Whakawhitira.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 1012, 15 December 1881, Page 2

Whakawhitira.

(FROM a CORRESPONDENT.) Centrally situated in the Waiapu Valley extends a long, rather narrow, strip of land, now covered with scrub, interspersed with a few cherry trees, habitationless and tenantless, which is described by old Native residents of adjacent settlements as having once been the site of a very large and populous •Maori pah. It is stated that many thousands of the Ngatiporou tribe once lived there, the whole space being taken up by the numerous whares and dwelling places.

Thither camo in the early missionary days, Piripi Taumata Akura, despatched from the Bay of Islands by the late respected Bishop of this Diocese, who, himself and brother, soon afterwards followed. This man is said to have first brought the “ glad tidings ” to assembled and powerful Ngatiporou. The aboriginal mode of life anterior to the arrival of this messenger literally of peace, at Whakawhiiira (so was the pah named) appears to have been lively in the extreme (not to say disagreeably exciting), and presents a spectacle of intertribal relations existing at that period hardly credible in these days, and demonstrates fully the immense amount of good effected after all by the very well abused first introducers of Christianity to these islands. An eye witness (a boy at the time) says. The large pah inhabited by some thousands of men, women, and children, was divided by fences into several sections, each inhabited by a separate hapu. These were continually fighting among themselves. Conflicts often ending fatally to two or three people frequently occurred and were initiated by the most trivial causes. Children would be at play, and one, accidentally or otherwise, hurting another, the aggrieved one would strike his antagonist down with a stone or whatever came to hand. The seniors would then interfere on behalf of their respective offspring ; blows struck ; weapons freely used; and not until one or more had fallen would peace be temporarily restored. Yet these intertribal animosities all vanished when the whole community, or tribe, was menaced by an outside enemy. Then the pre-existing rivalry instigated respective heads of hapus to warlike emulation, and chiefs vied with each other in deeds of prowess against a common foe. It must have been a sublime moment for the first cross-bearers when all these intestine jealousies and communistic feuds gave way before the benign influence of the peaceful Gospel, and instead of the frenzied shout of internecine combat and shrill cries of women, inciting to deeds of blood, one grand united and sacred chorus filled the valley, and as my informant expresses it (much more powerfully than I can) resounded “ haruru ” among the surrounding mountains.

Long ago the deep-toned voices are hushed which first woke up the pleasant Waiapu Valley with that unwonted harmony, and the good Bishop has gone to his rest, but the memory of that great day still survives among many grey-bearded veterans who still admiringly recount the deeds of their ancestors, and relate tremulously their acceptation of the “ whaka pono ” in the days of “ Auld Lang Sync.” W AEVZAEWHATI. Waiapu, 9th Dee., 1881.