MAORI MEMORIES.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 July 1938, Page 8

MAORI MEMORIES.

FIRST MAORI EXECUTED. (Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age”) At Wellington, Wanganui, Taranaki and Nelson, Colonel Wakefield’s haphazard purchase of Maori lands was the direct and the indirect cause of strife. In the north, each party ■ knew nothing of the other’s customs or religious convictions. Because he had unwittingly removed the skull- of an. ancestor from an ancient burial ground a settler’s house was burned by the incensed Maoris.

We should remember that Wellington settlers were the first to occupy disputed lands, and the first to attack the Maori owners with fire arms.

In the Bay of Islands in 1842, a Maori lad of 17 named Maketu who claimed descent from a long line of chiefs, was spoken to by a servant in a rough way. Resenting the insult as a reflection upon his ancestors, the boy killed the servant while sleeping. His employer and her three children happened to witness the murder, and all were killed and buried in the house. Maketu paddled a canoe to his lather’s village'and told the whole of his people what he had done. His tribe handed him to the" police. The trial was the first case to be taken by the Supreme Court of New Zealand. The court was crowded, Maketu openly confessed his guilt, and when sentenced to death, strongly protested against the cold blooded manner in which they made him aware of his impending fate. He said his victims were killed without, knowing that they were about to die.

Several weeks later he was hanged in the presece of an immense crowd of Maoris. The murderer was calm but the crowd though justifying his fate, loudly condemned the gross cruelty of its manner.

A missionary testified in vain that the boy an irreligious lunatic.