NOTED CHIEF PASSES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3903, 5 February 1929, Page 3

NOTED CHIEF PASSES.

OLD TARANAKI RANGITIRA. MAKER OF ZANE GREY’S LINE. A MAORI OF THE MAORIS. *•- Poi Tutu, the revered Taranaki rangitira, died last Tuesday at his home at Normanby, so long hidden from the public gaze by the tall se-ven-foo't fence that surrounds it. Poi was nearly 80 years of age. Possessing the dignity of his race at its best, he was greatly respected by his tribesmen, and was considered a wise man among them. He was strong and straight, quick and supple, in spite of his grey locks. The trousers of the pakeha he newer wore in all ■ his life. His thighs were always girt .either with loin cloths like Highland kilts, or with iliis piu piu of flax. A pakeha shirt and pakeha pipe and tobacco were among the few condescensions to European custom he was known to make.

The deceased was a rangitira of the Ngati Ruanui tribe, and to him were- known many ancient rights and secrets of the tohungas. He had an imported historic association with Taranaki, says the Taranaki News. He was one of the local Maoris who was taken to Dunedin and detained there in captivity during the troublous times preceding the land confiscation in Taranaki. Right up to his death he remembered those times quite well. IWith Poi’s demise there have died arts and crafts once second nature to his race. Only recently when a visitor Saw him at his ho'me, he was weaving flax fibres with rare artistry into the strongest and toughest fishing line for mako sharks and swordfish that Mr. 'Zane Grey has .ever Poi was very busy then, but he showed the pakehas some of the secrets of flax working, as practised by many generations of bis ancestors.

"With eyes shining and lips smiling, and emitting an occasional .puff of tobacco smoke to relieve the picture, the Maori selected sevefal fine strands of creamy flax fibre from a bundle. Horny hands but lithe fingers rolled the several fibres, pressed closely upon Poi’s bare calf. He rolled them like a housewife rolling dough, until the several fibres were united into one strand, round and symmetrical. 'The smile increased and the' puffs of smolke were emitted more frequently. A flax leaf was only one yard long. A ! fishing line needed to be 200yds. How did the Maori join the ends? The strands were fitted into and between the loose ends. The weaver offered the line for the pakehas’ scrutiny. Where had the line been joined? Poi smiled. No one could distinguish. Mr. .Zane Grey has that line now. It has caught and held many sharks, swordfish and other denizens of the sea. It was the best line Zane Grey has ever had. Now Poi Tutu, the maker, is dead. It was the last line he made and no one living, it is can make a line like that one. The art is dead with Poi Tutu.