TANGI FOR RUA.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 369, 25 February 1937, Page 4

TANGI FOR RUA.

Natives Arriving for Funeral of Prophet. Press Association—Copyright. Auckland, Feb. 24. A telegram from Whakatane states t'liat trucks, buses and cart? some smart, some ordinary, and' some almost wrecks, laboured in Wadmana Valley to Matahl yesterday bearing Natives to the “prophet” Rua’s tangi. By nightfall there were assembled some two or three hundred Natives, and many more arrived today, for on Monday the committee in charge sent telegrams to 36 native settlements throughout the North Island. While Rua’s body lies in its coffin under a lean-to porch at the front of his house, work on the construction of his concrete tomb at the back' of the building is proceeding. Th tomb is? to be built in an angle of the house, and men were busy making the boxing yesterday, the rasp and saws and the clatter of hammers mingling with the traditional chants of grief and welcome and the shouting of orators as party after party of visitors slowly paced across f.he broad green marae. Rua, it is now learned, died from ISberculosis at 6 o'clock last Saturday evening. It is said that on the Sunday before he died he called his household to his bedside and told ! them that he thought his end wae I near. At his instructions his strongbox was brought to him. He unlocked it and took out one bundle of notes and said that thait would buy his coffin. He allotted another bundle of notes for his funeral, and set a third (a quite substantial sum) aside for the expenses of his tangi.