MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 February 1939, Page 4

MAORI MEMORIES

INTERESTING OLD SPOTS.

(Recorded by JiH.S. for “Times-Age.”)

Horotiu (swift wanderer) is a level fertile plain dotted over with clumps of trees, giving a beauty of landscape and bush such as may be found only in New Zealand. Bright with cultivated fields and animated though ever peaceful villages, the scene is ideal. Extensive fields of their new found food, maize and wheat added to the scene. The spreading English clover was a grazing ground for their flocks and herds, the introduction of these luxurious means of living having transformed the Ngatihaua (spiritless, starved) tribe into a picture of healthy .energy and content.

Tamahere (the captive son) was the chief village. It was here that Wiremu Tamihana, our faithful ally and advocate for peace, was born to a rich inheritance of family and tribal lands, which were cultivated assiduously for the benefit of his personally inspired tribe.

Maungatautari (the mountain of tall trees) round which the Waikato (flowing river) swiftly passes to enter the great plain of Horotiu was the home of Ti Oriori (waving palm), another great chief of the Ngatihaua tribe. The Maori legend says Maungatautari is impregnable, and an enemy seeking to enter it would be exterminated. On the bank of the Mangahoe (river of paddles) was the Maori village of To Awa Mutu (river’s end) where Sir George Grey established the first industrial school for teaching useful trades to the Maoris. This the Maoris, young and old, men, women and children. entered into with pride and enthusiasm. That was about 80 years ago, yet our folk had no such help for another 60 years. Foreign languages and theology left no time for useful things.