Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/60

venience of being fed for a long period by the hands of his wife, Te Wera. His own hands having become tapu from contact with the sacred body, he dared not touch anything in the shape of food, cooked or uncooked, nor engage in the cultivation of the soil, for a whole year afterwards. As Tu te hou nuku left no children, Te Mai hara nui’s line became extinct at his death.

The depopulated Peninsula would have continued without Maori inhabitants up to the date of colonisation, but for the great change wrought in Rauparaha’s warriors by Christianity. Those fierce and cruel men, having been led by the teaching of the Rev. Mr Hadfield, the present Anglican Bishop of Wellington, to embrace Christianity, gave convincing proof of their sincerity by releasing all their Ngai Tahu captives, whose compulsory labors were a great source of wealth and profit to them. But they not only gave them their freedom, they even allowed them to return to their own land, and, in order to ensure them a safe reception from those who might during their enforced absence have usurped their estates, several notable Northern chiefs accompanied them home. Port Levy, Akaroa, Gough’s Bay, and Wairewa could again count their inhabitants by scores, if not even by hundreds, while several small hamlets were formed in other places round the coast. Port Levy became the principal centre, and there many important Maori gatherings took place, both before and after colonisation began. It was there that Rauparaha’s son and nephew spent some time instructing the people in the doctrines of Christianity, and teaching them to read and write in their own language, endeavoring as far as they could to repair the wrongs done to Ngai Tahu by Rauparaha and his warriors. It was there that the northern chiefs