THE BATTLE OF ORAKAU.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3994, 7 September 1929, Page 3

THE BATTLE OF ORAKAU.

t . AGED SURVIVOR’S STORY. GALLANT STAND BY MAORIS. WOMEN SCORN TO ESCAPE. Wlith the light of battle again Hashing in his eyes, a very aged Maori, Te Huia Raureti, one of the two survivors of the battle of Orakau, stood on a recent iSnnday morning before the monument erected to the memory of the men who fell there, recounting to a group of senior officers of the territorial forces his memories of the three days’ siege of the pa. Major H. H. S. Westmaeott arranged for a number of seniolr officers of the Northern Command attending a course at. ICambridge to meet Te Huia on Sunday, August 25, at the site of the battle. Through questions put to the veteran by an interpreter, a, vivid first-hand account of the sieg£ of Orakau was obtained. The battle was fought on March 31 and April 1 and 2, 1864, between about 300 Maoris who occupied a strongly-entrenched position and a British force of 1800 men under Brigadier Carey. - The Maoris, who came from tribes near Kihikihi and from the King Country, Taupo and Urewera districts, were led by Rewi Maniopoto. On the first day of the engagement there were two unsuccessful assaults on the Maori position, after which a sap was carried toward the pa. On the third day Major-General Sir Duncan Cameron arrived and took command. “TIGHT ON FOR EVER AND EVER. During the afternoon, before the final assault, when the surviving rebels fled from the fortress, the Maoris were called upon to surrender." They gave the famous reply: “Ka whawhai tonu matou. Ake! Ake! Ake!” (“We will fight on forever and ever and ever.”) This is the motto of the present Waikato Regiment. After the British jterms had been refused the Maoris were called upon to send [heir women out of the pa. “If the men are to die, we will die too,” was the answer. Of the rebels, 130 were killed or wounded. There were 17 Europeans killed and 55 wounded. On April 1, 1914, the jubilee of the battle, a monument to the memory of the fallen was unveiled/ Te Huia, who claims now to. be over 100 years of age, made a dignified figure as his memory, 'bridging the span of 05 years, he answered with precision questions put to him. impressively he demonstrated the use of the old muzzleloading guns used at Orakau, the -biting off of the bullet from the cartridge, the pouring of powder down the barrel with the bullet rammed after it and the stamping of the butt on the ground-'to settle the charge. As he related each incident he pointed with his stick to the exact place of its occurrence. He gave no hearsay anecdotes. Where he had not witnessed an incident he would say: “I do not. know that; 1 did not see.” TRIALS OF DEFENDING BAND. Through the interpreter, Te Huia said that he first went to Orakau pa when his people congregated there. When war broke out he was married, with children. In those days he was dressed in a shirt and armed with a double-barrelled gun and carried 40 cartridges in two cartridge-belts about his body. In the battle he took his share of trenelFdigging with the ordinary spades which the natives possessed and- then took his post on the south-east corner of the fortifications. At dawn of the fijrst day of the battle he saw' the first of the pakeha soldiers, just a few, but very shortly they appeared from all directions and took cover in a peach grove. Brave in battle, they faced heavy fire from the pa in their assaults. An officer, high in rank, urns killed close to the defences and soldiers trying to recover the body were frequently driven back by the Maoris’ fire. Eventually some of the attackers made a determined rush, tied a rope found the dead man’s leg and dragged him away. There w r as no time for burial of the Maori dead. Bodies w'ere sim- e ply covered with a little earth. Nor had there been time adequately to i provision the pa. The defenders stole out at night and gathered potatoes from a pit close by. They also secured supplies of kumikiuni, a species of marrow, the juice from, the pith of which was all they had to slake their thirst. Within the pa there were no herbs for the treatment of wounds, which were roughly bandaged to await attention later. A GLADIATORIAL COMBAT. Te Huia recalled that the soldiers had some big guns on a ridge called “Kariponia.” These did the real damage and when finally the besieging force commenced bombing the outworks the Maoris rushed into the main pa and the retreat was commenced. The natives saw no more of them enemies once they got clear and they (reassembled immediately. Te Huia fought no more. Once afterwards, with Rewi, they nearly fired upon some soldiers, but they heeded a tohunga, who advised them against it.

In the general questioning ■ that followed his main account, T'e Huia said that his eldest brother was taken prisoner, robbed of his gun and given a taiaha with which to fight a British soldier. A group of soldiers formed a ring for the contest, but the Maori killed two of them and broke away. Although struck on the knee by the butt of a rifle and wounded by bullets in several places as lie fled, he made good his escape and fully recovered. . The Maoris of that day enjoyed fighting; but they did not fight for a joke, said Te Huia. They were angry with the pakoha and gave battle in real earnest. Taking lunch with the officers after the visit to the battle-ground, the old warrior, in the picturesque language fif the Maori, said that he was not the least wearied by his interviewers. Once he commenced to talk about the wan- he did not want to stop. It “got his blood 1 up,” he explained. —Auckland Herald.