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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5377, 21 June 1878, Page 2

The settlers of Hawke’s Bay have been moved of late by the loss of au old friend in the person of Tb Hapuku, a Maori of great rank, who died at his place, near To Aute, on the 23rd ult. It is said that if Te Hapuku could have been persuaded to submit to a surgical operation for tbe removal or relief of the tumor on his neck which was the immediate cause of his death, his life might have been prolonged.; but he rejected medical aid altogether. He, however, had reached the three score years and ten, and his time, in the natural course, had probably come. He was one of the connecting links between the old New Zealand and the now ; between the stone age and the age of brass; between the taniwha and the lawyer. He had heard old men tell of the hunting of the moa, whilst some solitary individual of the race was still said tb exist within the tapued boundaries of Tongariro; he had eaten whale blubber, and possibly flesh of another kind, cut with a flake of obsidian from tho quivering carcass, and he had sat at good men’s feasts, armed with a silver fork and a table napkin, upon a spring-seated chair, and with his knees under hospitable mahogany. He had gone to battle in the simple undress which was fashionable in Ira youth, and to church, in his maturer age, in a suit of irreproachable black, with a paper collar and a chimney-pot hat. But of all the changes which in tho course of a long life ho had experienced, probably none would touch him more nearly than that between the traditional surroundings of the. deathbed of the “Tiuo Rangatira” of old days, and the condition of mental worry, besides physical pain, in which his own last hours appear to have been passed. When a great chief took ill, and the Tohunga was called in, the ceremony of a special “ Tapu” was the first step in his treatment; the patient was not only tapued himself, but all those who came, or were permitted to come, within a certain distance of him, were subjected to the ceremonial conditions of that rite. The patient was not permitted to use his hands even to feed himself, and when he desired to drink, anattendant made a funnel or scupper of her tapued hand, and poured water from a calabash through it into his mouth. Decorum, gravity, silence, grief, marked the demeanor of all whose presence was permitted, and “the last words” were always treasured as the lessons of wisdom and the guide of the hapu dr the tribe. Between the time when Tb Hapuku and the Hawke’s Bay natives had parted with a territory to Governor Grey tor a few coppers per acre, and the time when it came to bo regarded as wicked to purchase an acre from a native at the price of many pounds, Hapukd had become rich in land, and in flocks and in herds, and tho : question of legal succession to his wealth became, at last, one of great interest. The rule of the old Maori chiefs in dealing with worldly goods was, practically, that which is figuratively expressed in the princely motto of the Courtenays, as Gibbon tells us—“ What wo had we gave ; what we.left we lost.” The heart of the great chief was generous—he gave, and did not keep. But we have changed all that, and Hapdkd, though still open-handed and generous to what in these days would be called a fault, —is said to have died rich. Tho politics of Hawke’s Bay are peculiar ; wo touch them with caution. It may be said, however, generally,, that ithas been discovered that advocacy of tho“ rights” of the natives, as well as being morally and politically commendable, may be made a very good business pecuniarily, and that Some very estimable gentlemen have accordingly devoted themselves to that work. But even in good work, in this world, it is not possible to secure unity of action, and wo find that there are hostile camps of sympathisers: one, of course, the “liberal,” and the other the “ conservative” camp. Detachments of each have been, we are informed, regularly sent against poor Te Hapuku, whose house has been in a condition of perpetual siege during his illness. Now, the liberal party have triumphed; now, the conservative. Daily, it is said, for a long time, the suffering chief has executed a new last will and testament,: each one revoking and annulling that which has gone ■ before ; but, finally, we hear that by barricading the doors and blocking the chimney, the conservatives have triumphed. Mr. Rees, the loader of the . liberals, who, at the call of truth and justice, nobly comes forward in every kind of cause, has been beaten by a woman, who, as representing the tribe and being highest of rank, is tho natural legatee of Tb Hapuku. The great success in the case of citizen George Jones may console Mr. Rees, if ho have failed in this instance, even although he was assisted, as before, by the “great medicine;” and it may bo hoped that the numerous fees and refreshers necessarily involved in his many free journeyings to Te Auto, by rail, will assuage his natural regret at the triumph of the evil principle. . The picture which we have of the surroundings of this good old chief in his last days is not pleasant to contemplate. The redeeming points are the presence of a Christian minister and the knowledge that Te Hapuku passed to his rest with the consolations of religion and the hope of a bright hereafter. Otherwise we venture to think that rapacity and hardeyed selfishness, the handmaidens of civilisation present on the late occasion in their most repulsive form, were leas suited to the solemn time than the tapued and devoted servants of the older but more savage period would have been.