Curse that Failed.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 2, 12 January 1910, Page 9

Curse that Failed.

OLD MAORI'S STORY OF A TRIBE’S CONVERSION. LONDON, Nov. 26. Dramatic glimpses of old New Zealand, in the days of the bloodthirsty Ruaparaha are given in “ Koro,” a little volume just published, in which the Rev. J. W. Stack, late hon. Canon of Christchurch, tells the life-story of an old Maori convert named Koro. One of old Koro’s stories is about the cursing of an English missionary, Mr. Hadfield, by a Maori tohunga. Mr. Hadfield was opposing, on one occasion, the policy advocated by some of Ruaparaha’a leading chiefs, who wanted to go to war with a neighbouring tribe. One of the chiefs, a tohunga of great reputation as a wizard, worked himself up to a terrible pitch of fury against the missionary, and ended by cursing him and and handing him over to the Powers of Darkness. Dramatie Sequel. All the Maori converts were very frightened at this. They knew that Maoris often died after being cursed by a tohunga, and they did not know how far their missionary was proof against the evil spirits. All Mr. Hadfield said was, “ I am in the keeping of the true God. •Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.’” Just as the sun was going down, and the converts were assembled with Mr. Hadfield for evening service, a strange, thing happened. The chief who had cursed the missionary died suddenly, th® blood spurting from his mouth till h® expired. Of course this dramatic end to the curse episode caused a revolution of feeling in favour of the new religion. Tho Maoris accepted their tohunga's death as a proof that the God of the Christians was stronger than the god of the heathens. “ In a short time,” says Mr. Stack, " the majority of Ruaparaha’s warriors avowed their determination to embrace Christianity, and place themselves under the missionary's instruction to be prepared for baptism.” Thus the bursting of a blood-vessel in an old Maori’s frame did what all the missionary’s sermons and prayers had failed to do—it converted the heathen! Koro’s Three Hats. Old Koro was a slave in Ruaparaha’s tribe before his conversion, and eould tell some grisly stories of the cannibalism and other atrocities that took place in the old warring days. Once, he said, when a returned slave was telling a group of Maoris about the new teaching of the missionaries, a relative of Koro’s master strolled in, and in a fit of drunken frolic deliberately cut the throat of an inoffensive old man who was intently listening to the speaker. Koro, dressed as a Christian, must have been a quainb figure. He was a little man, with an ungainly walk, and Mr. Stack describes his appearance thus:— “ He was attired after a very fantastic fashion, in a variety of garments, which all seemed too big for him. “His head was surmounted by no less than three hats, stuck one over the other. A thick woollen muffler enveloped his neck, while his feet were wrapped in rags, kept together by native flax sandals. . . “Taking off his hat, he disclosed a bald well-greased head. The loss of one eye rather spoilt the expression of his face, which, though plain, was intelligent, and

bore a striking resemblance to the Chiaone type of countenance.” But, says Mr. Stack, despite his scarecrow appearance, Koro was one of the best of men, and within hia ungainly and misshapen body dwelt • pure and noble spirit. “ A Being Divided Against Himself.” In a paper in the “ Contemporay Review,” by Miss Mabel Holmes, on the social position of the Maoris, occurs this revelation of the internal troubles of the half-caste. Her informant is the son of a retired naval officer, who married a Maori woman of means. This half-caste son was given the best of education to bo obtained in New Zealand, tunsmng with Oxford and a Continental tour. At thirtyfive he gave this description of himself and his plight:—“ In my opinion, the pure Maori, living away back from civilisation, is still a noble man and a great orator. The nearest approach to an English translation of his language is to bo found in the Psalms of David. He employs the same musical rhythm, and at times identical metaphor. But the halteast©—there has never been born a halfcaste of any race who could be trusted, or who could trust himself. Funny, isn’t it, to say that, when I’m one? Life a Hell. “But, consider. The mixture of white and coloured blood is physiologically and psychologically wrong, and produces a being divided against himself, at one moment despising the black in him, at the next resenting and loathing the white. Take me as an example. My life is a hell. I wished to become a doctor, but my father, realising too late the fate to which his marriage had condemned his sons, would not hear of such a profession for me—he could not trust me. “ So, with ample means, I travel for, say, two year’s, during which my white side is in evidence; I am a cultured gentleman, refined in thought and action. I return to New Zealand, drawn by that home-hunger to which every man of colour is subject. A wedding, a funeral, occurs amongst my mother’s people; the Maori in me is in honour bound to attend. A feast, a danee, a tangi, a war danee —down goes culture and the white beneath a savagedom bearing all tho vices of civilisation to add to its horrors. “Afterwards, satiated, debaudred, I crdwl back to respectability through agonies of self-contempt and remorse. No, I will be the father of no children to endure such torture as this eternal struggle between my two selves.”