AN OLD MAORI STORY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1002, 3 February 1912, Page 4

AN OLD MAORI STORY.

As to New Zealand, Mr A. L. D- Fraser, of Napier, a Maori scholar aud an enthusiastic student of Maori history, communicates verbally a story told him by Napier district Maoris, that is certainly trustworthy in essence. The story is of the building of a chief’s house in the Napier district before the whites came. This chief was a great chief, a very great chief, and he wished to build a house worthy of his greatness. He had vanquished his enemies, he had supreme power among his tribe; aud he planned a house that should endure for ever and ever aud ever. The way to ensure this, as we know, and as our ancestors knew, is to make a sacrifice when the foundations are laid. But the Druids or others who reared Stonehenge were not content to sacrifice merely a set of current coins and a copy of Hansard, and this Maori chief well knew that the more precious the sacrifice the more sure would be the perpetuity of his great, great house. So he looked for his most precious possession—and found his only daughter, a girl of fourteen or fifteen years of age. He loved that daughter dearly ; but more dearly he loved the immortality of his name and fame, and his great, great house. When he had decided, he informed the mother of his will.

Useless to protest, but she protested. Assured that nothing could make her husband relent, she conspired with a bright young man, and perhaps also with her women. The day came to found the great house. A hundred Maoris came staggering under the load of a huge central pole, for which a deep pit had been dug, on the site of the great chief’s house. Came also the women carrying the victim, wrapped in the black cloth of custom, and possibly stupefied. Came the mother lamenting with loud cries. Came the great chief, pacing proudly ■ — with a sorry heart, it is likely—yet resolute as Agamemnon. The tackle was fitted, the post was raised, the horrible black bundle of living flesh was dropped into the hole, and while the women rent the air with shrieks that might have drowned the victim’s shrieks, down came the mighty pole on the body of the victim who was assured that it should stand for ever and ever and ever. The earth was filled in, the great house was constructed ; but the chief, despite his glory, grieved for his daughter. Still he seemed to hear her faint cry as the fatal post came dowu, crushing out her life with its immense weight. The wife merely pretended to grieve ; for she had sent the daughter away to the care of a distant tribe, under the guidance of the blight young youth, her coconspirator ; and sue worked artfully upon the cheated lather s emotions in waiting the time when he might be told that the sacrifice wrapped in the black cloth was but a dummy cunningly made. Months passed, and one day the chief was heard to say that even to his great great house it might be that he would prefer his dear, dear lost daughter. Weeks passed; aud one night, as the chief and his wile lay on theii mats, by the great pole, in the shadow of the great house, the wife sat up aud calledher drowsy husband’s attention.

‘•Listen!’’ she said “I hear our daughter's anklets.” For in those days the Maori maidens wore anklets of twisted coloured grass, with here and there a suspended shell or ornament, that tinkled as the maidens walked ; and to each pair of anklets belonged its own distinctive tinkle (.nay, its distinkle). So the wife sat up and said: “Listen! I bear our daughter’s anklets.” Here the Maori narrative becomes highly dramatic in its representation of the colloquy between the chief and his wife. He grumbles, and tells the woman to go to sleep ; she is dreaming ; for our daughter (sigh !) is buried tar beneath this great pole, and never will our ears near again the music of her anklets.

But that music is closer, is louder ; the chief is roused to go forth aud investigate; and lo! there is his daughter, a year older than when he saw her last, kneeling to implore his pardon. And in her arms she holds up to him his grandphild, her baby. Bhe had fallen in love with the bright youth as they journeyed away to hiding, and they had married Jn the simple Maori fashion.

Ha! Now to perpend. We have our great house ; we have our beloved daughter; so far, good. Yet dearly we have been defrauded. Our Uonour and dignity have beea assailed. The retaliation of “ utu ” is demanded. But this is, a complicated affair; we must poiider it. To those who have an inkling of

| Maori life and character, it is most i interesting to peep into the great I chief’s mind as it works to and fro, deciding from whom he shall exact vengeance. Shall it be from his wife, who has deceived him ? or from his daughter, who has married without his consent ? or from the bright young co-con-spirator, who has married her? No, no ; from none of these ; we shall take “ utu ” from that array of miserable wretches, that thriceblasted and accursed tribe who have dared, have actually dared, to hold our dear daughter hidden away from us all these months without our knowledge or consent who have deprived us of her comfort and her services—who have been guilty of the highest of high treason against our majesty. From them we shall take our vengeance. ! So the chief collected his warriors, and they sallied forth and fell unexpectedly upon the friendly tribe that had sheltered his daughter, and they slew every man, woman and child belonging to that tribe, and it is likely that they ate as much of them as they could, and carried prime pieces of the rest home for future consumption. So justice was done; utu was satisfied; and the chief, and his wife, and his daughter, and his grandchild, and his bright young son-in-law all lived happily ever after in the shadow of the great, great house.