THE HERETAUNGA NATIVES.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 5, Issue 283, 26 June 1865, Page 2

THE HERETAUNGA NATIVES.

[Communicated.] Hapuku’s wife Mary is dead, consequently a great tangi-hangi is to be held atPoubawa. The old man takes it very kindly and complacently, for he says; “I,,have more left,” and is looking. forward to the tangi to speechify in true rangatira style, for amongst the vain chiefs of the maori people, Te Hapuku is one of the most vain. It is the height of the old man’s Vanity to give a feast, strut his hour and . harangue his friends, in the true style of maori magniloquence. The hau-haus atPqukawa are still resting at his hospitable board, their pole is still standing

and is now decorated with two flaunting banners, of which the meaning is perhaps known to our superintendent and his clique. One of them is black with a red cross and crescent, the other is of smaller size, black, and sky-blue, with an immense white cross ia the centre. The flag-staff is surounded by a stake fence with a hinged gate, to allow of the ingress- and egress of the.faithful worshipers of the Atua hau. I have recently had an opportunity of witnessing their evening service, which was certainly conducted in’a very decorous and solemn manner, and the melancholy stilness of the place, surrounded as it is with all the symbols of the decay of the race,was calculated to impress observers with a superstitious feeling of awe. The worshippers, standing in a circle surrounding their colors, repeat with all the glibness and solemnity of face possible, the responses as accurately as if they had been undergoing a course of instruction for years. It is certain that this new form of worship is pre-eminent-ly calculated to take firm hold on the native mind, and is very far from dying out, as some have anticipated, judging from their conversation and appearance, their forlorn and anguished impassioned faces of the worshippers, heightened by their up-lifted hands, and reiterated crying to “Ihowa” (Jehovah,) for strength and aid against the white foreigner, must and will take a firm and lasting hold upon the unsettled and susceptible minds of the maori people. Hapukn’s pah is now a perfect allegorical picture of the present state of the maories, snd it is indeed a scene of desolation, llotten wiiares ami broken fences, stacks of wheat in the sheaf, fast going to decay, from sheer indolence they neglect their thrashing, as hided all besides. Dirt, ffth, pigs, haggard witch-like old crones, and broken down white-headed old men, make up as true apictu e of desolation and despair as painter could depict. Some of Hapuku’s men are forming and metalling a Government road, for which they are paid the rather large sum in comparison witli what would he paid to a colonist, of i-f) 10s per chain. This job of theirs has been about three years in hand and bids fair to he another three, before it is finished. So much for employing the lordsof the soil instead of the latidles, settler who would gladly do the work at two thirds of the price. These natives are ail becoming in vetrate drunkards, and hold in contempt all who are not such; they even measure the rank of the pakeha by his cupcity for drinking, and his means ot obtaining drink. One of the principal men, who is well known at the Government offices, recently told me that when 1 came to see them, I should come like a rarigatiru pakeha, with a bottle of grog in my pocket.

military settlers are encamped at the ;*ite of the proposed bridge across tiie Isgaruroro river on the newly acquited laud. They are busy entrenching themselves, to the great astonishment of the natives, who express their dissatisfaction at what they call broken faith on the part of the Government, for they say they let the land for farms, and not for camps of soldiers.