AN INCIDENT IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF OTAGO.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1137, 20 March 1872, Page 2

AN INCIDENT IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF OTAGO.

A correspondent of an Otago paper relates the following regarding the " tradition " about the •• irruption of dark skins." The brig Elizabeth, a Sydney trader, called in .at Expity lsknd^Cggk's Strait. "The^ na&ves there^ agreed~with the captain (whose_name I cannot.at this present remember) to load his vessel with, flax, if he would first :take; a j^ajciparty numbering about 40 to Otago (then called PortOxley), and assist them in inveigling some of the natives there on board the brig under pretence pi trading. The iniquitous bargain wash struck, the war party shipped, and the vessel some days afterwards dropped anchor off Tairoa Head. The Kapiti • men Jkepfc, fbelow while canoes from the shore; came jalbngside. Among the natives who stepped on board was the head chief Maironue/ with his wife and two children. They :were invited into the cabin— a ■ preconcerted signal was given, up sprang, the invaders and secured almost all the Otago. natives that were on board. . The chief was, however, the one they were the most anxious to secure. " He and his wife and children were, pinioned, and secured in'the" forewld. to be reserved for. torture on., the return home of the expedition. A great slaughter of the other prisoners was made, and their bodies were cooked in the snip's coppers for food on the homeward voyage to Kapiti, in the course of. which'Mironue's wife : strangled herself with-'a\plece of flax, tied one end to foot and theother round her neck by a running noose. „ Her husband contrived to loosen his ' bonds and kill the two children to save them from the torture, but with true noTnlity (according, to- his savago code of-honor) refrained from taking his own life. His landing took place amidst great rejoicings, he having some time previously: killed a Kapiti chief at Cloudy Bay, Queen Charlotte's Sound. It is told that after the ordinary modes of torture had been; exhausted,- Maronue was tied ;by the legs and suspended from the branch of a tree, head downwards, and that while in this pbsitibh- the wife of the chief he/had killed was allowed to approach and- make an incision in his neck to which she applied her lips and drank his blood, saying, as she ;finishe|t the draught, that " her revenge i was^satisfied." And now fprjihe sequel of the story. The captain of the Elizabeth having performed* his part of the compact, of [course wished to get his pay. This he foundless easy than ; he' imagined^ axid was* ultimately'glad 'to make his escape 'with his vessel and about two tons of flax. He went by way of the North Cape, ' bound for Sydney, and encountered westerly, gales which drove his vesser about 70 miles north of Howe's Island, where she ran, with all sails 5 set, onto a coral-reef. : -No tidings were' ever heard of any of the crew, who, it is supposed, took to their boats and were lost. The ship was met with some time afterwards by the brig Highlander, of Hobart Town, Capt. Lovett, with whom Capt. Hpwell, now of Riverton, was then Bailing as chief officer. The attention of those on board was attracted • by seeing a vessel with sails hanging loose, and; imagining there was mutiny or something wrong on jDoard, JSapfcain JLovett hove-tb'and f sent a boat. It was then found, as I have said, that she was hard and fast on a coral reef, the . existence- of which: was previously unknowny and which was then nanied, and is to this day known as the Elizabeth Reef. . t „ _ r . : . |; :