INTEMPERANCE AMONGST THE NATIVES.

Dunstan Times, Issue 670, 19 February 1875, Page 3

INTEMPERANCE AMONGST THE NATIVES.

Rnm appears to continue to perform Its destroying work among the Maoris in some of the districts in the Province of Auckland where they are under but little supervision of the authorities. A writer addressing a communication to the Bay of Pleilty Times, draws the following painful picture of the death of Kuihi Kawana (Lucy). He says : named Pia died, and at the tangi rum was freely distributed. The gathering of the people was not so numerous, nor did the natives become so outrageous ; but Lucy, with several other women from here, imbibed quantities. I have seen the women empty a pannikinful of rum without drawing breath, drinking it like water. After Pia’s body was buried, Lucy continued to drink until she was taken sick with a bowel complaint. Dr Cowan was called in, and found her suffering from inflammation of the bowels, and prescribed for her. That night an oldTohunga, a fellow at Waitangi, had a dream in which he saw a dog devouring Lucy s bowels. The news of this dream reached here the next morning. Superstition (priestcraft) predominated ; the medicines were no longer administered, and persuasion or entreaty could not bring them to reason. They commenced praying for her in all directions, until she succumbed and died on the second day. The corpse was taken to Paroa’s whare, and laid out in state, decorated with feathers, greenstones, and the pictures of her family. I have seen an account of an Irish wake, but this tangi beats it; men, women, and children (they were all represented) were all drunk, yelling, shouting, dancing, and fighting all at the same time, but in different directions. The contesting parties fell over the coffin, and knocked the body down. While all this feasting was going on, which lasted the whole week, until the body was buried at Kariri, the quantity of provisions consumed have left this people without anything to eat, which has caused them to dig up their seed potatoes for food. If their crops in the ground should prove a failure they must starve. 1 can form no conception of the quantity of spirits consumed on the occasion. I saw, along with another European, eight packhorses returning from Tauranga loaded with nothing but rum, several of them having three five-gallon casks ”