BRAVE WOMEN

Hokitika Guardian, 23 November 1929, Page 3

BRAVE WOMEN

(J.C. in Auckland Star.)

A correspondent lately asked me whether any woman had ever won the Victoria Cross or the New Zealand" Gross in New Zealand. He was under the impression that one of the women in the Poverty Bay massacre had been awarded a Gross for her services—Mrs Wilson, whose husband and children were killed on that red morning. Ibis, of course, was not so. No woman was awarded a Gross in New Zealand; the regulations do not recognise women as como.,units, x.i.tno crieat War our nurses won medals for their splendid services, and 1 have no doubt many of, them fully earned the Victoria Cross, or its equivalent. I have an idea that Florence Nightingale was specially decorated for her hospital woik in the Crimean War, but have no data at hand on the subject. She was awarded the Order of Merit in her old age. But so far as New Zealand is concerned, it can be said that no service decoration was ever au araed to a woman.

That is not to say that the women did not earn a medal. They did, many of them, and several performed deoids "of valour which, had they been men, would have entitled them to mention in dispatches’ and very likely the Now Zealand Cross. Mrs Wilson, unhappily, did not long survive the terrible November 10, 1868, when Te Kooti attacked the Poverty Bay settkf mints on the Matawimro flat. When her husband, Captain Wilson, and three of the children were killed she was bayoneted and left for dead; some days later she was found and was taken to the Napier Hospital, where she died. Her little son, James Wilson., who, miraculously escaped death, helped her and went for assistance; a relief force found him wandering about and be guided them to his mother. Hie boy was afterwards granted a war medal, by way of special recognition of his pluck, and he was well known in New Zealand in after years as a Government surveyor.

Many Maori women deserved the war medal for their bravery. Unlike her white sister, the “waliine Maori’" often went on the fighting; trail with her husband and brothers. The veteran Tata Nihoniho, of the NgatiI’orou tribe, told me about his mother, who took to the warpath with him in 1865 in order to obtain revenge for the death of her husband. There are several - native women still living who fully earned the war medal and its pension, but applications on their behalf have always been vefused. In one or two cases small money grants were made by the Government for special services, but their sex—-unfairly in Maori eyes—debarred them from the issue, of a medal. One woman in particular; the venerable. Heni Pore; of. the Arawa, now about ninety years of age, deserves even at this rather late day, some recognition. of her fighting services in Major William Mair’s native contingent in the operations at Matata and the seigo of Te Telco pa in 1865. Heni used a rifle there and also played a manful j part iwith a spade in one of the Arawa saps before tlit Hauhau stockade. It was Heni, by the way, ii bo. under fire, carried water to the wounded British just after the re•nlse of the storming party at the Gate Pa in 1864. But she was fight-

iv ■ ''M the other side then; she turned “Kawanatanga” in the following year. There were several West Coast women who fought as well as any man in tlm Hauhau wars. In the Lindauer gallery, Auckland Municipal Art Gallery Building, there is a

painting of one of these warrior wahines, Pikirakau, with her gun am lnjr cartridge belts; a woman with ;■ history. There was another, the wifi of jjehimana, chief of the Nga-Raeru tribe, who turned to the Government side in 1889, and served under Lieut.Qolonel Tom McDonnell in the Patetere expedition against Te Kooti in. 1870. On January 25,' 1870, under cover of tiie morning fog, the *Hauhans attacked the Government camp at Tapapa—close to the present motoi road from Matamata over the fills to Mamaku and Rotorua. The NgaRauru auxiliaries were thrown inti confusion and were retreating on th European force, when Pehimana’s wife turned their temporary defea' into victory by her inspiring example. She climbed up on a high whata, r food platform, and, waving her shawl she yelled, her rallying cries calling on her tribe to turn and charge. They did so, and Te Kooti was driven off. “Not a rap did she care for the bul ldfis,” said McDonnell afterwards. But there was no medal for MrPcliimaita. Some of the so-called, sterner sex (sounds a joke somel i 'He's *1 have earned Crosses and D.S.O.’s for less.