A SAD & REPULSIVE PICTURE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 233, 23 December 1874, Page 2

A SAD & REPULSIVE PICTURE.

The following has been handed to us (Bay of Plenty Times) for publication. We omit names :— Wairoa, November 29.

Dear Sir, —I received your letter too late for the last mail. What you have read or heard about the death of Ruihi Kawana (Lucy) is quite correct —it really beggars description ; if I had not been an eye witness I could not believe it. Since you wish tb know the particulars, I shall attempt to describe them: Previous to Lucy’s death a woman named Pia died, and at the tangi rum was freely distributed. The gathering of the people was not so numerous, nor did the natives become so outrageous ; but Lucy, with several other women from here, imbibed quantities. I have seen the women empty a pannican full of rum without drawing breath, drinking it like water.. After Pia’s body was buried, Lucy continued to drink until she was taken sick with bowel complaint. Dr. Cowan was called in, and found her suffering from an inflammation of tire bowels, and prescribed for her. That pight an old Tohunga fellow at Waitangi had a dream, in which he saw a dog devouring Lucy’s bowels. The news of this dream reached here the next morning. Superstition (priestcraft) predominated ; the medicines were no longer administered, and persuasion or entreaty could not bring them to reason. They commenced praying for her in all directions until she succumbed and died on the second day. The corpse was take to Paora’s whare and laid out in state, decorated with feathers, greenstones, and the pictures of your family. Being opposite, I could see all the fun. I have seen an account of an Irish wake, but this tangi beats it; men, women, and children (they were all represented) were all drunk, yelling, shouting, dancing, and fighting all at the same time, but in different directions. The contesting parties fell over the coffin, and knocked the body down. While all this feasting was going on, which lasted a whole week, until the body was buried at Karirr, the quantity of provisions consumed has left these people without anything to eat, which has caused them to dig up their seed potatoes for food. If their crops in the ground should prove a failure they must starve. I can form no conception of the quantity of spirits consumed on this occasion. I saw, along with another European, eight pack horses returning from Tauranga loaded with nothing but rum, several of them having three five-gallon casks ; there were also sup-

plies received from Maketu and Ohineinutu. In general the natives of this locality are the most dissipated, lazy, lot that I have seen. So long as tiny quarrelled amongst themselves, I did not interfere, but when they attacked the white people I went to Captain Mair about it, who sent two constables over, who bought rum from two of the’ natives.