THE MAORI INVASION OF OTAGO VIA HAAST PASS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2894, 1 September 1909, Page 86

THE MAORI INVASION OF OTAGO VIA HAAST PASS.

Two or three times I have asked where I could get a dear and concise account of the descent of the northern Maoris into Southland. A gentlemen who reads these columns says he read the account somewhere some time ago, but does not remember the authority. He adds that the story is well and succintlv told in a reoaotly issued book, *• New Zea&atJd,. printed Iw F. Amd W. Wright, described by Hon. William JPember Beeves, ex-High Cbmmissk>n«r for New Zealand." In.njs^pote he goes on to saj: — . , " It is a charming account of £?ew Zealand, very pJeasazitiy,_ and, on lie whole, accurately written. It is, however, an expensive book (245), and it would be -a. good thing if. the letterpress could be rejrabJished a& «. cheaper rate, not. that I wiah to defxreciate the numerous beautiful illustrations, but it would by that means reach the hands of, and afford much pleasure to, many unable to purchase the present expensive- edition." This gentleman has purchased the book, and, what is more, has lent it to me, so I am a-bie to give my readers the extract he refers to. It appears in the chapter, "Alp, Fiord, and Sanctuary": — "Maori history does not contribute very much to the romance of the south-west. A broken tribe, the Natimajnoe, were in the eighteenth oenturv ditnven bock to lurk among the mountains and lakes there-. Once they had owned. &c whole ot the South Island. Their pitiless supfLaWters, tfco Ngaitahu, would not let them rest even in- -their unenviable mountain refuges. They were obased further and further westwards, and finally A few still existed "when the first navigators cast anchor in the fiords. For many years explorers hoped to find some tiny dan bidden away in the tangled recesses of fioardlaißd, but it would seem that they are gone like the moa. " The .whites came in time ,4o witness the beginning of a fresh process of aiding and dispossession — the attack on the Ngaitahu by other tribes from the north. The raids of Rauparaha Among the Ngaitahu of the eastern coast of the South Island have often been described; for, thanks to Mr Travels, Canon Stack, and many other obronaciers, aaony of their details havetteea | preserved. -Much less is known of the doings of R&upaaraha's lieutenants on the j western coast, though oi» of their expeditions passed through the mountains and the heart of Otogo. .Probably enough, Ngotito* turned their sbege -towards W-est-lsfcnd in .fire "hope : of annexing 1&e tract .wherein is fownd tine" famous greenstone— a, nephrite priced by the Maori at once for its hardness a-nd beauty. In their i slope age — that is to say, until the earlier 1 decades of the nineteenth oentwry— it furniahed them with their most effectivetools and deadliest weapons. The best of it is so hard that steel will not scratch its surface, while its dear colour, varying from light to darkest preen, is for richer than the hue of Oriental jade. Many years— as much as two generations— might be consumed in cuttrorj and polishing a. mere fit for a great chief. When perfected such a weapon became a sacsed heirloom, the loss of whdoh would be wailed over as a blow to its owner's tribe. " The country of the greenstone lie* between the Arahuica and Hokitika Rivera in West3a«d, a territory by no means easy to mvale 80 years ago. The war parties of the- Kgotitoa reached it, however, -creeping akmg tfee ruggedusea coast, and, where the beaches ended, scalijtg- cK&s by means of ladders. They conquered tdie greenstone district (from which the whole South Island takes its Maori name, Te Wai Pounamou), and .settled down there among . the subdued "Nabrvesi ' TBhen, nue n%ht fancy, the Ngetitoa would have halted.' South of the Teremalcau Valley there was greenstone ; - fox the stone, tangi-woi, found near MiHoni Sound, though often classed with greenstone, is a distinct mineral, softer and much less valuaWe. Nor were there any more tribes with villages worth plundering. Save for a few wandering fugitives, the mountains and coast of the south-wes* were empty, or peopled only "by the Maori imagination with ogres and fairies, dangerous to intruders. Beyond this drenched and drffioult country, however, -tine Ng-»tito» resolved to pass. They lea.rned— from captives, one supposes— of the existence of a low saddle, which a -man may cross from the west- coast to the Jakes of Otago without mounting two thousand feet. By this way, the Boost Pass, they resolved to march, and fall with musket and mere upon the u«uepee*in<r Ngaitahu of Otago. Their leader in this during project was a certain Pmofeo. We may believe that the successes of Baaparaha on the eaat coast, a«d the fall, one arter the ! other, of Oraihi, the two stockades of Akaroa, and the faanpus pa of Kaiapoi. had fired the blood of his young men, and 1 that Puoho of nothing less than the complete conquest of Ute south. He nearly effected it. By a daring canoe voyage from Port Nicholson to southern WestJand, ar.d by landing there and crossin s the Haast Saddle, this tofctoed Han1 nibal turned the higher alps and descended upon Haiwea- surprising there a village of the NfeaitShw. Only one of the inhabitants escaped, a lad, wJmo was saved to guide the marauders to the camp of a family living at Lake Wanaka. The boy. managed to siip aw&y from the two cap* tors wiho wene his guamfe, and Tan all the way to Wanaka to worn JJ» threatened ' family— his own relatives. When the two guards ge-ve chase, 4ev found the intended victims prepared for them: they fefl^ into" an ambuaeade, and were "both killed — torn** hawked. Before the main body of the ffl' vadere came up tee Ngoitaihu family *■ far away. At Waneka, «"««* scheme became more daring JWi for »• conceived aud executed no / \sm % J«*tt "*

than that of paddfing down titter Clutha, River on rafts made of flax sticks — orazy craft for such a river. The flowex-stalks or sticks of the native, flax are buoyant enough when dead and dry, but they soon become \ waiter-logged, and are absurdly brittle. They supply suoh rafts as small boys love to construct for the navigation of small iagoons. And that strange river, the dutba, while about half as ■ long as the Thames, tears down to the sea bearing far more water than tne Nile. Nevertheless the Clutha did not drown Puoho and his men: they made their way to the see, through the open, country to the south east. -Then passog on to the River Mataura, they took another village somewhere between the sea acg the site of a town that now rejoices in the name of Gore. Then, indeed, ebe fate oi the Ngaitaha hung in the balance, and tbeOtogo branches of the tribe were threatened with the doom of those ot the northern haK of the island. .They were saved, because .in Southland there> was at the moment there one capable leader in their fater days of trouble— the, <hie£ Tuhawaiki, whom *he seaJers- of the' south coast called Bloody Jack. Hurrying up with all the warriors he could collect, and rein/arced by some of the while sealere: aforesaid, this personage attac&ed the Ngatitoa by the Mataura, took their stockade by escalade, and killed or/captured the band. Puoho himself was shot fey a, chief who lived to teli -of' the fray for more than 60 years aterwards. So the JNgaitahu escaped the slavery or extinction .which they in earlier days had inflicted on tb# Ngathwasmoe. For, three yea*rs after Puoho's raid, the New Zealand Company appeared in Cook Strait, and thereafter Kauparaiha and his braves, harried the South' Isutt^d no more." Now fchff is good as far as -it goes, but I want the battlefield on the Mataura fixed and an account of the battle. If I remember rightly, fche late Mr John White, solicitor, who took a keen interest in the history of the Maori, once prepared a paper in which the details were given. Who- can give what I want, naming authorities? By *h» way, the contributed article "A Aovet^ Trip: Henzntaf?, via the. West Ccaet, in the Times some time ago, refers to this invasion in the following; words: — "After seeing the difficult nature of the country one cannot help admiring the daring spirit of Te Bauparaha's lieutenant Te Puofeo, who. in 1836, led a war party down from the West Coast from the north of Nelson and through this pass made a raid on the Maoris in" fche south of Otago."