SCOT AND MAORI

Evening Post, Issue 37, 12 August 1936, Page 10

SCOT AND MAORI

HIGHLAND RAIDERS

GOVERNOR BOWEN'S PARALLEL

"That great friend of the Maori, Sir Donald Maclean—who came to New Zealand soon after 1840 and died in Napier in 1877 —was the first pakeha, I think, to remark on the many close resemblances between his own Scottish Highland folk and the Maori tribesmen." ~ ' "Tohunga," who makes this statement in. the "New Zealand Hallways Magazine," adds: "In his MS., diary Sir Donald Maclean mentioned such traits in common as the wearing of the kilt, the coronach, and the Maori tangi, the chanted elegies, the war customs. He felt quite at home among the Maoris very soon after his arrival on the shores of the Hauraki. "Another man of note, Sir George Bbwen, when Governor 'of New. Zealand, was greatly interested by the resemblance between Scot and Maori, particularly in their feuds, raids, and war-practices generally. In June, 1868, he wrote in one of his dispatches to the Secretary of State for Colonies, describing the: conditions of the Maori tribes: — ' " 'In March last a herd of cattle belonging to Messrs. Buckland and Firth, of Auckland, was driven oft by a party of Maori marauders, but was afterwards restored on the application of those gentlemen to Tamati Ngapora, the uncle and chief councillor of King Tawhiao. The details of this case, even in the most minute circumstances, would, if told at length, read exactly like a chapter of "Waverley," which relates how the cattle of the Bartm of Bradwardine, when carried off by the Highland cateran Donald Bean Lean, were restored through the influence of Fergus Mclvor, chief of the clan.' "Governor Bowen went on to compare Highland clansmens' grim deeds with those of the Hauhaus. 'Lord Macaulay and Sir Walter Scott," he wrote, 'have recorded on the authority of official documents how a band of MacGregors, having cut off the head of an enemy, carried the ghastly trophy in triumph to the chief. The whole clan met under the roof of an ancient church. Every one in turn laid his hand on the dead man's scalp and vowed to defend the slayers.'

"The Governor likened this to some of the acts of the Hauhaus in the Maori Wars, especially the decapitation of Captain Lloyd and others, of the 57th Regiment, after a surprise attack at Te Ahauhu, in Taranaki; and the carrying round o£ the heads as emblems to incite the other tribes to war. There was also the tragic affair of the Rev. Mr. Volkner, so violently deprived of his head by Kereopa, and the savage ceremony in Volkner"s own church afterwards. Scots and Maoris, they were brothers undtu the& skins."