MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 June 1940, Page 3

MAORI MEMORIES

WHO KNOWS? (Recorded by J.H.S.. of Palmerston North, for the “Times-Age.”) Fifteen years after the disaster at Ohaeawai it was publicly stated in terms of reproach that: “In the churchyard at the beautiful Mission Station at Waimate are three wooden IjOmbs, now covered with vegetation, in memory of the officers who fell at Ohaeawai. In the old church at Paramatta, Australia, there is a tablet to Captain Grant raised by his fellow officers “To the memory of a good soldier and a warm friend;’ but the non-com-missioned soldiers and sailors who fell, all sleep together without a memorial in the wild forest before Ohaeawai.” Both sides claimed victory. The British captured the pa, and lost more men. The Maoris estimate victory by the numbers slain and captured, always disguising their own losses. Colonel Despard was universally blamed for the sacrifice of the men by attacking a half breached fortress. The Duke of Wellington, on reading the despatch, said that distance alone prevented him from bringing Colonel Despard to a court martial. Friendly Maoris called the Colonel a. “Kuere Tawliito” (an old fool). Not one of his critics realised the marvellous skill, strength, and swiftness with which these primitive military engineers carried out that work of making a fortress of hundreds of tree trunks, each of which required a hundred men to carry and erect It in record_time. Above all, the manner in which they concealed its strength, under the guise of two outer walls, the only purpose of which was to deceive and decoy their enemies. Those huge tree trunks more effectively resisted shell fire than reinforced concrete.