WIKI KEMP

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 295, 10 June 1912, Page 5

WIKI KEMP

A BIG TANGI. By Telegraph—Preee Association. Wanganui, Last Night. The tangi over the late Wiki Kemp is now in full swing. Some two thousand Maoris are at the Patiki Pa, and three hundred more are expected tomorrow. Sir Jas. Carroll is present, and also Dr. Poinare, Te Heuheu, M.L.C., Mr. J. R. MacDouald (Levin), and the chiefs of the principal tribes of the North Island. Thousands of the townspeople visited Putiki this afternoon, when the Maori orators harangued the attendance. It is not known yet when or where the burial will be, some wanting it at Levin, and some at Wanganui. It is understood that the speeches this afternoon were of a political nature, relating to Dr. Pomare and the Opposition. Sir Jas. Carroll will reply on Thursday.

The incident of Wiki Kepa, the wellknown Wanganui chieftainess, waking up after being declared to be dead, to look upon her own tangi and then passing finally over the border, has an eerie savour, but it is by no means a solitary instance, writes the Manawatu Times. There arc stories in Hibernian fiction of gentlemen who were moved to participate in their own wakes by the savour of the good things provided, and who, rather than interrupt the festivities unduly, afforded justification for their continuance by going out again. Amongst Maoris, however, there have been several instances. There used to be in the Bay of Plenty a very old Maori lady, who had not only been subjected to the tangi, but buried. She was quite young and had a young baby, and, according to her own story, when she arrived at Te Reinga to be ferried across to the Maori spirit world, she was asked whether she felt any regrets at leaving this earth, and on her expressing keen regret at leaving her baby, was sent back to it. At that stage she discovered herself in her coffin—a novelty in those days, and so flimsily constructed that she was able to beat through it with her head. In so doing she became terribly disfigured for the long life still before her, but got out alive of the extremely shallow grave to become a weird being looked upon as semi-superatural. Another case was that of a wellknown Maori footballer, who had apparently died of blood poisoning caused by new football stockings. His relatives were lamenting his early death in approved fashion and attributing it to the baneful effects of college education, when the corpse sat up and said that the col lege (of Which he was very proud) had nothing to do with it, and if they were going to say that sort of thing about it he wouldn't be dead any longer, but would go back to college and show they were wrong. He did, and was here the other day, a substantial entity of about sixteen stone.