TE KOOTI'S STORY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 312, 29 June 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

TE KOOTI'S STORY.

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MAfft WARRIOR. ■ (By James Cowan, in Lyttelton TMcs). Recorded history is ever subjeM to correction. This is in a.very special sense true of our New Zealand history, in particular the record of the native wars. The story of the Hatihau campaigns of ISG4-71 has been very .imperfectly written. Facts which throw valuable light on phases of that fma fcic rebellion are now and then unearthed even at this day by patient investigator?;, and enquiry amongst the Maori t:ibe.! concerned in the war is frequentlyrKv irded by a clearer understanding o' fclu real motives which impelled the Nov* man into the field of battle. A .slid Af the question from the Maori poiit H view is absolutely necessary beforj 'balanced account of that oft-ifflt savage conflict can be compiled.

All the truth has not been told about Te Kooti. That, guerilla chieftain has had as many fables written round his name and exploits as ever Rob Roy had, or that half-and-half bucaneer Bully Hayes. Te Kooti undoubtedly had the criminal instinct written large all over him. He would have made a highly successful pirate had he lived on the Spanish Main. Had he continued to follow the sea—he was a sailor when a young man—ho might have had a picturesquely sensational career as a smuggler and ship-stealer, and generally have outbullied that famous Captain Hayes. However, fate made him a Maori war captain—"General" the Maoris called him — and he wrote in a finger of blood on the pages of our brief colonial history. He was a horrible ruffian at times. His three years' fight against the Government forces is an extraordinary mixture of heroism and clever geneva'iship, and inhuman butchery. But cruel and bloody as he was, he had his grievances, and just ones. The blame for Te Kooti's disastrous war, involving the sacrifice of hundreds of lives fnd expenditure of some millions of public money, rests primarily with Te Kooti's enemies, the "friendly" or Government side Maoris, and next with certain colonial officers. It should never be 'too late to tell the truth, and so let itjbe told now.

Te Kooti was ujnjustly deported to. the Chatham Ts'alnjds in the first place. That much is now es&blished beyond doubt. And love ,of wlman was at the bottom of it all. (The fhree Years' East Coast War, 1868 ti> 1871, would probably never have happet/ied hid Hamiora Whakataka's wife beeii h<4 of a flirt. Also, had Te Kooti been kfts of a Lothario—an "autaia," as the lllaoris put it—he wouldn't have been dumped down on the Chatham; to eat Mi heart out for three long years anc!f plot black bloody revenge. I

Tuta Nihonigo tells/ mo the story. He was by no means k partisan -of Te Kooti's; very much rhe reverse, in fact. Tuta was a Government soldier under Major Ropata and Caiptain (now Colonel) Porter all through ijlie liauhan wars, up to the end of the terribly rough bush campaign in the ifrewera Country in 1871. He chased Te! Kooti and his fellow caterans ami muniWers over hundreds of miles of ruggei?i forest trails, and fought in scores '/; skirmishes with the ' Hauhau forces. /He i<-- not likely to be ! prejudiced in Te/ Kooti's favor. Nevertheless, he freehy declares that the arch-: ■ rebel was the victim of conspiracy, and that he was slnjfnted off to the Chatham. Islands to gratify the hatred of a jealous husband. / The ripening/scene in the farce-tragedy is on tiie battlefield at Waercnga-a-llika, a few miles outside the town of Gisborne; time. November, 18G3. The great Hauhau pa.'-trongly trenched and palisaded, has i'allen to the. Government forces, after heavy loss on both sides. A peaceful dairy factory now stands on the spot where more than sixty dead rebels were buried in one buge grave. The siege lasted seven days. Seven or eight hundred Maoris surrendered, and three hundred of the "worst," meaning, probably, the most determined fighters, were picked out for deportation to WhureIcauri, l%r Chatham Islands, Te Kooti was not then amongst the Ha|ih,ms. So far from 'that, he was figlting on th" Government side. He was a sort (;f sergeant-major amongst tin natives of Mw Rongowhatata tribe fi'hting under tl." Queen's flag. But mon the (on of a personal eiemy, a man on 'thtysame side, he was arrested, on a charge ei having supplied percussion caps to the rebels in the pa. This charge was not sustained, but it was determined to get Te out of the way, and in this his enVnics succeeded. . \ Te Kooti's real offence, says or 4 Tuta I Mhoniho, was that he was a "tauteitapiremu," a seducer of men's wives. \He Mas a notorious Don Juan and a thorn mi . t,ie side of pretty well all the husbands; cf handsome young wives around Poverty Bay. He was quite an expert robber and a turbulent customer in a tribal faction fight, but "puremutangfl" was, so to speak, his forte. On one occasion he abducted a fair but frail charmer by a clever and daring stratagem. He laid wicked eyes on his neighbor's wife, ana ns the lady was not unwilling, an elopement was'soon arranged. On a certain day Te Kooti. the hefty black-bearded young land-pirate, rode up to his inamorata's village, carrying with him a dead pig wrapped up in'many folds of canvas, balanced across his saddle-bow. He. cleverly substituted the lady—fortunately she'was on the "petite" side—for the

porkr. unseen by the p.-,,,,!,.. Ilm l n „ie Olllli lY (lilt (if I lie Villus ('.'illl 1.!1.' dill; ifellow's wahine trussed up mi I lie saddle in front of him. 11m couple gained the open country sai'i-lv. and tremendous was the auger ~f the husband and the knianga when the truth fame out Hut. says Tula, Te Kooti fullv deserved his prize; the husband should have minded his wife better! It was another brown lady that was Te Kooti'* undoing in the end". She was, the wife of one Hamiora Wliakataka, a chief of the Rongo-Whakaata tribe,'of the Turanganui plain. Her the wily Lothario coveted, and to her he made desperate love. Many times he sought her, and perhaps she was not averse to the illicit wooing, but she feared her husband. The 'husband hated and feared Tc Kooti, and only unceasing vigilance enabled him to hold his wife to himself. He would have liked to put a bullet into his enemy's head, but another way presented itself with the fight at the mission station at Waerenga-a-Hik.a. A trumped-up accusation about communicating with the rebels and furnishing them secretly with munitions of war, and Te Kooti Turuki was in the guard-room under close arrest, in spite of all his protests of innocence. Hamiora accused his enemy to Major Biggs and Captain.Wilson, two prominent officers in the Government forces. They made enquiries from the local chiefs, Paratere Turangi and others, as to the truth or otherwise of the charge, but they seem to have been much of Hamiora's mind: that Te Kooti was a dangerous character to have around' one's kaianga, and would be much better out of the way. So off to exile the offender must go. When the steamer for its prison isle came to an anchor off Gisborne, and the hundreds of prisoners were marched down to the beach to embark, Te Kooti was ordered to accompany them. He was escorted to the embarking place between files of men with loaded rifles. Tne whaleboat was on the beach waiting. "There the autaia was," says Tuta, "driven like a dog to the boat." Te Kooti turned to Major Biggs, to Captain Wilson, to Paratere Turangi (who was the grandfather of Lady Carroll, of Gisborne), who were standing there watching the embarkation, and cried:— " Xo te aifa au ka whitia tahitia nei' me nga Hauhau ki runga poti ? El hara au i te Hauhau!" ("Why am I singled out to go with the Hauhaus into! the boat? lam not a Hauhau!") j "But what was that to Biggs, to. Wilson, to Paratere Turanga?" says fruta. They would not listen to Te Kooti'sj protests. '.

"Go on to the boat!" said the white officer impatiently. "Go on to the boat!" And Paratene, imitating as well as he could the English of his white officer friends, said, imperatively: "Kp ana Id te poti! Ko ana kite poti!" ''Go on to the boat!")

. Te.Kooti went, and on to the iChathams. He stayed three years, blut ihe he never forgot those contemptuous word, and the spurning of his protests against transportation. He remembered them when he plotted revenge, and \vhen he, by a master-stroke of mingled Running and daring seized the three-masted schooner Rifleman at Wharekauri when Captain Christian was ashore, he compelled her mate and crew to carry hirifi and his piratical followers back to thA New Zealand coast. Te Kooti knew a; good deal about ships and the sea, as l\ have already mentioned; he had been \ for some time a sailor on a Maori schooner called Te Whaeuki, trading out of Gisbome along the east coast and as far north as Auckland.

The final reckoning soon came. Three months after Te Kooti and his fellowescapees landed from the stolen Rifleman in the sheltered little cove at Whareongaonga, just south of Young Nick's Head, he led his long cherished "kokiri" of revenge against the whites and Maoris of Poverty Bay. He descended on Turanga, says Tuta, with his tomahawks and his swords and his guns. Turanga slept. Alas! it slept. What watchers there were watched the wrong trail. The tomahawk and the sword did the work; not many shot were fired. And Major Biggs and Capt. Wilson were both slain, I and their families also., and their houses were fired. Ha! Ka ea te kino. (The wrong-doing was avenged). At one of the Maori villages on the Turangi-nui flat, the chief, Paratene Turanga—lie who had stood on the beach-side with Biggs and Wilson three yeaTS before —was- captured by the marauding Hauhaus. He was led before Te Kooti. That truculent gentleman approached his victim (his relative also, oe it .remembered) with a soft, bare-footed tread which must have had something of the tiger's advance on its prey in it., One, hand he stretched forth in mock welcome; the other he held behind him; it gripped his tomahawk. "Tana koe taku papa." he said, in the soft, half-whining voice the Maori uses in greeting .his friends and guests. "Greetings, my father!" the words meant. And, raising his left hand, ho stroked the cheeks of the petrified Paratene as if in affection. "Tena koe taku papa, nana te Kupu, Ko ana kite poti, Ko ana kite poti!" ("Salutations, my father, you who uttered those words, Go on to the boat, go on to the boat!"). "A—a! Ko ana kite tomahawk." And, his tone changing with the last sentence to one of frightful biting ferocity, his eyes darting flames, Ms white' teeth glittering, he swung his sharp hatchet round and brought it down with a terrible blow that stove old Paratene's neck half through. Almost decapitated, the victim fell; and many of his tribe of friendlies fell with him that dreadful night. As for Hamiora, I do not know his fate. That was Te Kooti's revenge. So died Paratene Turanga, he who had helped to send Te Kooti Turiki into exile. Treachery was paid for withj, treachery, false witness with the edge 06,. the tomahawk; and remember, says Tuta, the love of woman was at the bottom of all the trouble. "Ko te wahine te lake ote riri!" Thus it has been, and always will be!