A STORY OF ADVENTURE.

Shannon News, 3 December 1929, Page 3

A STORY OF ADVENTURE.

BATTLE OF MQUTOA RECALLED.

INCANTATIONS THAT FAILED.

A Wanganui man who died the other day had a strange and perilous a boyhood as any adventure-seeking youngster could desire. He was, perhaps, too young to appreciate it all, but ho retained to his old age tho clearest memories of every incident in his dangerfilled months with the Hauhau fanatics, and he realised that he was peculiarlyfortunate in having been an eye-wit-ness of the Pai-marire barbaric rites and a purely Maori fight that lives in historv. This was Mr. Henry David Bates," known to his Maori friends as Rawiri. He died at his home in St. Hill Street, Wanganui, at the age of 73. Rawiri Bates .was a half-caste of aristocratic lineage on both palceha and Maori sides. His father was an English soldier, Colonel H. Stretton Bates, of the 65th Regiment, who as a lieutenant served in Now Zealand from about 1856 to 1564, and fought in the Taranaki and Waikato w r ars. Lieut. Bates took a particular liking to the Maoris. He quickly learned the language and became so proficient that he was appointed as staff interpreter to General Cameron. Ho was also an A.D.C. to Governor Sir George Grey. He married a chieftainess of the-Atiawa tribe, Taranaki; granddaughter of Matangi, who was one of the chiefs that sold the present site of Wellington city to the New Zealand Company 90 years ago. She was closely related to ,Te Whiti, in later times the celebrated prophet Of Pa rib aka.

When the little boy Bates was about three years old the mother died, and the father placed him under the care of Mr. Booth, a member of a missionary family who was the Government Agent at Pipiriki, up the Wanganui River. The arrangements was that Rawiri was to receive an English education. Lieut. Bates returned to England, where he retired at last with the rank of colonel.

The Pai Marlre War. When the Pai-marire religious war began in 1864, and used many tribes in a bond of desperate war against the palceha,- Mr. Booth and his family were in a position of great danger at Pipiriki. The boy Bates was then about eight years old. Booth and his brother and their people were at*last permitted to embark in a canoe, leaving all their property behind, and paddle off to Wanganui town, but the rebels would not let the half-caste boy go. They kept him intending to make a little of him. He told me a few years ago of the thrilling and often terrible scenes that followed his guardian’s departure. Round the Niu Mast. Matenc Rangi-tauira was the prophet .of the new religion who headed the half-crazy, devotees of Pai-marire at Pipiriki. He had come from Taranaki with a party of armed men bearing the head of -Captain Lloyd, one of those ambushed and decapitated in the fight at Te Aliuahu, the first attack of the Pai-marire warriors on the British troops. This was in April, 1864. The smoke-dried head was passed from hand to hand among the fearfully excited people to whom Matene taught the Hauhau chants as they marched round the Niu, the pole of worship. Little Rawiri saw some extraordinary scenes. A- girl who had been brought up in Mr. Booth’s family, and whose manner, hitherto had been quiet and gentle, was so overcome by the new madness that she snatched the white man’s head from her neighbour at the Niu and gnawed the dried flesh of the neck. The people Were perfectly crazeu for the time by the big black-beared prophet’s exhortations, A War-Canoe Expedition.

Now it was that the ui)-river tribes all converted to Pai-marirc, determine] to man their war-canocs and attach Wanganui town, sixty miles away. Embarking in a'flotilla' of canoes they swept down the river, a splendid spec tacle, each long "waka-taua" was decorated with carved figure-head and streaming plumes, the wild captains chanting time-song for the pad dlers. They went as far as Tawhitinui village which they occupied and fortified. There the boy remained with the children under the women's care.

Meanwhile, the other faction, the. Lower Wanganui tribes, who were friendly to the pakeha and the Government, had resolved to dispute the right of wav to Wanganui town. They assemble'd, armed, at Banana, below Moutoa Island, which was just opposite Tawhitinui, and they sen't a message to the Hauhau prophet saying, "If you attempt to force your way down the river we shall fight you ou Moutoa.' ’ Waving Off the Bullets. The desperate battle which followed (May 14th, 1864), has often been described. A hundred and twenty Hauhaus met a force of about a hundred Lower Wanganui men on that low woody island in mid-river. The fight resulted in the defeat of the Sauhaus with very heavy loss. Mr. Bates told me of his youthful share in the Hauhau side of the conflict.

On the day and night before the battle the Tawhitinui camp w T as a scene of fervid preparation. Cartridge making •was the chief employment, then in the evening there were war-dances and Hauhau chants and incantations. All night long the stockaded village was alive. Even the children were schooled in this part. The women took them in hand and taught them to give a kind of moral support to the warriors by waving their hands, open palms backward toward their shoulders, calling, as they did so, "Hapa, hapa!" (pass over!), so that the Government men's bullets would fly harmlessly over the champions of Pai-marire. The children went into this new war-game with tremendous zest, waving bullets over the shoulders —"Hapa, hapa, hapa!" The Battle on the Island. At break of dav the Hauhaus crossed the river to the island of battle, and the non-combatants in 1 the village

gathered on the terrace above tho banks to, help theiir men with their fer-

vent prayers and magic gestures, taught by the prophet. Seated there in rows over-looking tho smoke-hazed island thundering with gun-bangs and rifle-cracks, the people jet to work at their spell-prayers. Little Rawiri Bates was there with the other children, throwing imagine*y Kupapa bullets back over their shoulders. Tho old women were frantically running back and forward, reciting the prophet’s chants and calling to the young people, “Kia kaha te hapa!” (“Let your ‘hapa’Nbe strong!”), and tho children went at it harder than ever, warding off those bullets and crying, “Hapa, hapa, hapa!”

But the Hauhaus soon discovered it was not much use relying- on supernatural protection. Bullet, tomahawk and gun butt sent them to the. rightabout. Of the seventy men killed in that historic battle on the Isle of Heroes, quite fifty were Hauhaus, and one of them was Matena the prophet. Rawiri Bates witnessed the final scene in the day’s drama —the dejected survivors standing in line by the Niu pole, while an old chief, half-mad with rage, bounded up and down in front of them, furiously taunting them with their defeat.

AH the women and children were soon hurried out of Tawhitinui to a place of safety. They were taken through the forested ranges to. Perekama, on the Waits'+rra River. There little Bates was recovered from the Hauhaus some months later (1865) when the colonial forces occupied the Waitotara, and the Governor, Sir George Grey, took an interest in the son of his former A.D.C. and staff interpreter, and had him restored, to his guardian, Mr. Booth, at Wanganui. Bather and Son.

So ended Rawiri’s adventures in savage Maoridom. His father, though he did not return to New Zealand, kept in touch with him, and later on the par- - ent and son were re-united in England, Colonel Bates never forgot the pretty Maori wife of his youthful colonial days. Mr. Booth referred to was the late Mr. Richard Booth, of Otaki (father to Mr. “Willie” Booth).