OUR ILLUSTRATIONS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVII, Issue XXIII, 7 December 1901, Page 1093

OUR ILLUSTRATIONS.

A WARRIOR OF THE CANNIBAL DAYS. Te Aho, (the. old Waikato Maori chief, a snapshot of whom is given in our Mercer Regatta pictures, is a deeply-tattooed ancient relic of the long-past, days of inter-tribal cannibal warfare. He is a man of high rank in the Ngatitipa and allied Waikato tribes, and lives at. present, near Mercer. His age is somewhere about 90 years—one of his relatives says he is “one hundred,” which is probably not much over the mark. Old Te Aho saw some grim and terrible fights in his time, in the old heathen days. It is stated by his people that, the .ancient chief was one of the Waikato warriors who, under the great. Te Wlierowhero (afterwards King Potat.au). raided Taranaki in '3l and thereabouts and killed and ate all before them. He took part in the capture of the Pukerangiora pa in Taranaki in ls.lt, when hundreds of the Ngatiawa people were slain and eaten and Ot hers enslaved by the cannibal Waikatos. He also fought at Taiimatuwiwi, near Cambridge, about 1830, when the Ngat.ihaua and Waikato people defeated the Ngatimaru and other tribes of the Thames Valley and Hauraki. ' Te Aho also took part in numerous other fights, and is one of the very few living Maoris who fought in those wild old days. His face is splendidly tattooed in real old fashion. The old chief is very well versed in Maori mythology and history, but his deafness makes it difficult to dig much out of him about the olden days.