PERHAPS HISTORY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 244, 25 February 1944, Page 15

PERHAPS HISTORY

KING OF THE BLUFF: The Life and Times ot Tahawaiki ("Bloody Jack’). By F. G. Hall-Jones, B.A., LL.B. (Chairman, Southland Historical Committee). Printed by the "Otago Daily Times." T is difficult to take a historian seriously who refuses to take himself seriously-announces himself as B.A., LL.B., surely wih his tongue in his cheek, making asides to his wife as he writes, and labels one chapter "wholly imaginary." Nor does it restore confidence to discover that the reason why there were no Maori wars in the South Island-wars between Maoris and Europeans-was that the: Southern Maoris stopped Te Rauparaha "at the height of his Hitlerite career,’ outfought and out-generalled him, and thus prevented a repetition in the South Island of the "savage conflict that ensued in Te Rauparaha’s North Island territory." "It was not the Canterbury Maoris who stemmed the tide: they took the first pressure, fared the worst, and were sadly decimated. Beyond all cavil the credit must be accorded to the Maoris of Otago and Murihiku. It was the Southerners who established a moral ascendancy by the ambush and near-capture of Te Rauparaha, out-gener-alled for once. They were armed with musket and ball. Their personal prowess was such that Te Rauparaha eventually advised his men not to come to close quarters with the Ngai-tahu, as they were such desperate fellows in hand-to-hand encounter. For two or three seasons they voyaged north to Marlborough, and trailed their coats for months, but the northern chief’ was content to avoid battle." If that is history, the author’s predecessors in this field have been surprisingly careless, If it is what it so strangely suggests, Southland thinking, it may comfort the residents of Ruapuke, but it will surely raise a smile farther north. However, the author’s real purpose was to bring "Bloody Jack" to life after he had been dead for a hundred years, and in this he has been more or less successful. His book-making methods are peculiar, but when you have gathered up and examined all his "bits and pieces," something remains in your mind that could have been a man. (It should be added on behalf of authors and publishers generally that one word only -can describe the work of the printers and binders. That word is incredible.)