UREWERA WAR

Opotiki News, Volume I, Issue 46, 20 June 1938, Page 4

UREWERA WAR

CRAVES OF VICTIMS DAYS OF TE KOOTI WILD MEN OF THE BUSH , ;/ / ' • x Drenched with the mountain mist, swathed in tiie dense bush, Ruatahu--7jjr 11a, in the heart o&the Urewera country is one oU the 7 most picturesque settlements on -the Rotorua-Waikare-moana. highway. It u£is once the main village of the 'J.’tiltye tribe, and the headquarters of the rebel Te Kooti. The great carved ‘house erected for him still stands nearby, at Mataatua village, and there,- . too,- the traveller may see the lonely graves of those who Tell in war in :the heart of the lonely forest, .still -almost as little known by Europeans as i,t was a hundred years ago, writes lj[. Maynard, Hatait-ai, in the Dominion.

In the heart of the Urewera country (the Tulioeland of the Jute Elstlon Best) there is a large clearing near the junction of the Mana-o-rongo Stream and the Whakatane River. This is Ruatalimrili Down.the valley to the north lies Mhtaatua pa, reached ‘by a branch road which leaves the Rotorua-Waikaremoana highway at the village of Ruatalnma. On the right of this branch road stand on the hillside some old poplar trees, growing at the north-west entrance of O-rangi-k,awa pa. Those trees mark the graves of line soldiers , who lost their lives in an attack on the Maori stronghold in May, 1869, when Colonel St-. John’s column had come through most difficult country from Fort Galatea to effect the capture of Te Kooti Rikirangi.

The graves are those of Sub-in-spector H. B. Travers, Lance-Corporal E. Kelly, Constables J. Parkinson, Pearson, and R. Davis, of the Armed Constabulary, and Lieutenant D. White, of the Opotiki Volunteers. With them is Wi Mahi, of the NgaiTai tribe. . Cover Ignored. Sub-Inspector Travers was ignoring cover and urging his men on when a Hauliau, Paraone, fired sit- him at the exact moment Travers >va s in the act of firing at Paraone; each killed the other. The other soldiers were not killed instantly, but died of wounds received on May 8. Maelii or Mahi, the Maori, is said to have been a brother to Paraone, so that one of

the family served with the colonial troops and another with'/the Hauhaus.

Further' along the main road toward! /Te Whaiti, at a place named Manawa-hiwi; about a mile from Nga Putahi village there is another grave close to the road. Here was buried Hqmi-te-waka, a Maori from Taranaki, who had been one of the guides who was 'attached to the Corps of •Guides serving -with Colonel. Whitmore V'coiiiihn'. At the narrow gorge by Manawa-hiwi the advance guard' was ambushed, and “Big Jim,” as Hemi-te-waka was known, received two bullets in the chest. A sign marks the grave. , Interesting Story. A

The story of the Urewera warfare is an interesting one. Te Kooti Rikirangi had been shipped away, without the iorinality*of a trial, to exile in the Chatham Islands, with 300 rebel Hauhaus. There lie studied religion, and made a name as a prophet. He inspired the prisoners to rise in revolt, at a given signal, seize the hopelessly inadequate guard, and the schooner -Rifleman, then lying at anchor off the prison settlement. They forced one of the ship’s officers to navigate them bach, to Poverty -Bay.

Te Kooti and his followers struck inland, and found refuge in. the dense forest, befriended by the unconquered Tulioe tribesmen, the wild men of the mountains.' Only one white man had been slain in the escape from the Chathains, but now Te Kooti descended' in bloody massacres at Poverty Bay, Mbliaka and Whakatane. In 18(39 it became necessary to send in-an expedition to crush him; he was already an outlaw with £SOOO on 'liis head, dead or alive, but lie walked safe among the incorruptible Tuhoe. The expedition closed in one main Urewera settlement, Ruatuhuna, from three sides. Colonel George Whitmore led in a column from Rotorua, by way of Galatea and Te -Whaiti, then the main route into this forest fastness, until then closed country to . the white man. Lieut.-Uolonel St. John’s column penetrated the forest from Whakatane, up the Whakatane River’s winding course, through narrow gorges and' defiles and over steep hill passes, a difficult and dangerous march, no easier to make to-day than it was then. A third column, led by Colonel Herrick, was to have converged oil Ruatahuna from Waikaremoana, but was delayed in crossing the lake. Ran Into Ambushes. Whitmore’s column ran into -an ambush at Mnnawahiwi as they were approaching Ruatahuna. and Hemi to Waka. the Taranaki scout, who was

•with the vanguard, was shot down, by a scattered volley from the forest. St. John’s party advanced unopposed to a village. called Whataponga, just below Mataatua, where the alarm was. given, and 1 a handful of powder burned. At Te Paripari, the next settlement, this column too ran into an ambush, and! the vanguard .met with a volley from cover on the hillside. Lieutenant David White was killed. The other , casualties were caused when storming Orangikawa, the main fortification of the Ruatahuna settlements. 1

The fighting in the Urewera dragged on, a sort of constant guerilla warfare punctuated by occasional serious expeditions, until 1872: Te fxooti was hunted constantly by the- white and brown scouts, but was tooswary for his pursuers; /he lived to be pard - oned, and died at a venerable ikl age —one of the most picturesque figure* in Miaeri history. He,' too, sleeps m the Urewera, in an unmarked grave known only to one or two Tuhoe ancients. The white stones by the Mataatua by-way, and a clump of standing poplars, are to-day the sole memorials of the fighting of half a century ago.