Kmtw of Heviewit^ JO/i/O'-*. 



In the Heart oi Maoriland. 



'-^1 



Maori Women and Children, Urewera Country. 



iiKiuntain of the Ngatimaiiuwa tribe, and the fabled 

 haunt of the last moa. From here to Te Whaiti — 

 the first settlenaent of the mountaineers — the hills 

 encompassed us, sometimes boldly bare and fern- 

 clad, but mostly thickly timbered with tall pines 

 and beautified with tree-ferns. In the late after- 

 noon we entered a region where the forest was mor<! 

 gloomy and the pitch of the mountains grew steeper, 

 with a dark stream gliding smoothly and mysteri- 

 (jusly below our track, sometimes hidden from view 

 by the thickly-matted foliage. All at once we 

 emerged on a clearing in the heart of the moun- 

 tains, the open valley of Ahikereru, where thin 

 spirals of smoke curled up from a score of cooking- 

 fiiingis (the earth-made steam-ovens of the natives). 

 We saw low-eaved bark-roofed huts scattered along 

 the riverside, and groups of brown people seated 

 in the green marae or vnllage forum, in front of their 

 houses, gossiping in the loud and unconstrained 

 fashion of the Maori while they awaited their even- 

 ing meal. Then came a vociferous welcome, for 

 pakchas were rare visitors, and pork and potatoes 

 and wild pigeon, fresh steaming from the hangt. 

 were set before us. These people were of the Ngati- 

 whare tribe, skilled in all bushcraft, and wan 

 forest-fighters in the war days. The ruins of their 

 palisaded fort, Te Harema, crowned a ferny rise 

 above the settlement. Beyond, the Whirinaki River 

 wound gently through the glen, clumps of tall 

 totara pines standing on its banks, and the bold 

 terraced outlines of an ancient stockaded pa or hill- 

 castle — the famous stronghold Umurakau — stood 

 out against the sky far overhead, its venerable 

 palisade-jKists crowning the scarped crest like so 

 mnnv huge pencils set on end. 



I'hey are ill the transition stage, these Ngatiwh.irtJ. 

 Some amongst them are deeply tattooed octogen- 

 arians, horn in the days of pagan cannibalism, 

 human relics of the stone age. The people, like 

 their Tuhoe neighbours, wear European garments — 

 in the peculiarly free-and-easy fashion of the M.iori 

 — but in every household the women are experts in 

 the weaving of beautifully soft and silky mats and 

 cloaks from the native flax (phormium tenax), and 

 the ancient stone pounders used centuries ago for 

 beating out the flax-fibre are still in daily u.se. 



Our second day's ride was to the ancient kainga, 

 or village, of Mataatua, the capital of Tuhoe Land, 

 and the central stronghold of the Urewera from im- 

 memorial times. We were in company with a caval- 

 cade of Te Whaiti natives, for there was a iangi, or 

 wailing-ceremony (the Maori variant of an Irish 

 wake), proceeding at Mataatua, and there would be 

 dancing and feasting and weeping unlimited. We 

 climbed from the green open valley eastwanl into 

 the heart of the wooded mountains, and wound along 

 a sharp-cut road from which we looked straight 

 down five or six hundred feet into a wild and nar- 

 rowed gorge, with a foaming river sweeping down its 

 pine^shadowed depths to join the Whirinaki. Above 

 our heads the heights slanted precipitously upwards, 

 tree-feathered to the skyline. As we went on, round 

 many a sharp corner and rocky bluff, sometimes as 

 plumb above and below as the wall of a house, the 

 mountains grew loftier. The hillsides were rich with 

 ferns and damp with the trickle of countless runnels, 

 and many a waterfall splashed dowii the dark ravines. 

 Topping the sharp ridge of Tarapounamu we halted 

 to survey the land. As far as the vision carried, 

 the va.st forest extended — the forest and the moun- 



