MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 June 1939, Page 9

MAORI MEMORIES

SUSPENSE. (Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”) Continuing his narrative of yesterday the writer states: —“The next move against us was to place a cannon on the hill occupied by Waka Nene’s friendly allies. If it had kept going for a day it would make a gap in our defences, so 30 Maoris crept out through the bush and rushed Waka's position, captured his equipment and returned safely to our Pa, taking Waka Nene’s Union Jack as a trophy. When we in the Pa saw that a concerted attack by Colonel Despard’s soldiers and Waka Nene’s Maoris was to be made upon us, most of us believed every soldier would be killed; others thought the British could do things beyond the understanding of any Maori. Just then Toby i Lieutenant Philpots) chief of the sailors, walked coolly round the pekerangi of our pa and examined it. So impressed were we with his courage that not a man of us would fire on him. To our great surprise the soldiers and sailors did not attack the weak part of the pa which had been battered by their guns for many days. They rushed its very strongest section, that originally built by Pene Taui as his own. They and their leaders were deadly silent, so unlike the Maori chiefs who would make speeches and yell, jump, dance and grimace to encourage and divert the minds of their men from danger. As the soldiers came on quietly, we in the pa saw that they were nearing death. Each Maori chief spoke to his family —-“Have patience and endurance; think only of victory. The parent of all is the land, the father who sustains us; die for the land. The soldiers walk to their death straight into our umu (oven). Tomorrow we each taste of the hearts of their dead as utu (compensation), then we partake of their spirit and their courage. Now fire!”