STIRRING DAYS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 July 1938, Page 7

STIRRING DAYS

ADVENTURES ON EAST COAST PIONEERING INCIDENTS RELATIONS WITH THE MAORIS. One of the earliest settlers on the East Coast was the late Mr Peter Holes, who took up a property at Okau, near Whakataki about 1860. His son, Mr John Holes, of Lansdowne, who recently celebrated his 89th birthday, arrived there with his parents as a small boy, having been born at the Hutt in 1849. Mr Peter Holes was drowned in 1871 at the mouth of the Whareama River in the presence of his wife and a son. Mr John Holes, in reminiscent mood, recalled to a “Times-Age” representative some of his experiences on the East Coast in the early days. “I don’t remember going to Castlepoint,” said Mr Holes, “but I do know that we were nearly drowned when trying to land. We ‘went up from Wellington in a boat called the Esther. There was a heavy north-easterly sea running and the Esther could not get into the bay. Three families were placed in a small rowboat, but there were only one or two who knew anything about pulling. My father, in fact, was about the only one who could pull. We were soon ' all drenched to the skin and three of us were engaged in bailing out the water, two of us with our boots. There were two fat sheep on board and we had an argument about chucking them overboard to lighten the boat, as it was overloaded. The owners of the sheep would not agree, as these animals were especially valuable in those days. At that time,” Mr Holes continued, “what is now known as the Basin was full of water right up to the hills and the lighthouse reef was an island. Old Tom Guthrie saw what was happening and put out through the Gap in the Kitty Clover. He managed to pick us up and returned with us through the Gap. Fortunately everything on board was saved, including the sheep.

“The pub at Castlepoint,” said Ml Holes, “was a long drawn-out building.., You came out of one' room to go into another. It used to be kept by an old fellow named Hickey, who came from the mouth of the Whareama River. There was no camp oven and the baking was done in ashes. When we went to Okau, north of Whakataki, there used to be a Maori pa there, besides a big pa at Whakataki itself. TROUBLE OVER A PIG. ‘“On one occasion,” observed Mr Holes, “an old Maori was proceeding along the beach with a big pig following him. We did not see him but saw the pig and thinking it was a ‘Captain Cooker,’ of which there were plenty about, we decided to go after it with our pig dogs. We soon bailed up the pig and my brother cut its throat. We decided to go back and get old Rattler, a fine old bullock, and a sledge to put the pig on. We did this and brought it home, where we scalded and cleaned it and hung it up in the kitchen. While all this was happening the old Maori missed his pig and apparently came back and finding it had been killed, hid himself and saw us come along and take it away on the bullock sledge. “THE FUN BEGINS.” “Then the fun began,” said Mr Holes. “At daylight the next morning about 150 Maoris, armed with spears and tomahawks, turned up at our house and my God, I got a fright that time. They demanded £lO for the pig. The old man offered them £5 and the pig but they would not go near the pig, I don’t know why. The Maoris stopped there all day and were getting hungry. One old chap lit a pipe and made the devil’s own smoke and stink in the house. My brother, who was then 18 or 19 years old, told him to go outside, but he would not go, so he took the Maori by the scruff of the neck and put him out. A Maori named Martin, who could talk fairly good English quietened the other Maoris down and told us not to pick a quarrel with them, as they had come there with the intention of killing the lot of us. It was getting late and the Maoris made up their minds to take £5, but they would have nothing to do with the pig. I got such a devil of a fright that I can never forget it.” OLD “CRANKY." “There used to be an old Maori at Castlepoint named Cranky,” Mr Holes went on to relate. “He was a great big, old, raw-boned fellow who would not live with the Maoris or anyone else and lived by himself. Harry Groves was at Castlepoint one day and the old Maori came up to then pub. Harry Groves had a cutlass and the old Maori always carried the jaw bone of a bullock. Harry Groves and old Cranky could not understand one another. Cranky was asked if he used the bullock’s jaw bone for fighting and Harry Goves then pulled out his cutlass and swung it about. The old Maori got frightened and cleared out and went up to Okau into our house. He had all my father’s tools and was sitting on his swag on the verandah, looking at each implement in turn. The old man did not know what to do. He asked him what he came there for and the Maori said it was his house and would not leave. MAORI SHOWS FIGHT. “My father dragged his blankets away from under him and the Maori showed fight,” said Mr Holes. “My father guarded himself with a big stick, which the Maori broke and my brother Harry said he would get an axe. The Maori then made off and as he was going my father threw another stick after him, which hit him on the head and broke into three pieces. The Maori never staggered. My father de-

cided to hide all his tools in the flax, but evidently the old Maori watched him from the hillside as when he went to inspect the tools later on his sway was alongside them. He hung about for a long lime and hid up in the hills. One day we found he had barred the house during our absence and we could not get in until my father took a back window out. We could never make out how the Maori got out of the house after barring it up, he must have gone up the chimney. Old Cranky had limbs on him like a bullock and wore an old flax “cockahu,” or mat. The old Maori then took up his quarters on a flat half-way to Mataikona, where he built a little whare. The other Maoris did not like him being there and were frightened of him. They got on to him with whips and sticks and hunted him up to Aohanga, where he dug up some graves to get some pots and pans. He was supposed to have swum across to a small island in the Aohanga River and was never heard of again.” FOUND DEAD. “There was another cranky Maori about Arthur Nicholls’s place. Arthur Nichbll was a shepherd for Tom Guthrie and I used to go over there sometimes as a boy to keep Mrs Nicholls company,” said Mr Holes. “This Maori used to visit the house for food. When I went they told me about 'this Maori, but on one occasion while I was there he never came near. I was big enough then to get the cows in, but if they were too far away from the house Mrs Nicholls had to go for them. One day when the cows were a long way off I went with her. We smelt a devil of a stink and following this up we found the old Maori dead under his blanket. I was not sorry either,” added Mr Holes. Mr Holes went on to state that as an' example of the endurance of the settlers of those days, old “Ike” Cripps carried a nine foot table from Castlepoint to Mataikona. Hundreds of head of cattle belonging to old Guthrie went wild, Mr Holes continued and they were found later almost all over the North Island. There used to be forty or fifty in a mob. They were supposed to be Shorthorns but they had very long horns. Harry Buxton, who bought Langdale, was drowned, Mr Holes said, in the Whareama opposite lea Station. Mr Guthrie put a fence x

across the river to catch the body and offered £5 to the person who found it. Old John Perry knew all about it and got the £5, though it was Dan Kirby who first saw the body as he was crossing the river in a boat. Perry was also in the boat, but he got in first and collected the money, said Mr Holes.