THE MAORI IN FRANCE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 215, 6 October 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE MAORI IN FRANCE.

"TIPPEItARY" IN" NEW GUISE

(London "Times.")

In the green lanes of France you may meet at any time with men of all colours. There are black men marching there, brown men, and bronze, Besides all the English and French soldiery. A while ago a long column swung along the road to the tune ot a melody sung in time to the marching feet. The tune you would know, but the words would be new to you, o; at least, seem so. Te roa te wa ki Tipirere, He tino mamao. He roa te wa ki Tipirere, Ki taku kot'ro, E noho pikatiri. Hei kona reliita koea, He mamao rawa Tipirere Ka tae ahua.

ft is an old friend in a new guise, ana the last word of the first line will tell you that it is none other than "Tippercry." But what is the tongue that it is sung in, and what of the men that sing it? On the other side of the world ther-i is a land where the trees never turn yellow! Wher the summer is a fair division of the year with a month and i half thrown in for good measure. !t is aj land of big spaces, full, broad rivers, and turquoise lakes. In the south there are great mountains with their peaks clothed in perpetual snow and their glaciers moving towards the sunbathed plains. In the interior there lived a race of chivalrous warriors who fought a great fight against British troops. Now New Zealand is as British as Sussex, and the spirit of the dark-skinned fighters who took up arms against the red-coats has come to France in the Maori Contingent. FOR KING AND EMPIRE. When Britain first declared wax there was an immediate response from the Dominions, and the Maoris aske] that they should be allowed to fight for their King and their " pakeha" (whitemen) brothers. At first there we--* obvious difficulties, and it was not for some time that the Government was able to accede to their request. Then tlior came a t ,: me when there was great rejoicing in the Maori pas, and the young men flocked to the recruiting officers as became the sons of a fighting race. It was disgrace to be hoeing tin kumera beds when the manhood of Kngland was needing respite from the battle!. They would go over the sea to help the King and the Emipre, and s • they came, first to Gallipoli and then to France. They are children in spirit, and their pleasures have always been of their own devising. They have no written language. but they handed down by ora ! tradition the most complex genea. logical trees and their own detailed and picturesque folklore. There is another side to them that has been evidenced as the result of the civilisation that we have taken them, but that is not the side we are interested in. When tho war came to New Zealand it found one Maori boy dwelling beside the waters e c Lake Taupo. He was happy as he could be and not overworked. He had been taught English by the Catholic pi"est of Waihi, and lie could read the papers slowly, but sufficiently well to tell that here was a great adventure olfered him. He sat in the whare one night reading from the cables how tho Germans had thrown out Army bacft from Mons. He knew that men were wanted. He asked if he could go to light, but was told that it was not a war for the Maori. Then at last came his chance. He took his younger brother out to the potato padt'oek and g;iv,o him detailed instrutcions as to what he was to do if the kunieras were by any chance ready for digging before lie came back from settling the King's affairs. He shook hands solemnly with ins grandfather and performed tho "hongi," rubbing his own flat nose on the tattoed f ace of the old man. He shouldered his bundle and walked away past the hot springs, through the manuka scrub with its sweet-smelling flowe.'s until he struck the coach road under Maunganamu, the little pocketedition of a volcano with its dead crate- filled with foxgloves.

THE FIGHTING SPIRIT

Hl' walked to Waiouri, and then ;ic took train. Jn 10 days he was wearing a khaki jacket and a helmet and doing tedious drill on a hard-trodden square. Then, after the allotted space of training, he was embarked with his fellows, ii 1 i of his own race, and the long journ v to Egypt commenced. Arrived at Ga!l : poIi he got his first taste of fighting and heredity came uppermost. Disregarding all that an impressive st rgeant-major had drummed into hn head he forgot that a bayonet was tor use at close quarters. He was sent with tlie other Maoris on a little piece of work that demanded much steadiness and the utmost quiet. Tliev crept along the deiv to attack the Turk. It was to be a surprise attack, and the f ties were not to be fired. It was a surprise, and Hone w.ent into the thick or the melee with his rifle dubbed like the "tiaha" or the "teko-toko" of Ins fin-boars. It was hard work, but <>• dors were obeyed, and there were no noises but the sound of hard breathing. and the thud of the rifle stocks and the cries of the wounded. Their object was achieved, and that n'ght on the beach under Walker's they sat and talked in their own tongue of the glories of that half-hour. Then they came to France, and we find th, in swinging along between the high poplars to the tune of " l'ipperarv'" sung sweetly in their soft voices and with the perfect time that all Polynesian races are abl,> to put into their music-. Hone came too, and here ho is at the head of the column with two stripes on his sleeve. As he marchos lie wishes wistfully that hW old grandfather and little Hon, his brother, coudl see him now and could i,a\V heard the cheers that greeted them in the streets of tli.e first French K.wn they passed through. Once more h< was iii the thick of things, but this time he did not march back to the bivouac. Ast retch,er parried him to the waiting motor-ambulance and he was hurried to the hospital where a surgeon shook his head sadly over him. He lay there for two days, but his spirit was already half round the world to the quiet lake-side where the white sand is waslned by waters as blue as the clear sky. He thought himself back a.t Taupo sitting under the shade of the manuka bushes. The steam from the hot pools in tin ti-trne was wafted across the water and the boding mud gpysei-s chuckled and gurgled like goblins as lie told his brother and the o! 1 man how he had fought the Turk and the Germans. Th ( " nurse at the other end of the war was suddenly conscious of solt singing, and as he came along the pas. sageway between the bods she heard that the voice was Hone's. She, too, knew the tune, but the words were strange to her. "He roa to wa ki Tipinere, he tino mntnao." he sane. And then as the little pools chuckled and laughed softly and the note of a dis-