TE KOOTI'S STICK

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20114, 7 December 1939, Page 4

TE KOOTI'S STICK

YOUNG MAORI'S PRIZE GIFT BY HASTINGS MAN Having been in European hands for the past 60 years, a walking stick or staff which formerly belonged to Te Kooti Rikirangi, the celebrated Maori rebel leader, is to pass back into Maori hands for the duration of the war. Now in the possession of Mr. A. Rosenberg, Hastings, the staff will serve a member of the native corps as a ceremonial cane, according to the terms of ‘Mr. Rosenberg’s surrender of the relic.

The idea of the loan of the stick is that it will prove an incentive to the Maori recipient to emulate the boldness and resource which enabled Te Kooti to elude the columns sent against him repeatedly during the years following the Poverty Bay massacre in 1868, and to withdraw his followers eventually into a position from which the European and friendly native forces could not extricate then:.

It is stated that the stick was given to Mr. John Wheeler, New Plymouth, by Te Kooti during the seventies, and it subsequently passed through the hands of another party to those of Mr. Rosenberg. Portion of the staff has been broken off, and its length is now about 2ft. 6in., the effect of a carved design being heightened by a number of outgrowths seen in the' accompanying photograph. The ioan of the stick was agree'-' to by its owner on the urgent reques 1 of a young Maori, who is training for commissioned rank at Trentham. The soldier is a follower of Te Kooti’s faith, the Ringatu, and intensely admires its founder. He appreciates the mar.a, which possession of the staff would confer upon him among his comrades, and considers that it would give him inspiration to emulate the fighting qualities of the Maori leader and prophet. Ho oilers to return the staff on the close of hits war service, and to make arrangements for its return should anything untoward happen tc him in the course of the war.