MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 August 1938, Page 2

MAORI MEMORIES

A PERTINENT MEMORIAL (Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”) Delay after sentence of death, was beyond the comprehension of a Maori. After a drunken spree an exprisoner named Huntley, killed a Maori on the street in Auckland. A post mortem was ordered, but to the Maori this was a grave insult. The tribes threatened to raid the gaol, lynch the murderer, and burn the town. Fortunately for us, a Maori owned horse won the Maiden Plate that day, and the crowd of Maoris made a bee-line to the racecourse where they literally liquidated the prize money of £l5O. The handsome trophy of sterling silver was flattened out, and thrown in the swamp during the spree. Huntley’s trial lasted from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m., and when the verdict of life imprisonment was given, the Maoris thought serious disregard of their sacred law of Utu would result in evil, but the accidental death of a prominent settler was accepted in lieu of the need for a killing. Two Maoris were killed by drunken ex-convicts from Sydney, one at Auckland, and one at Napier. Both were sentenced to death, but the usual respite for repentance was given'. An army of Maoris threatened to destroy Government House at Auckland unless the brutal murderers were hanged at once. They asked: “Do you think we are pigs or cattle, fit only to be killed and eaten?” Soon after the’executions the excitement subsided. The universal cry of the Maori race for human sacrifice was not at all in the nature of revenge or reprisal. It was purely a religious sacrament, awakened perhaps by the desire for practical proof that the life blood of a Maori was at least of equal value with that of a white man. A testimony lacking since the first foreigner came to New Zealand. With this end in view, the Maoris presented a gallows, complete in every respect, even to the noose and a prayer book, to the Governor at his residence.