OLD RAGLAN

Shannon News, 7 August 1928, Page 4

OLD RAGLAN

LAND AND SEA MYSTERY. WAS THERE A PRE-MAORI 'PEOPLE ?

Raglan is a farming district lying between Waikato River and the West Coast. It has a history which goes farther "back than the history of better known places, writes Rata in the- Auckland ".Star." When the country covered by the City of Auckland was inhab.ted by the Maoris, Raglan, or Waingaro, to use the Maori name, was .t white settlement. The Maoris inhabiting this •district claim to be the parent tribe of all those tribes who :are descended from the crew of the j famous canoe Tainui, but they were inot'the.first inhabitants'of the district, ; chough who those other people were .remains a mystery. 'They have left their .memorial in stone and carving could we but read their scroll. We read

.•ccently of paddles being found there ■too big for an ordinary man to use. ■Perhaps the hands who, wielded them ■ helped to carry and erect the large 'peculiar stone figures found in various places in the district, certainly the work' of men of.; more than ordinary strength. One huge pyramid appears to have been .carved from a block of limestone. Limestone is f'ound>on the

aills to the north of the harbour, but the rocks- of Karioi' Mountain, on :vvhosc slopes the stone-stands, are of 'i volcanic nature. It seems that this " must have been placed here by human Agency, by whom and when it seems

impossible to discover. The Maoris aave no records of the rock having been placed there The wife of an early settler is stated* to have, regretted the fact that her husband had for -building purposes destroyed a large smooth rock with a .deep basin-like cavity in the centre, '.vhieh she was convinced was a cerc"iiion'al stone of an ancient people.

riien,.' again, on the opposite side of the. mountain, where Karioi juts into the sea, are found, rocks which are carved.in a strange design, resembling ivritings on stone which are found in ither parts"-of. the world. Perhaps ;hese marks were the work of the same

ieople who placed the hewn limestone rocks on the other slope of the mountain. Are these things the work of-a forgotten people who inhabited this laud ages ago, people of whom history lias no records?

Submerged beneath the shifting ;ands of the Aotca bar lies a_ ship .vhich is to Pakeha and Maori alike a ■ .iiystcry. For '.how ■ long it lias lain there no one caii tell. The Maoris consider that it must have been thcro when their ancestors came to the district centuries ago. One thing that .night give some clue as to the nationality of the ship is a bell which was found in the possession of the Maoris by the early settlers and which was given by the Maoris to one of the churches. This bell, which was made' from some strange variety of bronze,. and an inscription in characters stated to "be Tamil characters. It is not known f'oi certain whether the bell was taken from the ship, but the old Maoris who vere questioned thought that such was the case, About forty years ago, when the sands of the bar were shifted by a storm, a party visited the'ship, which had been left'fairly clear of tub water. They found, little'"to give them any idea as to the identity of the -ship or its people, but they thought the fittings .vere made from the same metal as the bell. Very little more could be found out about the ship at the time, as the sand had filled most of the vessel. Since' then the ship has been covered by the sand and! sea and it is now buried beneath- the breakers.