First Maori Editor

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 156, 22 September 1927, Page 11

First Maori Editor

WHEN THE SPARROW FOUGHT THE HOKIOI, BIRD OF WAR AND PESTILENCE 1 |

MAORI VISITORS TO THE SUN rpE WHARE PAIKEA, special repreesntative of King Te Rata Mahuta, was among a party of Maori visitors, which, headed by ' the Rav. George Kirkwood, of Ngaruawahia, visited THE SUN yesterday.

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relate his experiences in Auckland. Times have changed, the old man mused, since Patara Te Tuhi became the first Maori editor. Hokioi was a bird of Maori mythology, never seen, and known only by her scream, which was an omen of war and pestilence. The press by which the newspaper was printed had been given to the Maoris 1 y Franz Josef, Emperor of Austria, and the articles published at Ngaruawahia, the Maori capital, were logical and trenchant. RIVAL NEWSPAPERS

Sir John Eldon Gorst, then commissioner for the Waikato, under the direction of Sir George Grey, edited a rival Maori newspaper at Te Awamutu. It was called the “Pihoihoi Mokemoke,” or “the sparrow that sitteth alone on the housetop.” This little sparrow so annoyed the giant Hokioi that the Maoris captured the printing press ny rorce or arms one day while Mr. Gorst was absent from Te Awamutu. This little newspaper is alvrays believed by a certain section of the Waikato natives to have been one of the causes of the Waikato War. Its first issue appeared on February 2, 1863. It was scattered broadcast over the Waikato. The manuscript of the initial number was revised by Sir George Grey himself. It contained an article which caused an immense sensation in every rununga house, as it was a forcible hit at King Tawhiao and his council. Even in the “sixties’’ the Maoris had their own ideas about style and the niceties of journalism. They declared that the sparrow was written in a ‘ bad, mocking style.” It did not have the “calm and reasoning tone” of the Hokioi.

One of the first to greet Sir John Eldon Gorst, when he returned to New Zealand in 1906, honours thick upon him, and as the special representative of the Imperial Government at the Christchurch Exhibition was Patara Te Tuhi, the former editor of his “hated contemporary.”

EX-EDITOR’S HEARTY WELCOME The old man, who was a near relative of Potatau, lived at Mangere in those days. At the age of 83 he welcomed back his old enemy, who meanwhile had achieved distinction in the service of the Crown as Solicitor-General, and, subsequently, Under-Secretary for India.

Those journalistic days of the “sixties” are gone. The giant presses upon which Te Whare Paikea gazed at THE SUN would have amazed Patara, used Lo the simple old hand-press of the Austrian Emperor. This morning old Te Whare, who is representing King Te Rata Mahuta at the Maori Synod, was missing. Eventually he was found on the waterfront, watching the vessels of the pakeha—ships that go down to the sea, and do not traverse the softly moving waters of the Waikato, or pass he home of Te Whare Paikea, some miles from pacefLil Ngaruawahia. E.R.