DREADFUL DEATH OF A MAORI.

Temuka Leader, Issue 269, 6 July 1880, Page 3

DREADFUL DEATH OF A MAORI.

1 ' .'A' correspondent of the Auckland Herald writes from M»takana :—“ A ' . terrible,death occuml to a Maori by the name o r Dick, on the night of the Bth of June, in Omaha • On ■ the Saturday previous, he with a number of other natives, came to Mutakana with a quantity of gum, which they sold to Mr William Fen ten. They were, with one or two exceptions, the worse for liquor. , : . Dick was the worse for liquor when he left Matakana, and took a bottle of rum away with him. When they arrived at the Omah», on the night of the sth they gtarte d card-playing, when Dick was noticed to be, as theysay, “ poranga,” or mad. He Was then taken home by two of the natives. When he arrived home he tan after Ms wife and children with an axe, but they all escaped without any injury. Gn the 7th inst. some of the natives went to see him ; they found him us bad or nearly so as when they left him bn the previous day. They went aWay ; *nd came*hackon the evening of the Bth but he was no bettor, They again left him, after taking all the axes and toma hawks away they could find. At about 12 o’clock that night they saw afire in the direction of the whare, and they (the Maoris) hastened to the spot, and found his whare on fire, and in the ruins the unfortunate victim/ with his arms and : . legs burnt off. There was also a charred rope,round hia neck.. The natives think that he must have first set fire to the whare then hun. himself* The natives 'say there was about a ton of gum in the whare. The deceased leaves a wife and ten children, and was buried on the 10th jast., acrording to the native custom.”