I WILL COME HOME

Te Ao Hou, July 1955, Page 21

I WILL COME HOME by Kuru Waaka A unique ceremony was enacted at Whakarewarewa when the soil taken from the grave of a Maori airman shot down over Italy during World War II, was returned to his home last March. The young airman was Flight Sergeant Tionga Waaka, R.N.Z.A.F., a wireless operator. The soil was brought back to New Zealand by Mrs Rora Fernandos (nee Iwikau), who travelled to Rome as one of the New Zealand representatives to the Roman Catholic Eucharistic Conference of 1950 (Holy Year). After she had been presented to His Holiness Pope Pius XII she was conducted to the Anzio Beach-head Cemetery where she had been advised lay the grave of the only Maori amongst the graves of other Allied forces who had fallen in this area. It was there, in the company of a number of priests, after a short prayer, that she took soil from off the grave with the intention of returning it to the young man's family. For three years she searched in vain for the relatives until she ultimately located them in Rotorua. The soil, contained in an elaborate urn of engraved porcelain and placed in a raised velvet lined cabinet of dark mahogany was conveyed to Rotorua in full ceremony by a large party from the Ngati Raukawa and Ngati Tuwharetoa tribes. On the Sunday morning, March 13, religious rites were performed over the cabinet containing the urn by the Rev. K. Paenga, of the Church of England and in the evening by Rev. Father McKenna of the Roman Catholic Church, in Wahiao. After the latter service, the cabinet was conveyed again by the visiting tribes to Tionga Waaka's birth place, the residence of the late Rev. W. A. Te Waaka the late airman's grandfather. Mrs Fernandos is a Maori Welfare Officer in Auckland. * * * Building has started on a fully carved meeting house at Bulls. The Parewahawaha tribe (which belongs to Ngati Raukawa) has had two acres set aside for a marae and under the general leadership of the elder Kereama Tenako, a willing staff of voluntary workers, supervised by Mr Taylor Brown, are on the construction work.