THE MAORI IN FRANCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17279, 21 September 1916, Page 10

THE MAORI IN FRANCE.

“ TIPPERARY ” IN NEW GUISE. In the green lanes of France yon may meet at any timo with men of all colours. There are black men marching there, brown men, and bronze, besides all the English and French sol-diei-y. A whilo ago a long column swung along the road to the tune of a melody sung in timo to the marching feet (writes a correspondent of London “Times”). The tune you would know, but the words would be now to you, or at least seem so. Ho roa to wa ki Tipirere, He tino ntanao Ho roa to wa ki Tipirere, Ki talcu kotiro, E noho Pikatiri. Hoi kona Rehita Koea, He mamao rawa Tipirere Ka tae ah an. It is an old friend in new guise, nnd the last word of the first line will tell von that it is none other than “Tipperary.” But what is tho tongue that it is sung in and what of the men that sing it? On the other sidn of the world there is a land where tho trees never turn yellow. Where the summer is a fair division of the year with a month and a half thrown in for good measure. It is a land of big spaces, full, broad rivers, and turquoise lakes. In the south there are great mountains with their peaks clothed in perpetual snow and their glaciers moving towards the sunbathed plains. In the interior there lived a race of chivalrous warriors who fought a great fight against British troops. Now New Zealand is as British ns Sussex, and tho spirit of the dark-skinned fighters who took up arms against the redcoats has come, to France in the Maori contingent. FOR KING AND EMPIRE. When Britain first declared war there was an immediate response from tho Dominions and the Maoris asked that they should be allowed to fight for their King with tho “pnkeha” (whitemen) brothers. At first there wero obvioiis difficulties, and it was not for some timo that tho Government was able to accede to their request. Then there came a time when there was great rejoicing in tho Maori pn-3, and the young men flocked to the recruiting offices, as became the sons of a fighting race. It was disgrace to be hoeing the kumara beds when the manhood of England was needing respite from the t a title, i hey would go over the sea to help tho King and the Empire, and so they came, first to Gallipoli and then to France. Thoy are children in spirit, and thenpleasures have always been cf their own devising. They had no written language, but they handed down by oral tradition the most complex genealogical trees and their own detailed and picturesque folklore. There is another side to them that has been evidenced ns the result of the civilisation that we have taken them, hut that is not the sido we are interested in. When the war came to New Zealand it found one •Maori tmv dwelling beside the water? of Lake Tanpo. He was os happy as he could be and not overwo-ked. He had been tnnriit English bv the Cntliolic priest of Waihi. and he could rend the papers slowly, but sufficiently well to tell that here was a great adventure offered him. Ho sat in the whare one> night reading from tho cables how the Germans had thrown our Army hack from Mons. Ho did not know where Mons was, but ho knew that men were wanted. He asked if ho could go to fight, but was told that it was not a war for the Maori. Then at lest- came his chance. He took his younger brother out to the potato paddock end gave him detailed instructions as to what he was to do if the kumaras wero by any chance ready for digging before he came back from settling the King’s affairs. He shook hands solemnly with his grandfather and performed the “hong:,” rubbing bis own flat nose on tho tnt'oed face of tho n’d man. Ho shouldered his bundle and walked away past the hot springs, through the manuka scrub with its sweet-smelling flowers until ho struck the coach road under Maungannmu, tho little pocketedition of a volcano with its dead crater filled with foxgloves. THE FIGHTING SPIRIT. Ho walked to AA’aiouru, nrul then ha took a train. In ten days ho was wearing n khaki jacket, and helmet, doing tedious drill on a hard-trodden square. Then, after the allotted space of training, he was embarked with his fellows, all of his own race, and tho long journey to Egypt commenced. Arrived at Gallipoli ho got his first taste of fighting, and heredity camo uppermost. Disregarding all that an impressive sergeant-major had drummed into his head, he forgot that a bayonet was for •use at close quarters. Ho was sent with tho other Maoris on a little piece of work that demanded much steadiness and the utmost quiet. They crept along tho dcre to attack the Turk. It wag to be a surprise attack, nnd the rifles were not to be fired. It was a surprise nnd Hone went into tho thick of tho melee with his rifle clubbed like the “ tiaha ” or tho “ tekoteko ” of his forebears. It was hard work, but orders were obeyed, and there were no noises but the sound of hard breathing, and the thud of the rifle stock and the cries of tho wounded. Their object was achieved, and that night on tho beach, under Walker’s, they sat and talked of tho glories of that half-hour. Then they camo to France, and we find them swinging along between the high poplars to the tune of “Tipperary,” tfung sweetly in their soft voicos and with tho perfect time that all Polynesian races aro able to put into their music. Hone camo, tpo, and here he is at the head of the column with two stripes on his sleeve. As he marches ho wishes wistfully that his old grandfather and little Hori, his brother, could see him now, and could have heard the cheers that greeted them in the streets of tho first French town they passed through. Once more he was in tho thick of things, but this time ho did not march to tho bivouac. A stretcher carried him to the waiting motor-ambulance, and he was hurried to the hospital, where a surgeon shook his head sadly over him. Ho lay thero for two days, but his spirit was already half round the world to the quiet lake side, where the whito sand is washed by waters as blue as the clear sky. He thought himself baci: at Taupo, sitting under the shade oi' the manuka bushes. The steam from tho hot pools in tho tea-tree was wafted across the water, and the boiling mud geysers chuckled and gurgled like goblins as he told his brother and the old man of how he had fought the Turk and tho Germans. The nurse at the other end of tho ward was suddenly conscious of soft singing, and as she camo along tho passage-way between the beds she heard that the voice was Hono’s. Sho, too knew the tune, but ilie words were strange to her. “Ho roa te wa ki Tipirere, he tino mamao,” he sang. And then, as the little boiling pools clrackled and laughed softly, and the noto of a distant bell-bird camo across the arm of the lake from Waitanui, lie closed his eyes nnd his spirit went to the place where all good warriors go-