THE MATAITAWA NATIVES

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 142, 2 October 1863, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE MATAITAWA NATIVES

[From the Taranaki Herald, September 12]. The Mataitawa natives are just beginning to awake from their winter’s sleep. We reported last week that they had left their kainga bent on mischief, though it was not known where they had gone. It was reported afterwards that they had gone back again, but a day or two later they

gave unmistakeable signs of being at Bell Block. On Tuesday last a party of men from the blockhouse, under Ensign Woon, getting firewood from Wills’ section (at the back of the block) found the remains of four sheep lately killed, also a pipe just filled with tobacco. An hour or two later Capt. Atkinson’s and Capt. Webster’s parties of bushrangers (from town) coming down by Greenway’s house found that his beehives had been overturned and the honey taken; some of the windows of the house had also been broken. On reaching the blockhouse and hearing of the sheep, and also from a friendly chief that twenty or thirty of the enemy, including Tamati Teito, Little Paul, Hare te Hokai, Erueti, and other Mataitawa worthies were the men who were prowling about, and that they were likely to remain in the neighborhood until they had killed some pakeha, the bushrangers at once returned to Greenway’s, and going to where the skins of the sheep were they! tracked the natives into the bush. About a chain in they had camped for their breakfast. There were the remains of five fires, —two or three still alight—bones of the sheep, and one of the bee-boxes. This was about a chain from Greenway’s clearing on the bank of the Mangoraka. Our men followed the tracks (which were quite fresh) for about a mile through the bush to within a few chains of the boundary lino between European and Maori land : beyond this line they were positively forbidden to go, and they therefore reluctantly turned back.

This is surely a matter deserving public notice. We had thought chat the ghastly sham of pretending to believe in the good intentions of men known to be our most determined enemies was ended when General Cameron crossed the Mangatawhiri; but what would not now be tolerated a single day in Auckland, is still, apparently, the rule in Taranaki. Here is a number of as thoroughly disaffected natives as any in the island, who to suit their own purposes, for a time avoided doing anything openly hostile. At last they are wearied of this long inaction, and begin the work of destruction on what they can catch, which fortunately happens to be only sheep. They kill our sheep, cook and eat them on our land, then disappear over the boundary line, and are safe, as no one may follow them. They may be driven off our land, but if they get upon their own they may not be touched. This is certainly the most extraordinary way of carrying on war or of enforcing the law that we have seen even in Taranaki. They have either committed an act of hostility or a civil crime, and the remedy to be applied is to drive them away as if they were so many cattle trespassing in one’s field. Of course no one supposes that this restriction originated with the Colonel commanding the forces in this province. The order though, for form’s sake, it comes through military channels is obviously not a military but a political one, and must be connected in some way, though wo are quite unable to explain how, with the abandonment of Wailara. It will be remembered with what courtesy and consideration Sir George Grey treated these same Mataitawa natives during his stay here. As the first opponents of Governor Browne in the late war, he may no doubt have looked upon them as more sinned against than sinning, and have striven to make such amends as was in his power; but killing pakeha sheep and lying in wait to kill pakehas is hardly, we should think, a legitimate assertion of tribal right, or of patriotism, that it would be safe in us to encourage.. Wo may add, lest it should be thought we are counselling an altaek on a very formidable enemy, that there are at present living at Mataitawa about 50 natives, and Hapurona with 10 men holds a largo pa at Te Arei, the defences of which are earthwork only.