MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 July 1938, Page 2

MAORI MEMORIES

AHI KA ROA. (Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”) During the war in the north, discontent arose near Wellington, the principal cause being plainly proclaimed as “Land robbery, drink, and the violation of'Tapu.” Three miles from Wellington, English Law was despised, and ten miles away, blackmail was levied against the settlers as “Utu” for these manifest wrongs. The reprisals were fostered and emphasiserj by the natural objection to white men taking possession of their only means of existence, the land, “which Colonel Wakefield thought he had bought.” The Maori occupants kept a fire alight without fail from one generation to another, to comply with the sacred law of “Ahi Ka Roa.” No human agency could violate that law, and the penalty was death. Captain ' Fitzroy paid Rauparaha £3OO to “extinguish all Native claims to the Hutt Valley lands,” an obviously impossible proposal. The wily chief regarded the money as a bribe, and squandered it among his friends. In 1846 many Hutt settlers homes were plundered ’ as Utu for their breach of the law concerning occupation of land. Colonel Hulme left 200 soldiers in the valley to keep the Maoris away by preventing them from getting food from their cultivations. Rangihaeata, was openly our enemy, and Rauparah'ft outwardly was an ally, but he always was secretly plotting with such skill as only he could exercise, planning our destruction to be effected by others. It was a proverb among the Maoris that, “No man may solve the mind of Rauparaha,” and fear was in the thought of every white settler as to his secret plans. Captain Grey turned the chief’s own weapon of dissimulation upon him. He was arrested near Porirua an hour before daylight on July 23, 1846.