Untitled

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 110, 8 May 1873, Page 4

Public Opinion is decisive in declaring that the Waikato murderers must be brought to justice. The Waikato Times, alluding to the subject says: — "The Ngapuhi tribe has offered to take the matter into its own hands. It would suit us to grant the whole of the land owned by the King's people as a reward for bringing the opponents of law and order to their senses. It matters not to those in rebellion by whom they are brought under subjection. Either the white man or the brown will have to produce the murderer or murderers of,'poor Sullivan, to be hanged as a warning to those who may take to similar eccentricities. The murderer must be hanged, and, as we said previously, the doty mast be done. We trust that the natives will not be foolish enough to drive us to extremities, otherwise the annihilation of the Maori race is tolerably certain to take place. The murderers j must be hanged, and the accomplices I receive at least a heavy term of imprisonment.—The Alexandria correspondence of the same journal, speaking of the feeling entertained by the settlers in that frontier district, says : — lf the murderers are all handed over— well ; if not, there is but one alternative left — we must take them." It was rumoured shortly after the first report of the murder of Sullivan, that it was in consequence of a lizard having made its way into the stomach of the murderer ; and it was alleged that this rather awkward circumstance imposed a necessity up on 'the man, as inevitable as destiny, that he should commit murder. There appears to be a basis in Maori usages on which the rumour was founded, but not of the kind stated. We have it on the authority of one for many years intimately acquainted with Maori law and custom, that tbe swallowing of the lizard is a voluntary act, and intended to produce that courage which will dare anything. That a lizard should voluntarily go down the throat of Maori would argue great want of cbnsideration on the part of a lizard, and great carelessness on the part of the Maori, in sleeping with his door open, ana 1 with vermin about. But it has been a frequent incident in Maori history that a great warrior has induced a green lizard, the, kakariki, to crawl down his throat through the simple operation of pinchhag its tail. The purpose served was twofold. . Not only was it believed that the reptile, for which a Maori has the utmost repugnance, believing it to contain the ghost of his grandfather, inspired the warrior with fierce and dauntless daring .and implacable cruelty, but an equally important purpose was served^ in t the moral influence exerted on tbe followers of a chieftan who had performed the revolting act. Not only was' it accepted as a sign that the'man meant to enter on some terrible career, but it, was believed that a man deliberately opening his mouth and putting a lizard into his inside was capable of stopping at nothing ; in which, latter idea most pakehas will! agree. It is known, th at the chief , . Taraia swallowed a lizard before entering on bis career of massacre,: ahaV/H^ Kati Kati; swallowed eyenitwo lizards toner ye him for action, is believed to be. the, last .that has , practised the disgusting rite. That Sullivan's raurd^ to be exceedihgly^unlikeiyi bbt if he did it ■would' have, ac^ pose^.nbjnii^ commit mn)rde^^^ been done for^he}pur pbs^bjf jaerving himself to the daring^eed|;anji^ '„