used to catch. blackfish and boil them down for the oil which was sold to American whalers who occasionally visited the islands. Mrs. Kiddlewhite remembers the natives as being peaceful and contented. They were not industrious, however, and beyond attending io their potato patches and catching a few fish were content to laze through the days in tho beautiful climate. The Moriroi remnants of a race which is believed to have once inhabited. New Zealand, were the slaves of the Maoris, whom Mrs. Kibblewhite found to be a much more intelligent and physically, superior race. Intermarriage was not favoured and' in the dayfe when many of the Maoris had accepted the teachings of Bishop Selwyffi and the German. missionaries, a Maori who had taken unto himself a. MeriorT wahine was forbidden by his fellows to enter 'the church. The Maoris favoured having two wives, however, generallychoosing one whom the years had. mellowed and endowed with skill in the preparation • of . kai, ,and another with youth and beauty as her attractions. ?. HUTS WITH PUNG A WALLS. The huts in which the settlers lived were similar to those of the natives. .They consisted of punga walls, the trunks of the tree fern having .been squared off so that they fitted together more or less closely. Supplejack was used to bind the trunks together and the toi toi plant provided thatching lor the roof. There were many cracks in the walls and the roof was small protection against the fury of the wind and rain, but the climate was kind. The natives had a novel way of catching fish, using neither net nor line. Out of flax and a plant known as “mustard top’’ they wove a long thick roll. Ten or a dozen men waded out breast-high into the water with this. Then, turning, they slowly approached the shore, pressing the roll deeper and deeper into the water as they waded up the sloping beach, driving the fish before them, until finally they had them in shallow water. The method was e~udfc, but the fishermen were rarely disappointed. Twice during the Westeringham s sojourn at the Chatham group, Bishop tSelwyn visited the islands in his tiny vessel, and on one occasion he christened, one of Mrs. Kibblewhite’s brothers, who was the first' w'hite child to be born iu their part of the islands. The life for the settlers was lonely, but there was little discontent on , the island among either pakeha, Maori, or Moriori, and it was with distinct feelings of regret that Mrs. Kibblewhite and her brother and sisters returned with their parents to Port Nicholson. Heie an uncle, Mr. George -Bevan, while waiting to have his title over land at Otaki approved, had been attracted by the luxuriant phormium tenaxgrowing on Te Aro flats, and had commenced cutting the flax and manufacturing it into rope. Sir Walter Mantell, a member of Parliament in Sir George Grey’s GovGovernment, was another uncle of Mrs. Kibblewhite’s. . The Westeringhams’ residence in Wellington and the Hutt was brief, and in 1564 they came to Upper Plain, just out of Masterton, where Mr. Westeringham took up practice as a veterinary surgeon. Mrs. Kibblewhite, then a girl of 14, walked the‘whole distance from Wellington behind a dray, in which were her mother and baby brother, and their belongings. Over rough bush tracks, through rivers, and over steep slopes of tho Rimutakas, she- and ,her sitseis trudged for 70 miles. EARLY DAYS AT MASTERTON. At Masterton they found a few cottages and a rough shack —Bannister s store. The main “street”, was ungravelled, pitted with deep cart ruts, and lull of stumps. All around was the dense bush, which was just beginning to yield to the axe and fire. . . At Upper Plain, where the Westeringhams took up their residence, was a large natural clearing covered with native grass and eminently suitable tor. farmin". The site of their first home is just behind where the Whatman Home, now stands. After her marriage, Airs." Kibble white and .her husband, Mr. Richard Kibble-, white,, took up a block of land at Fern-r ridge, umlCr the shadow of the I araruas. Here the conditions' were very different from, those at Upper Plain. Thick -bjjsh, with heavy timber in it had.to be cleared, and the air was rarely free from the smoke of innumerable fires on theus and the sections of other settlers. Many of these fire's got out of control and threatened'to destroy the little- homes the- settlers • had so labouriously built, and-tho crops they had so carefully planted. Night after night Mrs. Kittlewhite and her children joined their, father and. fought the flames, beating them out with branches or trying to smother them with.wet sacking. It was useless <o call for assistance—thetr scattered' neighbours were all busy trying to save their own homes, from the menace. , -J - The house in which Mrs. Kibblewhite reared her family was similar to those of others of the early settlers. Bui.t from pit-sawed timber, with a shingle roof and calico windows, it was typical of the shacks which the settlers’ wives and daughters with dauntless spirit tried to make into cosy homes for their menfolk. The chimney was a wooden one, and a very necessary adjunct to it was a ladder up which Mrs. Kibblewhite climbed with a bucket of .water on the frequent occasions on which it caugnt fire.