A NEW HISTORY OF THE MAORI WAR.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 5311, 8 May 1884, Page 2

A NEW HISTORY OF THE MAORI WAR.

BY KOWHAI NGUTU KAKA. [all rights reserved.]

After our defeat at Rangariri, overtures of peace were proposed to us, but though we ' had lost our pa and many men, we never , sued to the pakeha for peace. To sue for such is a confession of weakness — an acknowledgement that one ii beaten. We invariably treated all these offers with contempt. Numbers of times the pakeha Bent heralds of peace to lis, proclaimed it (almost without our knowledge) in the Gazette, sent'flags of truce to us to treat for peace, just as if they had experienced all the reverses and losses themselves that we had. Why could they ; not have waited until we made signals to | that effect ? This persistence on their! part irritated us more than our defeats had. We tore up their Gazettes, fired upon their flags of truce, and shotand tomahawked their messengers, both pakeha and Maori, yet they still persisted. Then they took to pardon the men they called murderers, but those they had captured before they hung. " Yet not one of these men had ever expressed any kind of sorrow for their ,acts. Why should they for killing their enemies ? Didiihe.43 L.I. or the 68 L.I. express any sorrow for the men they .bayoneted at the Ranga pa ? Or the 14th or 18th Royal Irish' for the men they killed at Koher'oa ? We* never got credit for intelligence, for the intellect God had given to us for our protection. We sustained defeats from the Queen 's_ troops, and from the colonial troops often, but we had our victories ; " massacres " they mostly called them, and yet the soldiers gave us no credit for our cleverness ! When they hastened to occupy^ any pi that we had evacuated, after they had failed with all their appliances to take it from us, such as Weraora, Bangirori, Pa te Rangi, Piki Piko, and other places. They exclaimed, " Maoris never could have designed these, -wp.rks ; some deserter of a Sapper op, engineer has shown them how to flank this anglef-make this rifle pit bomb proof," and eotim, ' And this mythical, deserter of a Sapper, whose name was never heard, got the credit of designing our fortifications ! The strange part of it was, that they could never- get their trained officers to make anything half so good for themselves ! And as for their " staff college " men, ugh I they could not make apahiko poaka (pigsty). They built a redoubt on the other side of the Wanganui River on the hill for the settlers to send their families to during Titokowaru's raid in 186 S. It wag never occupied ; but the first wet day after it was finished, all the sides tumbled in. - It was the same in the Waikato and everywhere else, and then they laid the fault on the soil of the country. That they did not know how to conquer or manage, any of our kuias (old women) would have known better. Then only look at the foolish Sap carried on by them at Taranaki. Truly the empty vanity of the pakeha, especially of the "staff college" tribe, is great. Are such as they gods, O pakeha ? We heard once something that amused us, A settler officer, a man who had' frequently defeated and outwitted us, was examined before a committee of the pakeha Parliament, and one of these vain officers asked him, "Where he had gained his military ex-perienoe-that-_w_aa to fit him for his position as a commander ?"" Now -this settler officer trained in our country, and by us ¥y the way could well, have allowed him his choice weapons and then have killed him with a short handled tomahawke or spear easily, however, he answered him acccording to his folly, as recommended in that good book the Bible, but he might have told him that the Maoriea had beaten the troops, but that he had afterwards beaten the Maoriea that would have been good enough for him. The pakeha can beat us in masses, but if the average single pakeha, meets the average single Maori, each with their own weapons, our case would in 99 cases out of a hundred come off victorious, killing his antagonist each "time, and I am ready to prove my words against any man of my age any time before competent judges. - I don't speak of the billard playing man, I speak of warriors. How can ignorant men know how to pona, rapa, marangae, or piki a spear? And as for warding off a rallying whakaoho or a wero, it would be ridiculous to see them try it, because they have not been taught how. But nothing seems to come to them naturally, they have even to be taught how to row in one of their own boats and to speak their own language correctly, then to see some of them attempt to paddle a canoe is simply disgusting to contemplate. They are a strange people ! We have been beaten because the pakeha outnumbered us in men (yet about 40 of us repulsed the 40th Regt and others at the Peach Grove, Taranaki, led by Leslie soon after General Pratt's arrival, and put to flight 1700 soldiers, who left an Armstrong gun- behind them. Yes, that was a great day for us; And then they had better guns and plenty of ammunition. They were better fed, clothed, and housed, and paid well ; and besides all these advantages, some traitors of our race assisted in betraying us; But though, we have been beaten, we are not conquered or rubbed out, and not one of these pakehas can name the day when we, as a race, sued for peace. The most that , can be said is, that on such and such a date we left off fighting. Haka ! wah J ha ! ha 1 ha ! We can still dance our war dance 1 In what have the pakehas proved better than we, or intellectually our superior ? We have killed women and children and burnt peopls houses during the war, but so have they. We killed women at Mauku, (Burt's Farm), Taranaki, and other places, but how did they cut at Pungarehu, TeNgutu o te Manu and Nukumaru ? We cut off the heads of the slain for our niu's, they offered ten pounds a piece for the heads of those •who were alive, so that they could be cut off and published their offers in their gazettes, and heads were cut off, and I suppose the money was paid for them. We tomahawked prisoners, but did they not bayonet the men at Taupo, Ngatapa, Tokano, Rotorua, and Te Ranga, and plenty of other places, (To be continued.)

The annual meeting of the Mangawhero ratepayers as Required by the Road .Boards Act, was held at Kennedy's yesterday, there being jußt a bare quorum of six. Those present expressed themselves as being satisfied with the manner in which the Board had conducted its business,