(spirits) of the many Maoris buried in the caves about here frightened their horses which stood petrified. Johnny, knowing the cause and cure, dismounted, took off his shirt and set it on fire. This smoke drove off the taipos and Johnny and his team drove on to Little River. The next concerns a beautiful spring which flows through a paddock about one mile from the present shop and petrol bowser on the main road at Motukarara. It was always possible to spear a few eels along the banks of this spring. Johnny, his son Lu and another youth arrived there in quest of eels. On the good spearing side of the culvert there were no eels, but on the other side, with a gravel bottom, were seen dozens. As it was unsuitable for spearing, Johnny solved the problem by tying the bottoms of his trousers, loosening his belt and undoing his shirt front. He then stepped into the water and told the boys to start the eels through. Johnny lay down with his head in the culvert. Within minutes he called to the boys to stop, and climbed out with eels bulging all around him. These were duly placed in a sack and the process repeated until all the eels were caught. We still visit this spring, hoping for eels, but these too, like the fish in our harbour, are very scarce. There is usually a good supply of lovely watercress. As I wrote earlier, Johnny was a wonderful orator, an inspiration I am sure to one who later became our member of Parliament. It was customary at huis for all to speak in our Maori tongue on any subject of interest to our people. Jimmy Tregurthen, later to become Sir Eruera Tirikatene, was one of the young men who did this and, no doubt from his listening and perseverance, developed into one of the greatest of our Maori orators. So many of us listened only. Our great and sad loss. Johnny lived to the ripe old age of 94, and, though a true Ngaitahu, joined his brethren of other races on 29 August, 1934. His resting place is in the grounds surrounding the church in which he loved to worship.

Maori Poet wins Burns Fellowship Hone Tuwhare, our foremost Maori poet, has been awarded the University of Otago Burns Fellowship for 1974. Mr Tuwhare held a special short-term Burns Fellowship during 1969, the university's centennial year. He is best known as a poet, although he has published some prose fiction. His poems have been included in a number of anthologies and publications used in schools in New Zealand and Australia. His first volume of poems, ‘No Ordinary Sun’, was published in 1964 and has since been reprinted six times. ‘Come Rain, Hail’ followed in 1970, and a third collection, ‘Sapwood and Milk’, was published in 1972 and reprinted in 1973. A fourth volume of poems is being prepared. Hone Tuwhare says his plans for this year are flexible but he ‘will welcome the opportunity while 1974 Burns Fellow to demonstrate a ruthlessness in confining myself more fully to my trade as a poet.’ Born at Kaikohe in 1922, Mr Tuwhare, after finishing his formal aducation at Beresford Street School in Auckland, was apprenticed to the boilermaking trade. He has worked at hydro-electric power projects on the Waikato River, the Rangiteiki River, Bay of Plenty, and in the naval dockyard at Devonport, Auckland. Last year Hone was one of three Pacific poets who read their works at the Waratah and Sydney Opera House Opening Festival, performing at the Opera House, universities and several venues in Sydney, together with Albert Wendt of Western Samoa and John Kasaipwalova of Papua, New Guinea.