Maori Endurance.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 23 March 1910, Page 4

Maori Endurance.

A WEEK. WITHOLT FOOD

.IMSMAIMvA.Ii.LE Si ORY

Probably no instance of the extraordiua vy vitality of tho Maori nice in former days better than that given to a Taranaki Herald reporter by Mr S. Percy Smith, the well known authority 011 Maori and Polynesian matters, has been recorded. Mr Smith was being interviewed regarding'the lost Pink and White Terraces, and the conversation had drifted 011 to the topic ol the general effect of the Tarawera eruption, when Mr Smith remarked: "By the way, an incident illustrating the remarkable fortitude of the Maori came under my own observation at that time. The story has not been published yet, but you may use it if you choose." "Jll June, 1880, I was at Wairoa Village 011 the seventh day after the eruption, with my party, of Europeans, consisting of Mr Alma Baker, surveyor,_ and Mr Blythe, engineer," continued Mr Smith, "ihe whole place was then covered with ashes and mud from the volca.no. Houses were buried so deep that of many only the roofs were to ue seen. There was a party of natives there who had been digging out some of the buried people. They had just opened up what had been the road in front of Mcßae's Hotel, and found the body of a woman and her child lying flat, covered by about three feet of volcanic mud and dust. They had also broken i'n to one of the houses and there found an old priest, named Tuhoto, who had been buried in this house since the eruption. He was alive, but very emaciated through want of food and water, but he had been under shelter the whole time. SITTING ON THE MUD. "I heard these natives talking amongst themselves, and referring to an old woman they had seen the night before, across a valley, about a mile distant from Wairoa. Naturally, this interested me, and I ascertained from the men that no attempt had been made to rescue her, although she appeared to be still alive. They replied to my reproaches on their want of humanity by saying: 'Oh! she was only a very old woman! What good is she , After a good deal of persuasion .1 got four of the Maoris to accompany me, with my compainions, in an endeavour to find the old woman. After travelling over a mile or more of the most dreaufill and tenacious mud that I have ever experienced—it was of the same consistency as mortar or cement—we finally saw the old woman sitting on tho cold surface of the mud, which was then in a semifrozen condition, owing to the extreme cold. We found her alive, buii her mind was wandering. She was clad only in cormsacks, one around her shoulders and tho other around her waist. I gave her some biscuit soaked in whisky. She had with her a tomahawk alnd a burnt-out fire stick which she had brought from her home. Then we took the sack off her shoulders, and, using it as stretcher, all getting around the edges, we carried the old woman over that dreadful mud to the Wairoa Village.

THjj NIGHT OF THE ERUPTION

"There Mcßae gave her some hot tea, and we found amongst the debris of the hotel sufficient clothing to cover her. Then we took her on to a native village (Rotokakalii) at the far end of one of the lakes near the Wairoa, where the natives from the latter village had taken refuge after the eruption. The next morning I went to see her and to get some particulars as to her adventures. She told me that on the night-.of the emotion she and her old husband were in their hut, near Waitangi, on tho shores of Lake Tarawera. When the stoines and mud cast out from the volcano began to fall through the air they were terribly alarmed, and they thought it was time to get away and try to join their own people at the Wairoa. And so they started. The old woman carried a tomahawk in one hand and a- lighted fire-stick in the other. They 'had not gone, in the terrbile black darkness, in. which one could not seo his hand before his face, more than twenty or thirty yards from the hut when a dispute arose between the two as to which was the road to the Wairoa. Village. PERISHED. "The old man wont off on his own course, and perished. His body was never found, though a thorough search was afterwards made. No doubt it had been buried under the falling stones aind mud from the volcano. "The old woman kept on Tier course, which finally proved to be tho correct one. Had she possessed sufficient ]>ower she would have reached the village, but she fell exhausted in the place whore we found, her. That old woman, over seventy years old, had been there for seven days and seven nights, with (nothing to eat or drinu sitting, scnntilyy clad as she was, on that fearfully cold mud, the temperature of whicli was very nearly down to freezing point! Yet, when T interviewed her on the morning after we rescued her, she had regained all her senses, and was quite" happy except that all she wanted was some matches, which she got. Very few instances are on record that illustrate better tho extraordinary vitality of the Maori race in olden days."