ROTORUA

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 2, 28 February 1907, Page 24

ROTORUA

(From our travelling . reporter. )

There recently passed away at Rotor ua a noted-Ar-awa chief in the person of Pirimi- Mataiawhea. The deceased - chief . was native assessor in the Land Court, and was highly respected both by natives and by Europeans. A great tangd was held which lasted an entire week. Representatives of numerous tribes came from far" and near— some from 100 miles away— to do the last honors to the deceased. The interment" took place at Rotorua on February 11. The remains were taken- to the pretty church (which has "been enlarged- J>y Father Kreymborg and Father Wientjes), and a Requiem Mass was celebrated^ At 3 p.m. the funeral took place. A " procession was formed, and along the roaa to the cemetery the Maoris sang various appropriate hymns. There was an immense concourse tooth .of the .white and the native . population. The service at the "grave was read by the Rev. Father Wientjes (FaMier-Kreymborg being at the time absent at the great gathering of Catholic Maoris at Otaki). The responses were given by the Right Rev. Mgr. O'Haran and Fathers Carey, Murphy, Hearn, Walsh, and Phelan, visitors from Australia. A panegyric of the deceased was preached in -Maori arid afterwards in English by Father Wientjes.— R.l.P. " * .