MAORI MEMORIES.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 May 1938, Page 10

MAORI MEMORIES.

A PUZZLE. (Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age") At Hongi’s final battle against the rival tribes a bullet through his lung ended his career of blood. He wore a helmet, but in his haste omitted the steel breastplate. During his remaining year of life the wound failed to heal, but his fortitude never deserted him. He entertained his tribe by making his breath whistle through the hole in his back.

He died at the early age of 55. His bed was ornamented with his armour and guns, while he urged his followers to protect the Missionaries “who never did them any harm.”

Hongi was a little man with a broad high forehead, and bright piercing eyes. Ambition, energy, and revenge, or, as the Maori would say, Utu, were his dominant features. Though he fought his Maori enemies with implacable purpose, nothing could induce him to injure a white man or woman in any circumstances.

By those who knew him intimately, he was referred to as “one with a high sense of honour and a tender heart." He never became a Christian, though he had his children taught in the mission schools.

The Rev Mr Turner and other orthodox men held him up to scorn as a “bloody tyrant among cannibals,” and quite unjustly accused him of driving the Wesleyan Mission out of Whangaroa, even though he had frequently defended them against possible death.

No man, dead or living, had ever killed so many of his countrymen, yet no one ever did them so much good. But for Hongi’s protection the white race would have been wiped out here in 1826, and, inconsistent though it appeared, we owe a debt of gratitude to his memory.