Mrs. Locke in the Urewera Country.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 281, 2 April 1889, Page 4

Mrs. Locke in the Urewera Country.

The member for Tauranga, Mr Kelly, baa had an interne* with the Native Minister relative to getting the Urewera country proapected. A gold prospector has been up there for some months back, but he is unable to prospect some parts of the country owing to the opposition of the Ruatahuna. The natives desire that prospecting should be done under the authority and control of Government, to prevent trouble between the two races, and that therefore an experienced agent should be sent up to negotiate a basis of agreement, and the name of Mr Locke, formerly member for the East Coast in the Assembly, who has perhaps the beet knowledge of the country of any European in the colony, was mentioned. Mr Kelly has arranged with the Native Minister that Mr Locke shall accompany him to the Urewera country after the Orakei native meeting is over. Samples of gold found in the creeks have been seen by Mr Kelly, and he is quite satisfied that portions of the district are auriferous. Mr Locke visited this country in 1873, and an interesting account of his travels, negotiations, and public meeting with the natives appeared in the Napier papers of that period. In reference to gold being found on the East Coast, in the Whakatane River, or in some of its tributaries, it may be stated that in 1878 two or three specimens of quartz containing the metal were discovered in that locality and taken to Napier At this juncture, now that Mr Locke is likely to be employed to make a satisfactorily arrangement with the Urewera natives for prospecting their country, it is of interest to reproduce from his journal his description of the Ureweras. Speaking of the Ruatahuna, the people now playing the role of obstructionists, he says“ One of the first things which struck us was the light complexion of the children, many of whom almost had the appearance of having white blood in their veins This, however, was not the case. Besides the children, several of the women had hair that might be called dark brown, the long black tresses of many of them having quite a golden tint. The men were or large stature, *nd extremely muscular. Very few of them had any European clothing, native manufactured mats being quite as common as the blanket, and they were handsomely designed and beautifully made. Another feature was the immense number of children; they literally swarmed over thewhole settlement. The children of both sexes up to seven or eight years old, ran about quite naked, and very many grown women had merely a rag of a blanket for a covering. It was easy to see that the Urewera tribe was wealthy in food, and industrious in obtaining it, but in every other respect they were in poverty. They had no money, nor did they know its value, and one could hardly help contrasting their position and their grade in the scale of civilisation with that occupied by the Hawke’s Bay natives. N. Z. Herald.