Brief Adventure Into Politics

Te Ao Hou, Winter 1952, Page 4

Brief Adventure Into Politics After the death of Hone Heke in 1908 Peter the following year made his first excursion into politics. He ‘married’ the Northern Maori ‘widow’ and won his byelection without making a single speech. The mother of the dead statesman regarded the seat in Parliament as the ‘widow’ of her son and to show her appreciation of the fact that Hone Heke's body had been brought back to the north by chiefs of the south, she and her people made an unprecedented gesture by asking that someone outside Ngapuhi tribe carry Hone's mantle. Peter was chosen. He wanted to resign before the next general election, but he was persuaded to fight for the seat, and he won. In his electioneering campaign he experienced an incident which brought home to him the truth in the old adage, ‘Cast your bread upon the waters and it will return unto you a thousand-fold.’ At Pawarenga a big 20-stone Maori suffered a deep cut right down the middle of

his head when he was tipped from his ‘four-wheeler’ while collecting kauri gum. Peter was called on to attend him and eventually sewed up the wound with a darning needle and some silk thread. A few days later he examined the wound and found that it had healed perfectly despite his ‘bush’ surgery. The stitches were removed and he forgot all about the matter. Some time later he arrived at Sweetwater to advance his election cause and was greeted by a man he thought he had met, but wasn't sure. However, he was evidently the leader there and called the people together to listen to the visitor's political speech. After the speeches the man, addressing Peter, said they had already been visited by ten other candidates for the seat. ‘I have given these other ten the same reply: ‘My vote is for the man who sewed up my head.’ Then he removed his battered old grey hat and revealed the scar—. Subsequently Peter found himself in the short-lived Mackenzie Cabinet and for three brief months was Minister representing the Native race with the rank of Hon. Dr. Pita Te Rangihiroa. He was also Minister in Charge of Cook Islands, the Public Trust and the Government Life Insurance Offices. Peter put a lot of care and thought into his Parliamentary speeches, as Hansard records will show, and when he could he infused a delightful sense of humour into either criticism of or comment on whatever was before the House at the time. One of the contributions to debates for which he will be remembered occurred during the discussion on the Daylight Saving Bill. He said during his visit to Wellington in 1949 that he did not like the idea of daylight saving being considered a discovery of the 19th century. The Maoris had daylight saving long before when, according to Maori mythology, the sun moved so quickly over the arc of heaven that they did not have the time to cultivate their plots and do the many other things they wished. The famous Maui and his brothers prepared a noose and they went to the hole in the east where the sun came from, and snared it. The sun could not struggle because his arms were tied, and Maui ordered the sun to cross the sky more slowly. But Maui could not keep pace with the sun and so he broke his legs with a club, and the result was that the god was lamed and moved slowly according to orders. In 1914 Peter resigned the Northern Maori seat to Tau Henare, then failed by 100 votes to capture a Pakeha seat—in emulation of Timi Kara—and with the outbreak of World War I left New Zealand as a medical officer. His wife—he was married in 1905—also accompanied the contingent as a nursing sister. It is one of the few instances on record of both husband and wife going overseas to serve in the same war. Photo: Otago Daily Times. The Dunedin Public Library Association some years ago asked Sir Peter Buck for a statement of his beliefs as an anthropologist. Sir Peter's reply (above) is kept in the city's collection of letters of New Zealand notables. He was transferred to the infantry and raised from captain to the rank of major and was appointed second-in-command of the Pioneer Battalion. ‘Although I got that elevation in rank with an increase 5s. a day I lost 10s. 6d. a day medical corps pay!’ he said remarking on his promotion. Peter served with the First Maori Contingent on Gallipoli (1915), was second-in-command of the Battalion (1916-19), and in actual command in the later stages of the war. Also

in 1918 he re-joined the N.Z. Medical Staff. He had two amazing escapes from death, once on Gallipoli when he had only just reached shelter as a shrapnel shell burst uncomfortably close overhead; again near Flers, on Bezantin Ridge. The major and a machine-gun subaltern were returning to camp when a ‘Whizz-bang’ grazed the latter's shoulder and burst in the ground in front of the major's feet. Much of the history of the Maoris in World War I was taken from Peter's diaries which he kept with meticulous detail and accuracy. He repeated on many occasions when he was last in New Zealand that the Maori had proved in two great wars that he was a man who could hold his own with any other race. No one will dispute that assertion.