MAORI HEROINES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7580, 12 December 1902, Page 1

MAORI HEROINES.

(By JAMES COWAN, Auckland.) . In the school-books 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 ncr way homewards, she stripped herself of her shawl and most of her clothing and wrapped hex 1 infant child therein, and, after stowing ib sr.ugly away in a sheltered* cleft in th© rocky hillside, she rush*, thus scantily clad, into the storm, to se&k help for her 1 little one. In the morning she was found! j frozen and lifeless, but when the cover- j ings were taken off the' we'H-protecbei-l j bundle of infant humanity found by tha j roadside "the babe looked up and sweetly smiled." She had given up her life for 1 j her child. ■■'■•■'"■. y- ! Of that olden tale of the Scottish mother's self-sacrifice I waa renijnded when, j I read that Press telegram the other day of , • ■ THE UREWERA WOMAN'S AD YEN- , TORE 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 Ruatahuß<a., the central settlement''- of fhe. Urewera Country. The distance was twenty mile^, through an 1 awfully rugged trash district, the " road " the roughest of bush tracks-. A heavy snowstorm came on. Tlie woman made her way "to the most sheltered' place she could find in the bush, and there she remained for nearly three days, without fire or food, until the storm abated. When she reached Ruatahuna she was almost dead* from cold and exhaustion. She had, however, shielded her infant so well that it did! not suffer. " The woman has now recovered." Bald and detailless though this tele*graphic narrative is, it recounts, none the less, an example of adventure and privation and maternal love as touching, in all but the sequel, as the tragedy of the Highlandmother. I can well imagine the situation of that poor, half-frozen "wahiraei" in the terrible snow-blizzard on rugged Huiarau. For I have been there myself — am one of the few pakeha^j who have travelled that mountain trail between, Riiatafcuna an-d tjhe I great silent lake of Waikaremoana. My pilgrimage was in the genial summer weather, ! when the creeks were comparatively low, the tracks dry and my travelling-mate an old but active Maori ex-warrior, one of Te Kooti's fighting-men. And as we camped by the forest-shaded beach of the lake we had a cheery fire going to warm our ! hearts ahd scare away the prowling, unseen [ "taipos" of the bush. But picture the plight of that Maori mother! ! Barefooted and scantily-clad, with her I babyl slung at her back in a* shawl, its I little black head and bright beady, eyes peering out over the toiling shoulders, shei plqds.up the ranges, now descending into deep gorges, fording waist-deep swift rivers, of icy coldness, then up the narrow, [slippery bush track, up and up into the I cloudy heights of the mountains,- two thousand feet above the lake level— the war-road of the olden fightingrdays, the only road even to-day from Waikaremoana to the open valley of Ruatahuna and the plains of Galatea. The howling storm comes and brings with. it the snow, such shows,' too, as fall ih these wild ranges, where in the war-times ,the Government fprces of friendly Natives and the barbarous bands of Te Kooti were alike snowed up for days and lost men through the sheer cold. Darkness falls while the poor mother is still struggling up the mountain•way, and the dreaded snow piles up on the tree-ibbugh- and heaps in deepening masses where the branches allow it to sift through. Under an overarching tree, she crawls, shivering to the bone, wet all but the shawl and its precious contents. A savage wilderness of forest, cliff and creek.separates her from the nearest habitation of 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 her bosom. Still falls the snow, drifting ever to her freezing feet; falls all night long. The sough of the wintry wind; the thunderous roar of a near-by waterfall in a tremendous rock- ! strewn gorge ; the crash of tree-branches 1 breaking under the weight cf snow— these are the voices of that terrible ni<dit. The mother croons to het child a sad little waiata, a Maori lullaby, a mournful song whoss thin cadence blends with the stormy terrors of the night. There is no sleep: for her ; the crid would keep one awake even alongside a -bivouac fire; and she is afraid to let slumber come to her, for in it there may be death for both her and the baby. Afc.dawn she hunts for such poor foods as the bush affrrds — the moss-like w'harawhara- lichen, or the fern-tree's pith. Then another such a 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 murmurs some half-for-gotten pagan Maori incantation for life and safety. In the night-time she sees dreadful visions— griiming, distorted "tipua" and demons and uncanny " patupaiarehe " dance to and fro among the grim, threatening tree-trunks, and ghostly voices chant dirges in the creaking snow-laden branches. At last the sky clears ; she kilts her wet gown again, swings her "potiki" on to her shoulders, and plods on with frostbitten feet, over range and through creeks, and over fallen trees, till at last the forest leaves her,' and away down in the green open valley before her are the totara-bark-roofed whares of Ruatahunaj the great carved) house of Mataatua, and the steam-wreaths curling from, the uncovered food-hangis. She staggers down to the little marae, more than half-dead, and as the wondering people run to meet her with pitying ejaculations, she falls half-fainting to the ground at their feet, but murmurs thankfully as she falls: "E E! Kua ora te tamaiti !" " The child is saved !" Brave Maori mother! It was an experience that would have killed nine out of ten white women. But there is MANY ANOTHER INSTANCE of the endurance and courage of the "wahine Maori." Deeds of war as well as of adventure by bush and storm and flood, for the blue-lipped fair ones of Maoriland could —and can still if need be — fight as well as the men. Some instances of Maori' femininity rising to the heroic occur to me. Tiiere is the d-cughty romance of my old friend Hori Ngakapa and his good wife, Sarah Puna. Hori is a deeply-tattooed old rang-atira, with a wihite head of leonin^ ruggedness j he dwells in his ancestral plantation at Puawhenua, on the "Chores of tha Hauraki Gulf. When tibe- Waikato war of 1865 began, Hori took his stone mere and his doublieharrelled gun, and set out on the warpath at the head of a band of young bloods pf his tribe, the Ngati-whamaunga. At jMartin's Clearing, near Driiry, "ho ambuscaded a detachment of the 18th, Royal Irish, .und'tor Captain Ring, who were) escorting .a convoy through tlhe bush to fte &m> M tie Qilina's Redoubt* "Pivd

soldiers were killed and eleven' wounded. In tho sharp ..engagement -which took pkee Hori nearly lost the number of his mess. He had just fired' at a soldier, and, botihl barrels being empty, was about to reload, -when another soldier covered him with -his rifle and was about to fire. Instantly, Hori's brave wife Hera (Sarah), who accompanied him, jumptd out and/ stood in front of her husband. ••• D- — — you ! Get out cf that !" yelled tie astonished soldier. "Clear out, or I'll shoot. you." But, he hesitated to fire oil a woman (as Sarah very well knew). "Oh, shoot away, pakeha, shoot away!" cried Sarah. Mean-while Hori had leaped behind the safe shelter of a tree, where he re-loaded; at his leisure. And both he and liis spirited wahine still live to Ml the tale, though that was by no means their last* battle agai_ist the pakeha. ' And now, ia the winter of their days, they dweE in peapeful serenity in their snug ' raupo whare at Puawhe'<riua ; and, unilikesomie.of his . neighbours, Hori deesn't "hammer" his wife! He remembers too well that .touch-and-go. incident in the historic ambuscade at Martin's Clearing. In. a lon&ly little settlement near Lake .Taupo there -lives -at the--present^tim<*,» bent old dame,' who will, tell yon that her name is Ahumai, ami show you a hand terribly crippled by an old gunshot wound, inflicted nearly forty years ago. Ahumai is <the sister of the fine old warrior-chief Hitiri te Paerata, one of the garrison who so nobly def eoi-dcd the Orakau Pa in 1864 against the British forces in th© Waikato war,- and her name enshrines the memory of A DEED AB ROMANTIC A:ND HEROIC as that of any Maid of Saragossa. Many women were besieged in the Maori redoubt with the fightipgi-men, women with their hair cropped sqort ; with the courage of Amazons. They loaded the guns and made cartridges, aye, and fired them, too. Ahumai, then a young and bouncing woman, was with her relatives of the Ngatiraufcawa tribe, who fprmedXa portion, of the valiant 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 (Major Mair) ;" If you persist in fighting, send out your women andy children so that they may not, die." Up .rose dauntless Ahumai amongst her women inside the beleaguered pa ti, her eyes flashing with unconquerable battlepride, a. gun in her hand, a cartridge belt strapped round her waist, and/ voicing her fellow-wahines, . said : "If. our husbands and brothers are to die, what profit is it to us that we should •live? _Ui us die with, the men!" This brave resolve of the women put fresh life into the men, and, though starving arid thirst-racked, they renewed the defence ' with the desperate valour of despair. In the fierce- firing which followed and in the wild 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 side, going through her body and coming out on the left. Another bullet hit her right shoulder 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 aii armed body of her people, in whose mind still rankled the bitterness of their defeat at Orakau. At their head was the savage old Hauhan 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 he found himself surrounded by truculent Hauhaus with menacing guns and tomahawks. The white man was Lieutenant Meade,, of H.M.S. Curacoa, who had left his ship at Auckland while he undertook a trip through the disturbed districts 1 to Taupo in company with Major Mair and others, and was now returning. Some of the Natives .were for immediately killing, the pakeha, this bird that had flown straight into the snare of the fowler. Bufc Te'Ao-Katoa, the " prophet, pries, and king " of that savage taua, must have the thing done in proper order. So, first of all the gathering, men, women and children, marched with wild chants round the nlu," the sacred \pole, on which the warflags were flying, and 1 " The Whole World" recited his weird Hauhau incantations. Then came the korero, and things looked t>ad for Meade, who sat beside his guide, wifch a sentry standing- afc their backs ostentatiously feeling the edge of his shorthandled tomahawk. The speeches were fierce and bloodthirsty ; there were cries of "Kill the pakeha," and a few more moments would have seen a grim tragedy in that village square. But, just at the height of the wild and! threatening korero, n woman wrapped in a shawl rose from the squatting crowd, walked slowly across the marae A and without a word sat down at the

young naval officor's feet. She was Ahumai, her terrible -wounds of the Orakau siege only just healed. She had abundant reason for bitterness of soul, for her father, brothers and uncle had all been killed at Orakau. Yet she was generous enough to forgive all thab and to go out of her way to champion the friendless pakeha when the grave was opening for him. Her action and her high tribal rank redeemed Meade's life, and he was allowed to leave the kainga in safety. Brave Ahumai had saved the pakeha's head. The few Europeaais who see that tattooed grey-haired woman as she hobbles into Taupo township monthly for her Old Age Pension see, perhaps, only an ordinary decrepit old Maori wahine, and the ignorantly fastidious " new-chum " tourist perhaps gives her a wide berth, because she is "just an old Maori woman." But in Ahumai I recognise the true 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 there was none to rescue. Long may brave Ahumai hve to draw her little pension; and, when she passes to the Reinga, mayHhe pakeha wiho writes this be alive to pen a last tangi to the memory of the heroine of Oraka/U and Tataroa.' She is what, the Maoris— slow as they are to compliment the womenfolk—delight to call a " wahine toa," a truly valiant woman. Instances of Maori women's heroism in other, quarters than the ' old-time battlefields are not wanting. There have been dozens of cases in which the water-loving brown wahines have rescued white people from going down, down to the lair of the eye-eating tuna and the .prowling shark. A notable example, one that ought to be familiar to all New Zealanders, was the plucky deed of JULIA MARTIN, THE MAORI GRACE DARLING. In 1863 Julia, Martin, (Huria Matenga)., then a girl in years, lived with her husband, Hemi Matcnga, at "Whakapuaka, near where the Cable Station' now stands, in th-e Nelson district. One morning the Delaware, an brigantine, was wrecked off Whakapuaka, an easterly gale driving her on to the rocks. Ju]pa Martin, her husband, and a man named Ropata went fo the rescue of the crew. One of the sailors threw a light line overboard, and Juilia and the two men threw off their clothes and bravely swam out, in spite of the thigh seas, to the rocks on which the brigantine lay pounding. They secured thei line and took it ashore. The crew bent on a stouter rope to the light line, and the Maoris 'hauled their end of it ashore, and made it fast to a rock. By this means the crew (all but the mate, who was 'accidentally killed) were saved, each in turn getting to shore along the rope. While' the men were making their perilous way ashore along the life-line, Julia and the Maoris steadied and assisted the numbed, and half -dead sailors till they reached the beach. The brave deeds of Julia Martin and her companions won due recognition: She was presented with a gold watch by the people of Nelson, and the Government granted her £50; and, more fortunate than her English prototype, she is still alive, after the lapse of nofiriy forty years, to modestly, tell of her cold swim that wintry morning of the Delaware's"wreck. A".. A ■' . . A ' - Here, too, up Hauraki way, wa have a Maori woman, a wiry old lady, named Rahui, who once distinguished (herself in AN EVEN MORE PERILOUS MARINE ADVENTURE than that fine swim of . Julia Martin. Rahui's husband, Temebahi, a • wsll - known Maori mariner • and scow-owner oa th© Auckland coast, was sailing merriljr along one day in his crack cutter, the. Rangatira, past the wild coast of the Great Barrier, when a sudden fierce squall tea down on them and struck the cutter .with irresistible force, and before Tenetahi could let go his halliards the vessel capsized and sank. Tene' and his wife, who was with him as sailormasQ, were left swimming for their lives. For hours, how many they could never tell, they were in the water before they were picked up. Ten*', a strong, burly fellow, became so exhausted that he. gave up, and that would have bsen the last of him had it not been for his dauntless wife Rahui. She supported him, floating and swimming, until she, too, was almost drowning, worn out by her superhuman ta;sk. Rescue came in the very nick of time. Neither T.eine,. nor Rahui talk much about that (day when they both nearly made food for the shark and the barracoota that haunt the Barrier coasts. But old Tene'9 eyes sihone with a strange, tender light on one particular occasion when I spoke of- it, and looking over at Rahui, the blue-tattoosd descendant tf a long line of great-hearted chief tainesses, he said in the quaint English peculiar -to himself: "Ah, my ol' woman, he stick to me like what you call t'e brick, ne? He to good ol' woman, t'e wahine toa !"