THE OPOTKI TRAGEDY.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 6, Issue 313, 9 October 1865, Page 3

THE OPOTKI TRAGEDY.

(Trom the Times, July 7.1 Intelligence more horrible than that which has just reached us has never been received, even from New Zealand. A meat atrocious murder has been deliberately committed upon one of the Missionaries, and this, moreover, in cold blood, with every sign of deliberation, and with all the moat revolting circumstances of cannibalism. It has been committed, moreover, not by a rebellious tribe of savage natives, who had never been brought under civilizing influences, but by the very flock of the Missionary himself, among whom he had resided for years, and within sight of ins -own house. The unfortunate gentleman was, at the beginning of the last March, returning to his charge with another clergyman, Mr Grace. On his arrival in a small schooner the captain quickly discovered the disposition of the natives, and urged him not to trust himself ashore. But the same blind confidence which lured so many British officers into the bauds of the Sepoys prevented Mr Yolkner from believing that he could be xu any danger from his disciples. Before, however, he had time to leave the schooner of his own accord, the natives came on board, and seized both the crew and the two missionaries. Even then, it is said, Mr Yolkner refused to believe in the murderous intentions which his captors professed, and it was not until he was compelled to strip himself of his upper garments, under a halter hung from a tree close to his own house, that he was undeceived. The natives hung in savage haste, tore open his body, distributed his entrails to the Maori dogs, and his heart and other f ragments to the atill more brutal cannibals around, drank his blood, and finally cut off his head, which they have preserved, and exhibit in churches and other places of meeting as a token of their triumph and an emblem of their superstition. Mr Grace was warned that he would suffer a similar fate after he had served their purpose, which was to exhibit him with the Europeans remaining to other native tribes and thus excite them againat us. Happily, however, the captain of the schooner had been released, and he contrived, with great ingenuity and courage, at a rare moment, when Mr . Grace was unguarded, to carry him off to her Majesty’s steamer Eclipse, which had been sent round from Auckland upon the news of this -atrocity. So far, moreover, is this outbreak of savagery and cannibalism from being local or exceptional that nearly every Missionary and settler for the space of about 200 miles along the East Coast, including Bishop Williams and his family, have been compelled to fly for their lives, and often to abandon their possessions, which in many eases, as in that of Mr Yolkner, have been distributed among the savages.

Horrible as are the details of these atrocities it is yet necessary to repeat them, in order to produce a distinct impression upon the mind of every Englishman of the real nature of the race with whom we have so long been maintaining an unwilling struggle. Every feeling of sympathy has been appealed to in this country on behalf of these savages. They have been the especial favorites of philanthropists and Missionaries. We have been assured for years of the successful establishment of Christianity among them. English clergymen and gentlemen of the highest character and abilities have devoted themselves to what was believed to be the promising task of converting A noble race. The Episcopal system, which a certain party would persuade us is the infallible remedy for all moral and social diseases, has nowhere been so completely developed as in New .Zealand, and at the head of it is the ablest and most distinguished of all our colonial Bishops. The dream which has been thus encouraged must «t length, we should hope, be effectually dissipated by this startling atrocity, so far, at least, as to have no further influence upon our practical treatroe ,it of the natives. Here is the measure of the depth tp which this much-talked-of Christianity has penetrated. A Missionary is only absent from his station, a short, time, and on his return his congregation are found to hare relapsed into the most brutal savagery, and tear him to pieces with all the most revolting circumstances of cannibalism. The neighboring Bishop is equally helpless,

and a whole colony are in as much danger and exposed to as great atrocities as if they were the first Europeans who had discovered these savages. The truth, as experience, it may be hoped, will at last convince every one, is that without the operation of a miracle the savage natture is not to be so easily eradicated. It may be dormant for a time, but it only slumbers, and is always ready to burst forth with the ferocity of a wild beast. There are two sides to the disposition of a savage, the conjunction of which we have been hitherto wholly unable to realise. It is on the one side like the nature of a child, externally docile, impressible, and gentle, with a kind of unconscious cunning. On the other ride sleep the full-grown and deeply implanted passions of the man, ferocious and uncontrollable. It is a comparatively easy thing to degrade men from civilization to savagery, but it is a miraculous task to raise them from savagery to civilization. Just as experience seems to prove that the savage can never be socially amalgamated with the white man, but must disappear before him, so it seems also too clear that the two natures cannot be morally assimilated.

The source of this horrible reaction is the new superstition which we lately had occasion to mention, called pai marire, words which, with a strange mockery of a reality are said to mean “ good and peaceable.” It is some corruption of Christianity, or at least has some Scriptural notions mixed up with, for the Hau-haus, as its followers are termed, have a superstitious respect for the Jews, and it is to the fact of his being a Jew that the captain of the schooner, (whose name is Levy, owed his immediate release. The superstition sprang up, it appears, in the west of the island, and has travelled from Wanganui by Taranaki and Waikato to the East Coast, until at length it seems to have roused into fanaticism nearly the whole of the native population of the province of Auckland. In this province are concentrated about four-fifths of the whole native race, and of these, it is said, only about two-fifths were formerly at war with us, whereas now we must consider that at least fourfifths are converted into wild and fanatic enemies. The direct object of the superstition is to extirpate Christianity and drive out the Europeans. Human sacrifices are believed to be acceptable services, and Missionaries are its most favorite victims. It is, in short, nothing less than a madness which has seized the people, and has swept over the whole island like a conflagration. It is but a few days ago that we were commenting upon a despatch of Sir George Grey’s, in which he announced the capture of the principal Pai-Marire prophets, and expressed a hope that the blow would extinguish the superstition. But fanaticism is insensible alike to reason or to force, and the superstition seems destined to run its course like a disease over which nothing that we can do will have any control.

We have no wish to discourage the devoted and excellent persons who will no doubt prosecute their benevolent mission with as much enthusiasm as before. All we claim is that, for the future, they shall not be allowed, by the encouragement of a sickly sentiment, to interfere with the just severity which it is evidently the commonest prudence to enforce. If the missionaries can prevent the Maoris from rebelling, by all means let them use the influence, but when they have rebelled let them be treated on the plain principles which the necessities of the case would suggest to any unbiassed mind. Disappointed as we are in the favorable prospects which the New Zealand authorities lately out to us, we may still be satisfied that the policy which has been just inaugurated is the best. The colonists will most wisely be left to themselves to manage this war with the energy which their sense of danger and their experience will suggest to them. It is obvious, at all events, that the cumbrous operations of our regular troops have wholly failed. G-eneral Cameron is making slow and cautious marches from point to point along the West Coast, and meanwhile, as we have seen, the whole East Coast is in flames, and the very district which he subdued in the Waikato campaigns of 1863-64 is said to be threatened with a fresh irruption of still more fanatical and determined enemies. Our blows are feeble from the elaborate delay with which they are delivered, and our conquests are rendered ineffectual by an inopportune display of consideration of the vanquished. So long as English authorities retained the responsibility for all operations, we should, probably, continue the same ineffective method. Now that the whole matter is in the hands of the colonists themselves, whose energy is quickened by danger, and whose skill is instructed by personal experience, we may hope that a more successful method will be adopted. At all events, they appear to be now face to face with a new and formidable revolt of the whole native race, and we shall look anxiously to hear of some more effective measures having been taken than of General Cameron having marched to winter quarters at Waimate, of her Majesty’s ship Eclipse having been sent round to the coast, while the rebellion rages in the interior, and of Sir George Grey having gone to Auckland to see what could be done, after our Missionaries had been murdered and our colonists expelled.