MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Daily Times, 10 October 1934, Page 4

MAORI MEMORIES

(By J.H.S. for “The Daily Times.”) NGUTU O TE MANU. After seven years of wise but ever anxious rule, Sir George Grey was succeeded by Sir George Bowen in February,. 1868. Bishop Selwyn, too, had gone. The ‘ ‘ Mana ’ ’ of two such men had no equivalent in Maori eyes, who both admired and feared them. Governors and Bishops may come and go, but the accursed war goes 'on for ever. Soldiers, like politicians, and even statesmen, lose caste on the first reverse, and so it was with the intrepid soldier, Colonel McDonnell, after the disaster at Ngutu o te Manu (Beak of the Bird). The equally heroic Major Von Tempskv escaped the same fate by passing through the gates of death.

McDonnell foresaw trouble when he found three white buslnnen had been murdered by’the Maoris. Turuturu Mokai, near Hawera, was occupied by 2u troopers under Captain Ross, and in a fierce attack by a hundred Hauhaus under Titokowaru they would have suffered death but for the vigilance of Yon Tempsky, who was stationefe. at Wai hi (fish waters), three miles away. Ross and seven men were killed. McDonnell then decided to end the incessant raids in a final battle if such were possible. Titokowaru’s movements in the bush were carefully hidden. His formidable forts, Ngutu o te Manu and Rua rurur (the owl’s nest), near by, were surrounded by huge rata trees, each being the masked domicile of several well-concealed sharp shooters. Taught by bitter experience, the Maoris no longer awaited attack behind the walls. When actually surrounded by McDonnell’s and Yon Tempsky’s troops, they were able to leave and return to the pa by a secret passage at will. Thus in a most intense moment of our combined assault, we were counterattacked from the rear and from the huge trees directly overhead. Dr Best, Lieutenant Rowan, and many of Von Tempsky’s men were shot down. McDonnell, on the other side of the pa, lost Captain Page, Lieutenants Hunter and Hastings, and more of his rank and file. McDonnell urged retirement, but Yon Tempsky, incredulous of clef eat, stopped into the open to review the position and was shot dead. Captain Buck, seeking to save his beloved chief’s body from the savage foe, lifted him and met a similar fate. Sergeant Russell fell during the hasty retreat, his thigh fractured. With their burden of wounded it was impossible to rescue him. James Livingstone handed him his own revolver, and with it Russell shot several Maoris, reserving the last bullet for himself. One-fifth of the men had fallen with six of their officers. So bitterly and unjustlv did ignorant critics attack the brave McDonnell that he resigned, a broken-hearted hero.