MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 March 1939, Page 9

MAORI MEMORIES

DIVIDED (KOTINGA). (Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”) Mr Fenton was appointed as a. magistrate among the Waikato Maoris in 1858, when the main difficulty of mutual understanding and agreement between the two races arose from our lack of knowledge of their language and consequent ignorance of their customs and prejudices. He was then removed from the direct control of the ministers of the Crown and was instructed to take his orders from the officers of the Native Department of which he had been an active rival and critic. He then had orders to make a second round of the Waikato, and to confine his work as a Magistrate to those official duties, and make a census of the Maori population. This arrangement was a cute method of silencing an active critic. He was forestalled in many instances by the Maori King's Whaka aro (Decider) Kukutai, who had settled every case in true Maori fashion before the Magistrate’s arrival. The Maori courthouse was thus officially opened by his rival adjudicator, who questioned him in vain as to the Governor's supplying the windows. The census enumeration caused much trouble. A mischief-making old woman had used her well exercised" tongue in telling the tribes that he was writing the names of the King's people as enemies (hoariri), and the Queen's folk as friends (hoapai). Both Mr Fenton as a magistrate and his Maori clientele as plaintiffs or defendants suffered from the political differences among departmental heads, whilst their more numerous Maori people were united under one King with two main objectives—to save the land for their people, and save their people from drink.