Some Warriors Bold.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVI, Issue XXV, 22 June 1901, Page 1 (Supplement)

Some Warriors Bold.

A remarkable feature of the “hui” is the large number of men (and women too) present who have seen service in the old war days. To them the. “tu-tu-waewae,” as they leap up in the war dance and slap their bare sides and chests and yell out the barking ehorus of an ancient battle chant, is no mere child’s play; they have time and again danced it, rifle and tomahawk in hand, before or after a fight in the New Zealand bush. Some of these middle-aged men here last saw each other over the sights of a gleaming gun barrel. But they rub noses here and tangi over each other ns if they were the dearest friends. They bear no ill will: unless perhaps that sombre faced Whanganui pensioner there who limps around on crutches retains a lingering grudge against the pig of a Hauhau who gave him a bullet in the leg on Moutou Island 'way back in ’64. Chief of all these fighting men of yore is the venerable white-bearded Major Fox (Pokiha Taranui). of Maketu. who is the head man of the Ngatipikiao tribe. The old major's face, circled with the sharply cut blue lines of the tatoo, is of the past generation of Maoridom. He is a typical rnngitira, and he is a brave man. Tn 1865 he distinguished himself by his disregard of danger when he led his section of the Arawa under Major Mair to the attack on the rebel* at Te Teko. and later on in the Urcwera campaign he pluckily rushed a pa (Te Harema, at To Whaiti) and afterwards did the best work of any of his tribo against the wild forest-dwelling. Urewera. When, after the war a repeating rifle had to be presented by Major Jackson to the bravest man in the force it was by common consent handed to good old Pokiha. Many other Arawas present here served in the campaigns against Te Kooli, under Captain Mair (who is appropriately enough the quartermaster-general of the camp) and other officers. The old soldiers of Ngatihau (along the Whaganui River), or Te Atihau, as they call themselves, are welt represented here. They are the Goorkhas of New Zealand, these Atihau. Small built, spare men, with singularly white skins, they share with Ngatiporou the honours of being the best lighters in the friendly contingents which fought in the campaigns of the Queen against the rebel Hauhaus from 1864 up to 1870. Highest in rank and oldest amongst them, trembling on the verge of the grave, is the high chief Topia. Turoa, who bears a name almost sacred amongst the Whanganuis. Old Major Topia, as he is called, is a white bearded veteran bearing the moko (fare, tatoo) marks of a past generation. He was a Hauhau originally, it is said, but afterwards turned to the side of the Government and helped to hunt To Kooti over the face of the land in 1869-70. Here too is Topia's brother, the (all, fine looking, well “moko’d” old Hauhau warrior Pehi Hitaua, who has come from his lone kainga on the dreary plains of Waimarino, near where the head waters of the Whanganui rush down from the snowy slopes of Tongariro, so that, he may see with his owu eyes the grandson of the Queen, at whose’dark soldiers he often took pot-shots in the old war days. For Pehi was a dashing warlock in his prime. Always inimical to the whito man, he and his people were amongst the first converts to Hauhauism, and he was one of the rebel chiefs who led their fanatical followers, “barking like •dogs,” say the friendlies, into battle on Moutoa Island, on the Whanganui River, in 1864. This Homeric light was the last, real old Maori scrimmage that occurred in the land, for when the rival forces had fired off their guns they took to their tomahawks and meres, and the skull of many a reckless Hauhau was smashed that day. The friendly natives gave the wild Hanhaus “the father of a batin’,” clubbed their pet prophet and saved Whanganui (own. Pehi Hitau saved his life by swimming front the sandspit to the river bank and

Staking tracks fur the nearest bu*b. finer then he has lived a most secluded life, seldom leuturing into the centres of civilisation, for I’elii is a Maori of the Maoris and doesn’t much hanker after the flesh [>ots of the pakeha. From his long isolation in the recesses of Waimarina and laumaruaui the Maoris facetiously dubbed him years ago the “rtiru noho uxdu,” the owl which abides in the forest depths. Almost every Whanganui man of middle age here has see* service in the native contingents. There is Poma Haunui, who was lieutenant in the Whanganui contingent: the grim looking, tattooed old Koroneho te Ika-a-Maui (’‘The Fish of Maui”), who fought for the mana of the Queen at Mouton against the ap-river barbarians: the little grey bearded Tmhiora Pirato (‘•Pilate”>, who appropriately enough hails from Jerusalem (up the Whanganui River), who campaigned through the bush after Te Kooti and Titokofaru; Corporal Katera. who served for ovar ten years as a soldier of the Queen; and numerous others. This Katera is a comical sort of old warrior. He wears a Mew Zealand war medal proudly displayed on his coat, and tells me how he has fought through Taranaki, the Waimate plain*. the Whanganui district, Opotiki and the Taupo plateau against the rebel Hauhaus. In 1865 he was one of the men who took part in General Chute's memorable march through the bush at the base of Mount Egmont up to New Plymouth (’Tamara Shoot,” he calls him), and he has seen good service shoulder to shoulder with Imperial troops. Katera s last big fight was in 1869. at Te Porere, at the foot of Mount Tongariro. where Te Kooti’s pa (still to be seen there, was stormed and thirty or forty of the defenders killed. Two of Katera’s comrades—Winiata and Pompey, celebrated as plucky fighter*— were shot dead while perched on the ■boulders of their mates so that they could fire over the parapets of the redoubt. Katera himself is an amusingly juvenile looking warrior, with his hairless face, but he has a fighting record of which tiny soldier of the Empire might be proud. The Whanganui people arß exceedingly proud of their loyal services in the war times, and they have brought un the late Major Kemn’s Highland davmore (presented by the Queen, and the handsome silk flag presented by the Government to his f ribe. the Ngatiruakai to commemorate their valiant fights on behalf of the Europeans o« the historic island of Moutoa.