OLD MAORIS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 181, 5 August 1935, Page 6

OLD MAORIS

WOMAN DIES AT PETONE SAW FIRST SETTLERS ARRIVE WELLINGTON, Aug. 3. A link with the early days was severed recently by the death in Petone of Mrs. Ritikia Takarangi. Her age was given at the time of her death as 86, but she is believed to have been considerably more than this, for she used to recount how. as a little girl, she saw the first European settlers land on the Petone beach. She could remember a drowning accident when a boat capsized, and the bodies were washed up in a creek that used to run just south of where the shunting engines of the Gear Company’ are now kept. The burial was carried out iu the cemetery that is now’ within the Gear Company’s property. Reference to “Early Wellington’’ shows that this incident was the capsizing of a boat containing twelve people, only thret of whom were saved. As , occurred in 1810 it means that Mrs. Takarangi was well on in the nineties when she died. She was born at a spot between when? the embankment and the sig nal box at the Petone railway station are now situated. Where the old gate stood that used to lead to the railway workshops at Petone was the kumera patch, and here a lot of food wa? grown. She went to Taranaki, and athere were no roads at the time f*h( travelled along the beach, being or horseback most of the lime. She was at. Parihaka at the time of the arrest of Te Whiti in ISSI. She went tf Taranaki a number of times, but re turned to Petone finally in 1927. Hei memory was wonderfully clear, ever up to the dav before her death. Another old Maori. Pautara Renata a resident of Petone. Although h( gives his own age as 92, it is knowi that he was born in the same year athe. battle of Te Kuititanga. the las purely Maori battle in the southeri part of the island, which was fough near the mouth of ’he Waikanai River, about October 16. 1839. He ha; lost the sight of one eye, but still get; about. In his youth he was an exper at breaking-in horses. He can speal English well, but will only speak i to his relatives. He is believed to b< the oldest Maori in the Wcllingtoi district.