“OVER MY DEAD BODY"

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 554, 5 January 1929, Page 1

“OVER MY DEAD BODY"

Refusal to Surrender Cattle

EXPEDITION IN WILD COUNTRY

(SUN’S Special Reporter

TE WHAITI, To-day. THE police posse which set out from Rotorua on Thursday to effect the arrest of the Maori “prophet” Rua has not yet returned. It is alleged that Rua, whose stronghold is at Maungapohatu, some 90 miles inland from Rotorua, in the heart of the Urewera Country, resisted a bailiff who was serving' a process of the Court in reg’ard to cattle. It is said that Rua refused to give up the cattle, saying, “Only over my dead body will they be taken.”

r JH HAT the threat has not been lightly regarded by the police is evidenced by the fact that all members of the party a re well armed. Access to Maungapohatu is difficult and it is the centre of a district in which Rua’s mana is very strong. From Ruatahuna, 70 miles fi*om Rotorua, access is possible only by means of horseback over a bush track, through extremely rough country. If the police are successful in taking their man by surprise, before he can escape into the bush-clad mountains of the hinterland, it is expected that they should reach T,e Whaiti this afternoon on the return trip. For some time past Rua has been

defying the authority of the Civil Court. He has refused to pay his

RUA’S FORMER FIGHT /~\N page 5 is published the story of the former engagement between Rua’s followers and the forces of the law, in which Rua’s son and another Maori were killed and two constables wounded.

debts and a warrant was issued by the court. Rua took no notice of this and the case was handed to the police.