AN INTERWIEW WITH TE KOOTI.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1369, 16 October 1883, Page 1

AN INTERWIEW WITH TE KOOTI.

Mr Nicholls, who is contributing to the Auckland Herald an account of hi* trip through Ihe King country, has the following with regard to hi* interview with Te Kooti : On iho second day after our arrival at Mongo-o rongo, there was great excitement in camp as a body of about 50 horsemen, headed by a woman, were seen galloping as hard a* they could come aero** the plain leading to tlie settlement. There were loud cries of Heremai from the men, and shouts of “Te Kooti ” from the men, as the ex-rebel chief and his wife rode into camp at the head of a band of well-mounted though wild-looking horsemen, When the new arrival* had pitched the tents they had brought with them, and were squatting in a circle round the hero of Poverty Bay, I went into the oamp, when Te Kooti saluted me with Tena koe pakeha, and invited me to be seated. I took in hie outward appearance at a glance. t He was a man apparently of about, 50 years of age, over medium height, of athletic form, broadshouldered, and keenly knit, and with a remarkable stern expression of countenance, which imparted to his whole visage a hard and even a cruel look. Hi* features, cast in the true Maori mould, were strongly defined. His head was well-formed with a high-arched forehead, and his lips were well-cut and firm } while his quick, dark, piercing eyes had a restless glance about them as if their owner had been kept all his life in a chronic state of excitement. He wore a moustache and long-pointed beard, which, for the apparent age of the man, appeared to be prematurely grey. There was no tattoo marks about his face, but when he smiled in his sinster way every line of his expressive features seemed to be brought into play. Taken altogether, Te Kooti had a decidedly intelligent cast of countenance, in which the traits of firmness and determination appeared to be strongly marked. His wife, wno was apparently a few year* younger than himself, was a strongly built, gaunt woman, with a remarkable bold expression of countenance, and I could well imagine that during th® troubled times of the war she must have proved a daring and willing helpmate to her desperate lord. The followers of Te Kooti, who sat around, were mostly men of over six feet in height, powerful in build, and stern and savage looking in countenance, and with the same air of watchfulness about them as was observable in the manner of Te Kooti, as if they, like their chief, hud been over on the qui veve for their lives during their long sojourn of outlawry in the fastness of the Country. The first question put to me by Te Kooti was to inquire where I had come from, and when Turner explained to him the course of our journey he replied, “ They told me as soon as I arrived that u Pakeha was in camp, and that he had travelled through the country, and I said now that he has been through and seen all let him remain. I did many a long journey,” he continued “during the war, but I never did a ride like that on one horse. I was always careful to have plenty of horses-” I told him that I had seen the remains of his pah at Te Pourere, near Tongariro, where one of his great battle* wa* fought j and taking his left arm out of a sling he said, “ This is what the Pakehasgave me there,” and he showed me how a rifle ball had struck him between the knuckle joints of the two first fingers,

crippling them both. Ever since he wa* wounded in this way he had always made it a rule to hide his hand as much as possible, and for that purpose he carries it constantly in a sling. He asked me whether I came from England, and when answered in the affirmative! he put many questions to me about the country, and was especially anxious to know whether the Queen wa* still alive, as he stated that he had often heard of her when at war with the Europeuns. He then said the Maori* did not want that war, but the Pakeha* would fight, and the Maoris fought them. I remarked that it was now time for the two races to be as one, and that all the troubles of the past should be forgotten, and that the king country should be open by roads and railways, “Ido not object,” said Te Kooti, to roads and railways, but,” he continued, “ we must hold the lands; it will not do for the Natives to lose everything.” I pointed out that a handful of pakehas ruled over 200,000,030 of people, and that roads and railways had been made in that c untry, and the Natives had benefitted. Te Kooti, without a moment’s hesitation, replied : “In India the pakeha rules justly ; here the Government have not treated the fairly ; one Government promises one thing, and one another, and they have all broken faith.” Te Kooti then referred to Tawhiao in the way in which I pointed out in my introductory article in these papers, and which I will repeat here, in order to carry out the sequence of his remarks. When I stated to him that since the formation of the Colony one law and one sovereign reigned from one end of New Zealand to the other, and that that applied to the King country as well as to any other part of the island, he replied: “ That may be so. But,” he continued, “ you have your Queen, and Tawhiao is our King. Whatever Tawhiao says, we must do. Tawhiao’s mana extends over the lands, and we must keep them. So long as the pakeha acts justly, I will act justly ; but if he attempts to take our lands, I am still Te Kooti, and will rise again.” At this stage Te Kooti burst forth with a wild chant —a kind of song of welcome, which was intended as a compliment to our visit. As Te Kooti sang, his voice was singularly clear and mournful, and hi* intonation very distinct, while every word, as it fell from Ids lips, appeared to be uttered witli the wild impulse of a fanatic. During this time his followers, as they had in fact done all along, sat listening in mute attention, as if anxious to hear the words of one whom they appeared to look upon as a kind of deified man, or as one would say as one endowed with a charmed life that had made him the hero of brave and extraordinary exploits, which called to mind some of the most daring and bloody deeds of AVlaori warfare, and as 1 listened to his wild refrain and marked the earnest, yet animated, txpression of his features as he sang, 1 could well realise the influence which such a man would exercise over the superstitous minds of the Maoris, and yet when I recalled to mind his remarkable career, his marvellous escape from the Chatham Islands with his devoted band, his desperate and bloody raid upon the settlers of Poverty Bay, and the series of daring achievements which rendered the name of Te Kooti a terror and a menace during the war that followed, I could not I ut help thinking that many of the Ca-sars and Napoleons of history must have been made much of the same stuff as this fanatical Hauhau leader.