MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 April 1939, Page 2

MAORI MEMORIES

THE KING’S MANA IN DANGER. (Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”) For the first time since the Maori King was enthroned, his subjects were divided into two distinct factions, each a formidable power intent upon its own view, of peace or war with the pakeha. Every white missionary and trader had been compelled to leave the district. The peace party urged and assisted their hasty flight, and were in constant fear that some of them would be cut off. Their lives and property were respected and protected by the enemy throughout the war —a fine tribute to the character of the Maori race, which has no parallel in history. There was one strange exception to this — “The Maori wife of each pakeha belonged to the tribe, and every halfcaste child was a Maori,” so they were seized. All, however, were subsequently restored; some by stratagem, others voluntarily.

The King's Council of Chiefs admitted that their own attempt to govern had utterly failed, and the Waikato chiefs proposed to Sir George Grey that the Waikato district should be completely isolated from trade or contact with every European until every one of them consented to submit to English law and order —Patara, their “Speaker,” said they would be so miserable for the loss of the comforts and help they had received that the?/ would gladly submit in order to recover them. The King himself was greatly vexed with the Manaiapoto tribe, with their treatment of the missionaries, with their proposal to attack Te la, and with their talk of removing his own headquarters to Hangatiki.