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Te Ao Hou, Spring 1954, Page 36

helped to inspire progress; that he fought epidemics, and land sales, when they badly needed being fought, and that the great Maori population increase is due, to some extent, to his work for health. They knew that he left the country and became professor at Yale and the Director of the Bishop Museum at Honolulu, dancing his favourite haka to learned audiences wherever he travelled in many countries. They knew the story of those glorious days— “Kua po, kua po, kua awatea”— “It is night, it is night, it is dawn.” Then they had heard of the evening of his life, so painful through illness, but made wonderfully peaceful because he was so confident that “the dawn had broken” for his people, that his people were flourishing. The burial of Sir Peter Buck on August 5 to 8 has ended an epoch of great leaders. The four-day ceremony, in which the symbolically carved bier slowly proceeded, as is the tradition for burials of great chiefs, from one historic meeting house to another, ended in the solemn interment service at Okoki, and caused all to consider just where these leaders had left the Maori people. How do the three thousand Maoris who witnessed this last farewell, and the many others scattered throughout New Zealand, really face the future? This was an occasion for the drawing of new inspiration, an occasion for taking stock. At Otaki, in the Rangiatea Church with its strong Maori architecture, a young clergyman greeted Te Rangihiroa's ashes with a stirring oration in both Maori and English. Here, near the start of the journey was an interesting instance of the blend between Maori tradition and the new world visualised as an ideal by Buck and others and striven for now by many Maoris. Here he was conducting a service in Maori but the year before he had won a New Zealand wide contest in oratory sponsored

by the Chambers of Commerce; it was the first time that a Maori had won it and he won it, as much as possible, in the accepted European oratorical manner, but towards the end his emotions had become too strong and he had concluded his speech with a Maori haka. That this was acceptable as a winning entry to the three judges, who included a professor of English and a newspaper editor, is an interesting commentary on racial understanding in New Zealand. The Reverend Taepa's main theme at Rangiatea Church concerned a puzzle that existed in the minds of many Maoris; why did Buck leave them? Was not his place among his own people? Like other Maori leaders, Sir Peter Buck was interested in the survival of Maori culture, but with him the study of all the details of that culture became an obsession. He never ceased collecting material on how to make objects such as fishing tackle and sleeping mats. By 1927 he had published a mass of articles and a book on this subject and he had also become aware of the impossibility of assessing the achievement of Maori culture without studying Polynesian culture as a whole and seeing what was common Polynesian knowledge, and where the New Zealand Maori had made his distinctive contribution. When he was offered a position as ethnologist with a five-year Polynesian research group from the Bernice Bishop Museum, Honolulu, he decided to accept, and the rest of his days were given up to a study of Polynesian culture as a whole. He was especially interested in the development of the material culture, to see what techniques the Maoris had invented themselves and what could be deduced about the great migrations. During his visit to New Zealand in 1949, Te Rangihiroa was not at all estranged from his people in spirit. Men who stayed with him at the meeting house Mahi Tamariki at Urenui, his birthplace, say he spent the night alone and in the morning was found deep in thought, crying. The Rev. Taepa summed all this up in his The service for Te Rangihiroa at Rangiatea Church, Otaki. (PHOTOGRAPH—NATIONAL PUBLICITY STUDIOS)

Above: A service was held at Putiki. Wanganui, just before the corrage departed. (PHOTOGRAPH—I. ASHTON) oration by answering those who had objected to Buck's going abroad. “Did he desert us when his heart was stirred by recollections of our past: when his ears were ringing with echoes from the dead?” The procession moved on from Otaki and on that Thursday night the ashes rested on the porch of the old meeting house at Putiki, built over eighty years ago by the great leader Te Kooti. On Friday, the ashes reached Manukorihi, the central pa of the Taranaki tribes, and by this time the followers had increased to a crowd of several hundreds. The dairy season had begun just a week earlier and many had to compromise between their work and the gatherings. If both suffered some what neither suffered cially. Was this the balance between Right: The Governor-General, Sir Willoughby Norrie, takes the salute at Manukorihi Pa as a large assembly sings the National Anthem.

The Governor General greats an old Maori lady at Okoki, while Lady Norrie is chatting with a group at the right rear. Another view of the giant canoe-bow which stands over the vault in which lie the ashes of Te Rangihiroa. modern life and Maori culture that Sir Peter Buck. Sir Apirana Ngata and the others tried to establish; the new net they took to sea? Some of the Maori people who stood silently as the ashes were borne to their resting place. That night guests and casket shared the fine carved meeting house and talk and song continued until four o'clock in the morning. An unprecedented and dramatic incident was the playing of tape recordings carrying the voices of Sir Peter Buck. Sir Apirana Ngata. Bishop Bennett and Princess Te Puea. When these ‘voices from the grave’ were heard by the people wrapped in their blankets in the meeting house they were overcome with silent emotion. On Saturday Te Rangihiroa came home at last to the small earth-floor meeting house at Urenui, where he used to sleep and play as a child, and where he learned his first lessons in Maori history and tradition. It looked much the same as it did in 1880, when Sir Peter was born, and there were still many