Grandfather’s Yarns.

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 19, 4 August 1894, Page 7

Grandfather’s Yarns.

A BLANKET FOR A DOCK A ’CUTE TRICK. STEALING A HEAD. (All Rights Resisted). No. I\7 “ Now, boys,” said Grandfather, “ if you want a yarn to-night, I’ll tell you about the Wakataupuka, Bloody Jack’s cousin. I think I told you before about the first night we ran away from the ship—how the Wakataupuka gave us his protection. Well, a little while after that, one nasty drizzling day, I had been cutting in a whale. I’d just come off the stage and had the spade still in my hand, when one of the men said to me, ‘ You can’t hit that dog,’ pointing to a little terrier not many yards off.

“ Without a moment’s thought I let the spade fly, and it just glanced across the dog’s back, and off it went howling. It went so quickly that we couldn’t see whether I had done any damage or not. “ But next morning, just as were launching the boat, down came Taiaroa, and didn’t he talk to me ! But I couldn’t understand a word he said, till a man who had been some time in New Zealand came and interpreted for me. “Then I understood that I had killed Taiaroa’s dog, and he wanted payment for it. The man who was

telling me what Taiaroa said advised me to settle with him at once. ‘lf you don’t,’ he said, ‘as soon as the boats go out he’ll go and take everything you’ve got in the house.’ So I said— 1 Ask him what he wants then.’ So he asked him, and Taiaroa said he’d like a blanket, “ So I had to go up to Mr Weller’s and get him a blanket. Mr Weller told me I was very foolish*to kill the man’s dog. Dogs were scarce in those days, and the Maories set great store by them. ‘ Besides,’ said Mr Weller, ‘ if you enrage the Maories they might massacre us all, and we stand no chance against them. It’s best to keep friendly with them.’ “So I gave Taiaroa the blanket with many apologies, and I had almost forgotten the circumstance, when four or five months later the Wakataupuka came to Otago. One morning he came up to me and said, ‘ You kill Taiaroa’s dog P’ I thought he wanted another payment, but I said ‘Yes, I killed it.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘ Kuri all right—Kuri no dead.’ I stared at the man. He laughed anil said —‘ Come along a me.’ So JLweiit with him through the bush to Taiaroa’s house. “ The first little dog that rap out barking at us was the one I was supposed to have killed. I didn’t recognise the dog, but the Wakataupuka knew it. He took me inside, and Mrs Taiaroa was the only one at home. He ordered her to give me back my blanket. It took the woman quite half-an-hour to find it. She hunted through dozens of baskets, and the things she had astonished me, and at last from out of her spoils she drew my blanket. “ When I went back to the whites’ settlement with the blanket over my arm, Jack Hughes said to me “ My word ! You are a favourite.’ “At the end of that season a ship called the John Berry came in to take over oil to Sydney. Her captain heard from Mr Wellers that the Maories at old Taltoo’s Kaik had a Maori man’s head preserved, and he offered the Wakataupuka £5 for it. “ One afternoon the Wakataupuka asked a lot.of us if we’d like to go with him to the kaik to see this head, and as time hung heavily on our hands, we all consented to go, but little did we know what he was up to. “ When we arrived at the kaik the Wakataupuka had some difficulty in getting the woman to show us the head, but he represented to her that the white people were very anxious to see it, and presently she brought it out.

“It seems that her husband was drowned at Oamaru, and the men who were with him at the time burnt his body but preserved his head to bring home to* his widow.

“When the woman brought out the head she stuck a stick in the ground, put another stick across the top of that, and then put the head on that, then tied a mat round the neck. At a little distance it looked for all the world like a man sitting down with a mat round him. The face, too, unless on very close inspection, looked quite natural, and the hair was combed and oiled in true Maori fashion. The woman kept the head in such a pretty little house not far from her own door. It was painted very santastically with red ochre. The whole thing had something ghastly about it—bright sunshine on the beach, in the centre the corpse’s head with its staring, unseeing eyes, and around a motley group astonished white men, some superstitious ones half afraid, gasping children, sobbing moaning women, admiring youths and maidens, and stolid, indifferent men.

“ One burly Maori, a relation of the dead man, was standing close by with a mere in his hand. The Wakataupuka asked if he might look at it and the Maori handed it to him at once, whereupon he walked straight np to the head, caught it by the hair, and was off with it down the beach before anyone guessed his intention. Oh, it was terrible to hear those

women and old men the way they mourned the loss of the head, groanng and moaning and giving the most gruesome wails : of distress and despair; we could hear them for ever so long. It was dreadful. I believe they kept it up till the John Berry sailed. Of course they could notraise an objection in any practical way to anything done by one so high in rank as the Waka,taupuka. < “It’s time for bed now, boys. To-morrow I’ll tell you about some more of the Wakataupuka’s doings —so off you go, all of you.”