MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 July 1938, Page 2

MAORI MEMORIES

TRIBAL INJURIES. (Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”) The Executive Council was anxious to prove their power for good, and their opportunity came in 1842. Cannibalism was one thing the Governor was directed not to tolerate. Two Christian Maoris were killed and eaten, and their tribe cunningly suggested that the leader of the affair, Taraia, should be executed “with the same exquisite cruelty as Maketu.” The authorities called upon several chiefs for an account of the affair and they laid it before the Executive thus: — Between Taraia’s tribe and the Tauranga Maoris, there were bitter feuds for several generations. A mam of the one tribe secretly married a maid of the other. The. girl’s father was wrecked and washed ashore. He was promptly killed and eaten,. because it was a law written in the heart of every Maori that a person rescued from the sea always brought evil to the rescuer. The girl fled to her father’s tribe, and ever since there was war between the tribes. In 1842 Taraia received insulting letters from Tauranga written by the newly acquired art, to which a sinister meaning was given. Secretly he collected 40 picked wariors and attacked Engaro Pa at Tauranga, killing and eating the two Maori preachers in order to end the long feud. Taraia’s men rang the church bell and collected the local worshippers, to whom he preached a mock sermon defying their new god, and tearing their Bibles with his teeth. He produced the heads of his two victims and thus destroyed their faith in ■ Salvation (oranga). Taraia protested against military interference in a purely religious difference, so Governor Hobson withdrew his soldiers and sent missionaries to heal the breach. The Maoris respected Hobson, and in asking Her Majesty for his successor wrote, “Let him be a good man like Hobson.”