MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 July 1938, Page 2

MAORI MEMORIES

SUPERSTITION. (Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”) Bred from centuries of superstition, the Maori was ever an easy prey to it. They had the same shallow belief as our own, that misfortune comes, in groups. When a great calamity befel, their grief was doubled by the fear of a greater one to follow. In 1846 Rauparaha, their thinker, was made prisoner, Te Heu Heu their greatest chief, with 54 of his followers, was buried in a land slide. Whareaitu. known as Martin Luther, a genuine Christian convert, was most unjustly hanged at Porirua under martial law. He died with a fortitude which proved how the spirit of his noble race could triumph over an unjust death. All these and other tragedies were attributed by the Maoris to their own guilty neglect of their sacred Land Laws. They now realised that Papa the god of the earth was punishing them justly for their’weakness. A young midshipman at Wanganui shot a Maori in the cheek by accident. The Maoris remembering their past experiences caused by the neglect of their inviolate law of “blood for blood,” deliberately killed Mrs Gilfillan and her four children. The friendly Maoris, true to their oath of allegiance, arrested and delivered to Captain Laye of the 58th Regiment the five deliberate slayers. Four were hanged, and died as though death glorified their openly confessed actions. The enemy beseiged the little town of Wanganui, and from the shelter of the deserted homes attacked the people in the fortified houses to which they had retired. Constant fire of shot and shell were kept up for five hours. We had no casualties, but the Maoris had two chiefs killed and ten men wounded. We had 170 men and the Maoris numbered 600. Fortunately they retired to the forest.