OLD ANCHOR

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 185, 30 March 1932, Page 7

OLD ANCHOR

MAORI TAPU feULlEVED TO BE RELIC of AMAZING PIECE of HISTORY. CURSE OF TE KOOTI. When the steamer Tees pulled up her anchor in Waitangi Bay at the Chatham Islahds, another anchor canie up with it — the old-fashioned anchor of a sailing ship. The Maoris screamed that it was tapu, and should not be touched; and when it was being got aboard it hit one of the crew oh the head. It looked as if the curse that was put. upon it by Te Kooti, more thari 60 years ago, still held. For if the* anchor is the one that the Maoris and. old residents, think it is, it turns back the pages to a piece Of romahtie early his'toryj reports the Christchurch Sun in an interview with Captain A .Andderson, master of the Tees. So old and rusty that when it was being got aboard the cable dropped off it, the anchor that was fouled by the Tees' anchor is thbtight to be a relic of the seiziire of the schooner Riflbman by the famous Maori chief Te Ko'Oti, who was a prisoner at the Chathams. The whole episqde is.one of the most astounding in New Zealand history. Te Kooti had been deported to the Chathdbis on a charge df havihg been in communication with Hau-Hau rebels. He had bad no trial, and it is now admitted that his pUriishment was unjust as well as iliegal. After two years— a year longer than his sentence — he was naturally resentful of his treatment. A commissioner had foiind tbat the Maoris imprisoned with the chief at the Chathams were badly treated, and tbat tbey resented the Gdverhment's havihg broken its promise to let them go in a year. The prisoners, Captain Anderson, who gathered the story from resi'dbhts, says, were plaeed in the charge of the settlers and of three guards named Chudleigh, Hood and Shand. The schooner Rifleman, 82 tons, was chartered by the New Zealand Government to take provisions to the islands. Te Kooti, who afterwards proved hirnself to be an extremely daring and resourceful commander, decided to grasp the opportunity that the presence of the schooner offered. He and his men overpowered the settlers and the guard, and after branding them, took their gold and silver. They boarded the Rifleman, taking her crew by surprise, and gave the crew their choice between takingthe 160 fighting men and 130 women and children back to New Zealand, and dying suddenly. The crew dtecided to live. Here there is a difference between the Chathams tradition and history. The islands story is that the captain and crew of the schodner were burned, and the mate forced to go with the escaping Maoris and show them how to handle the ship. The historical aecount is that only one of the guards, who resisted too strongly, was killed, being hit with a tomahawk. Run on the Rocks. Besides the Rifleman there was another schooner in the bay, and Te Kooti feared that she might he used for pursuit. So he slipped her anchor, declared her tapu, and watched her run on the rocks as he escaped. The remairis of the wreck can be seen on the beach at "low water, and it is this schooner's anchor. Captain Anderson and the Chatham Islanders belibve, which has just been found. And the Maoris of to-day believe that the tapu still holds. Certainly, the anchor is a schooner's anchor, and so far as is known it is the only one that could have been at the bottom of the bay. Many anchors have been dropped in the bay since — with cables attached — but till Friday this Old one had never fouled any of them. One of the guards who were overpowered said: "They laid me down very gently, and bound me hand and foot. They tied my hands behind a,y back, and left me on the ground with my face downwards." Mr. G. S. Cooper, who was seut by the Government to inquire, reported, "Upon looking back on this extraordinary episode in the history of NewZealand, it is difficult to say whether one's wonder is excited more by the preeision, rapidity, and completeness with which the enterprise was planned and executed or by the moderation shown in the hour of victory by a gang of barbarous fanatics, who in a moment found their former masters bound at their feet and their lives entirely at their mercy." The whole rising and the captufe of the ship took only two hours. Head winds soon developed on the. voyage, and Te Kooti had his uncle, an old mah, tied up and thrown overboard as a sacrifice to the gods of winds and stdrms. At once the wind ehanged, and a week's sailing took the Rifleman to New Zealand. The Maoris landed at Whareongaonga, near the Bay of Plenty, keeping their word and letting the crew go free. Then they went inland, and Te Kooti, keeping his vow of revenge for his imprisonment, became one of tiie worst problems of the Government. Ultimately he was pardoned, and died 20 years later, peacefully. That is why the anchor that th> Tees fished up can be regarded as historically valuable. "I suppose I'll have to bring it back for the Museum," Captain Anderson told tiie reporter.