THE LOST MARU-IWI

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 15, 24 May 1939, Page 6

THE LOST MARU-IWI

FOLK OF THE WAIMANA

SURPRISES AND BATTLES The autumn sun had lost its warmth, but the breeze was chilly, and th e long shadows ot the hills raced across the Wainiana flats when, in the late afternoon, the writer stood at the foot of the range between, the Raroa Stream and the road from Whakatane to Opotiki. White pulls of dust rose slowly a.nd drifted awav as men spread fertiliser on the steep slopes beneath the hill top pa of Mapouriki, once the home of the Maru.iwi people who, like the guano dust the pakeha spreads, figured brief ly in the eyes of men and then vanished. Three hundred years ago, the., Maruiwi were a small, compact tribe, holding several pas along the, range of hills, and fanning the rich Waimana flats which 10-day are held by Mr R. W. Wardlaw and others. Great were the harvests of kumara that they reaped from the river silt, and, because of the fertility of their soil and the fact thatjhey were emigrants from the Napier district, they seem to have had an uncomfortable time of it from their neighbours. ATE A GUEST. About the year 16210. just at harvest time, the Maru-iwi were foolish enough to use a child from Ohiwa who was visiting one of their villages, as the main course at the festival which followed the digging ot the kumaras. They were also rash enough to place some of the dainty before a priest who had been import, ed from Ohiwa to perform the important ceremonies connected with the removal of the tapu from the crop. The child, incidentally, had not been slain solely as a meat course, but as a human sacrifice to impar: force and prestige to the ceremonies. However, he formed a welcome change of diet. The priest, says the story, had commenced to eat the cooked potatoes before he observed that fat was exuding from the food basket. When he saw that human flesh lay beneath the food he suspected that some relative of his had been slain, believing th;\t th e exuding oil was'a sign from the dead crying for vengeance. He inquired for the child but, as so often is the case after a crime or an accident, no one knew anything help ful. He asked the people with whom the child had been staying and they replied "We have missed him since yesterday., Possibly he had gone to some other village." BLACK MAGIC. Then the old priest knew that the child had been murdered, and at night he took the cooked llesh and performed certain magical rites with it, for the purpose of making the Maru-iwi nervous and unsettled so that they would desert their homes. Evidently the}' were too numerous a people to be attacked off hand. The curse of the old tohunga presumably unsettled the Maru-iwi as it was intended to do a,nd they were in a, jumpy mood when another blow was struck at their prestige. Huinga-o-te.ao, daughter of the chief of the tribe, decided to follow a party o! women who had gone to Ohiwa to gather shellfish. "I must go too." she said, "or tho other women will call me lazy-' and she took her high born person to the.seacoast. At Kutarere she abandoned her apron, which was a man) kuta, a skirt made from the leaves of a water plant. Prom this incident came the name of that place. HUINGA KILLED. When, she arrived at Ohiwa she found that the women had rdready returned home and she followed them but the Ohiwa people whf- had heard of' the party's arrival chased her. caught her 't is said at Kitta-rer" and killed her. For some reason, the bod\ wa s not eaten, e.nd it was recovered by the Maru.iwi. Some months after the burial the bones were exhumed and scraped in the usual way. Then the chief addressed his. tribe on th • subject of returning to their owe homes near Napier and it was decided that the exodus won]'] be made by way of Rangitaiki and Kaingarna. "Laden with their chattels'" says Elsdon Best, "they marched out from the fertile vale of Tauranga, old an ' young, stalwart warriors. decrepit age and little children borne upon the bS'd.'s of nnrentsi. It w*"- t!"*" '*"s* less neolithic- horde on the nr-rch hare-limbed men. with stone axes oe their shoulders.

FAREWELL BLOW

"They bore with them the bones of Te Huinga, and of others, to be re-interred in the new home. They raised their voices and wept for deserted home and lands as they looked down upon the fair plain of Nga-kau-roa and the flowing waters of the Tauranga. . . They sa-w the bold earthworks, the picturesque terraces of their deserted forts, Mapou-riki and Te Kawakawa. On the heights above Raroa they saw the One fort wherein dwelt the descendants of Nuku.tere and Turanga. These people were not migrating. The smoke of their fires rose from within the rude palisades as they went about their customary daily tasks. Then, sullen and downcast at having to dc-. scrfc home and fort, and fair field, a grateful thought came, to Maru-iwi. They would not relinquish their homes without a blow, they would obtain a quid pro quo in a truly delightful manner. They would attack the One pa, and slay some of those people as balm for their lacerated feelings.'' ATTACK ON OUE. The Maru.iwi left Waimana and crossed the ranges to the Whakatane valley. At Owhakatoro they halted and built a fort. Here'they left their women and children, and the fighting men retraced their steps to the WaL mana. It was night as they crcpt through the bush and lurked beneath tlie palisades waiting for early dawn to give them light to rush the village and, so that the garrison would nor he alarmed by the unwonted silence of such birds as the kiwi, the weka, the kakapo and the karcke. it is said that they imitated then cries-. Just at dawn tlie Marui-iwi burs! into the Oue village. The men were asleep in the big communal sleeping_hou.se, and a,s they jumped up and ran to the entrance they were cut down. The chief of the pa Tamaruarangi, his son Rangi-tu-mai, and some others were taken alive and con veyed to Paroa where the Maru-iwi encamped on a bluff just a,hove, a bend in the Waimana River and be., lpw the old Puhi-kereru pa. Here breakfast was to be cooked. Tlie hapless captives were to be the bacon and eggs; the ovens were kindled anc' the stones heated, and the survivors of One pa stood guarded in a group. CHIRP BOUND. Maru-iwi had taken special precautions lest the chief Tama.ruarangi should escape. They hound him and laid him on the ground, spread his cloak over him and fastened its edges to stakes driven in the ground so the grim old fighter was helpless ;<s a child a.s ho lav trussed, knowing that as soon as the ovens were heat ed his end would come. Maori-like he showed no fear and, the story goes, waited his fate stoically. He saw that his son was standing in the group of captives and that he was unbound. He sought to help his son t 0 escape. Tlie first thing Was -to give him a hint to do so. -ft was necessary to avoid arousing suspicion. He caught his son's eye and said "I thought that you had been fed on the 'nene" of the snapper of Whanga-panui that yon might be active and strong to retain your l]fe" Hern one might interpolate that the 'nene' was the portion of soft flesh in the mouth of the snappei which the Maoris most prized as & delicacy. Whanga-panui was a fishing rock at Ohnpe, famed once as i good spot for snapper, but that was, before the days of trawlers. SON'S RUSF. Te Rangi at once caught his father's meaning. Ko was to escape. Turning to his captors he said: "Give me a taiaha. I am about to die but 1 will first show you what it is t.,> ba a master of the art of parrying."'' Tlie taiahn wis handed to him and space left 1 o:- hire- to perform the remarkable gymnastics of the old* time Maori in his bayonet drill., The Maru-iwi watched and applauded. They surrounded the bold praneer on three sides, I.ut they' did not occupy tlie head of tlie cliff as they thought t too steep for anvon.e to descend it. (Continued in next issue). , For treating ordinary scour in uives olive o 1 is claimed to give setter results than castor oil. •