A Good Old Maori Chieftain.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2955, 5 August 1878, Page 2

A Good Old Maori Chieftain.

" T6 Hapuku Ngaruhe Te Ika-nui O Te Moana," who passed away from this life the ether day at Te Aute, Hawke's Bay, appears to have been an admirable specimen of " the fine old Maori gentleman —one of the olden time. Te Wanenga tells the story of the life aud death of the graod old chief, in a very graphic and interesting way. Of course the narrative, being especially intended to be read by the .Natives, is somewhat quaint and studiously simple in style, rather after the fashion of a nursery tale, but for all that it is well told, and possesses a certain sort of charm of ils own. It occupies several columns of Te Wananga, but we can give ' its chief points in briefer space. Accordiug to our contemporary ie Hapuku had strong muscles and an iron will, and could not bear to be dictated to. Consequently when people quarrelled with him, he very often pacified matters by thrashing his opponents with his own hands, but he always afterwards, on cooling down, made ample reparation. 1 hen he was hospitable, even to a fault, good-tempered and genial in his milder moods, and full of a rich fund of anecdote. He, however, when desirous of obtaining anything from the European people of Ahuriri, wr.s fond of putting on an air of savage authority, so as to make them think he was a very dreadful fellow, with whose demands it would be well to comply, while 'at the bottom of his heart he entertained the intention of paying the best price for the coveted article. The old chief used to tell with great glee a story illustrative of this. A European came to reside near the Ahuriri river who was the happy possessor of five large blankets of superexcellent quality. Hapuku coveted those blankets, and paid a visit to the settler, but could not get them. So Hapuku, with four ether young chiefs, went a second time with a horse-pistol in his hand, early one morning rushed up to the hut in which the stranger lived, and with a defiant war cry fired his pistol off, rushed into the European's hut, and taking hold of the blankets gave them to his four companions and went away. In the evening of the same day, Hapuku took fifteen pigs to the hut of the European, and with a laugh said, "There is the payment for the five blankets I took from you. I knew that you would not sell them, and I would have them, and for payment for my act I give you this lot of pigs." For years the European in question was the best of friends with the old chief. Te Hapuku, it appears, in the good old times acted as a sort of dictator to his people in all their acts of barter with the Europeans who came in small vessels to trade with the Hawke's Bay Natives. Another trait in his character was his being addicted to the use of Maori curses, but a European Government officer whom he treated to a few of these curses retaliated in the. following fashion :— He took aline and hung it over the stern of the vessel and caught a fish, and cooked the fish, and then took

it and laid it on the bed of Te Hapuku, and while laid there ate a part of the fish. This was a superlative curse on Te Hapuku, but after a great rage on hid part, at which the Government officer did not take the least heed, hapuku shook hands and promised never to call that officer, names again, and to the day of his, death he. had the greatest feeling of respect for the officer in question. Hapuku entertained a great respect and veneration for Her' Majesty the Queen of England, and when he was told that the raiiway from Napier to Waipukurau was " the road of the Queen," he withdrew all his opposition to it. He had seen fighting in his time, and was taken prisoner by an attacking party* force in 1824, but^ was afterwards released. The old rangatira appears to have possessed a certain fund of humour. Having in late years been the subject of rheumatic pains, on the birth of a grand-daughter he ordered the child to be called •• Rheumatism." ~Te Hapuku could also be sarcastic. One matter above all others in regard to Euro* peans was a point for his wit to expend his sharpest sueer on, and this was the easy mode by which (as he said) money can make a gentleman with the Europeans, and the want of it sink a man of good heart and cultivated mind into the ranks of the tutua (unknown). As he often stated, a Maori chief is a chief by birth, and he does not need the external world to bolster him up; his bones are red, which is the birthright of all chiefs, but the European has only the red gold in his pocket, which does duty for red bones to give him the right to be of noble birth, aud to.have the power to command- In this quaint fashion does Te Wananga, the Maori newspaper, dilate upon the life and characteristic.3 of Te Hapuku. He appears to have ever been the friend of the .Europeans, and to have earned the staunch goodwill of many of them. With the death of old Hapuku passes away nearly the last of those old chiefs who have seen Maori life in all its savage vigour. Let us think kmdly of the memory of the departed old chief who in his day and generation'was indeed a man of mark among his people.—Wellington Post.