A VOICE FROM THE KING COUNTRY. THE TANGI OVER TE WETERE.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 382, 6 July 1889, Page 5

A VOICE FROM THE KING COUNTRY. THE TANGI OVER TE WETERE.

Otorohanua, July 3. Yesterday the great tangi for Wetoro Te Rerenga was held here. A large number of natives gathered from all bho surrounding settlements to weep with and welcome some visitors from Mokau, who were of the hapu to which the dead chieftain belonged. Songs for the dead and funeral orations were the order ot the day. The visiting mourners were mostly dressed in black and adorned with green boughs bound round their hafcs. The intervals between the orationsof the chiefs were filled up with most heartrending wails from the weoping women, rising and falling like the marching music of ghosts in the halls of Valhalla. First the listener ab a distance hears a low rhythmic chant, which gradually swells and swells until the sound is like the moaning rollers on the shore befoie the breaking of a southern storm. Then it gradually dies away in saddening cadence, to xise again a fierce dirge of death. It is almost impossible to translate literally the speeches, yet I have attempted to give one — the oration ol Wetere's son :—: — Call to me, call to mo, O dead ! Come to me, come to me, come to me, O my father ! He comcth 110 L, ho cometh not, ho returns no more. He is gone, he is gone, ho is gone. Go on, go on, go on, O lather ; go on, go on, O dead ; Go on, go on along tho great road ; who travels there leturns no more. I weep. I weep tor mj T lather. I mourn with las peopJo. I moan for our father. I weep for our lands. I weep for the dead. When alive, we listened not to his voice ; when dead, we mourn and weep. I call aloud lor my lather. I call. I call. I CALL. Great loads of food were then deposited with much ceremony belore the visitors, and the various hapus vied with each obher a3 to which should bring forward the good things with the greatest eclal. When the mourners were sounding their most mournful note an incident of a lemarkable character occuired. A ballasb-bruck moved from tho railway station, carrying the dead body of a navvy who was killed in j the tunnel. It was re&ting upon and covered by tent-flies, and on top of the coflin some of the dead man's comrades sat smoking, while others with long poles proj polled the truck along the great trunk line. i When the weepers for tho Maori chief saw the corpse ol the dead paheka rumbling alone the iron road, new power seemed to be infused into the chant, and the dirge grew, if possible, more fearfully solornn. Everyone present felb that death was the great leveller, and that tho grave maketh brothers of us all, whether our skins are white or brown. Hundreds gather to weep over the dead Maori who ownod thousauds and thousands ol acres, but few are they that mourn the landless navvy, except, perhaps, his yokefellows, who feel that his awful fate may any day be theirs. He was crushed to pieces, in frightful agony — his wife and children left without their bread-winner — because human life counts fornoughb when profits have to be made. Church service was held in the billiardroom in the evening by Mr Boulder, of Te Awamutu. It was well attended by both races. The Maoris seemed to thoroughly appreciate it all, with the exception of the collection. How the Europeans manage to mix money with religion is past the comprehension of the ordinary Maori. Religion is good, Christianity is better, but paying cash clown for the Gospel is to the Ngatimaniopotos a wonderful piece of pakeha legerdemain. Air Boulder showed how the average man was only a Chri&fcian in name, but he pointed out no other plan of world redemption than that which, while moaning well, has completely failed, lor nearly two thousand years past. Circumstances make tho man, and theiefore to make men Christians 1 heir surroundings require to be Christianised. Alter church an animated discussion was held in the open air by the natives upon the relationwhichChristianiby bears, and oughtto bear, towards the system ot buying and selling for a price the lands which are the gift of God to all the children of men. No satisfactory conclusion was arrived at except that the teachings of the Bible are " straight," but the laws of men are "crooked."