“Old New Zealand,” by Judge Maning, is a classic in the Dominion's literature. Maning was the first writer to give the world a vivid sketch of life in New Zealand in the period immediately before the establishment of British sovereignty, from the point of view of a pioneer trader and settler. In this article the personality and career of the famous “Pakeha-Maori” are discussed, and some facts and documents hitherto unpublished are given. It is exactly one hundred years ago this month since Maning landed in New Zealand.

F. E. Maning when a young man. (From a drawing by Mr. John Webster, at Hokianga, in the early Forties.)

There are two books which describe intimately the conditions of life in North New Zealand in the transition period when the old Maori rule of No Man's Land was still untouched by pakeha law. The writers saw the country in its unspoiled beauty, and lived with the Maoris when the patriarchal mana of the chiefs was still little impaired by the levelling influences of the European invasion. The tribes still welcomed the pakeha, they were eager to get a few white traders to live with them; they were not yet alarmed by the incoming of crowded immigrant ships. One of those writers was Frederick Edward Maning, the Irishman whose “Old New Zealand” is a familiar work, quoted so much that its best passages became somewhat tedious by frequent repetition. The other was Sir John Logan Campbell, whose “Poenamo” is not well known but deserves reprinting for its perfect pictures of pakeha-Maori life on the shores of the Hauraki in 1840. Both writers saw the adventurous era of settlement, the glorious freedom of a day when commercialism and many laws had not yet interfered with the primitive, honest simplicity of the Maori and his pakeha friends. Maning and Campbell were great friends in their days of vigorous young manhood; their friendship continued through life, and Campbell's last duty to his old comrade was the writing of that eloquent epitaph on the “Pakeha-Maori's” tomb in Auckland.

It is fitting that their books should be coupled as the two authentic narratives of a long-vanished life. Of the two, Maning was by far the better acquainted with the Maori people, for he lived among them many years of his life, and he married a Hokianga Maori woman. Campbell's “Poenamo,” however, charms one with its unaffected and sympathetic description of the early trading-station ways, the Maori at home, the pleasures, tribulations and humours of the white man's endeavour to fit himself into the ways of this wonderful new land. What Sir George Grey did for the olden Maori, whose only library was his mind and his mental store of tradition and song, in “Polynesian Mythology,” Maning and Campbell, in their separate ways, did for the race when the ancient regime was about to give way, gradually but surely, to the new.

Maning's Early Days.

It was a small brig, the Mary and Elizabeth, from Hobart Town, that first brought Frederick Edward Maning to the land of the Maori. The page 26

Judge Maning (1811–1883). This portrait shows Maning at the age of 68. He died in England and was buried in the Symonds St. Cemetery, Auckland.

coming Pakeha-Maori was a tall, lithe, broad-shouldered young six-footer (or a trifle more), a lively Irish lad whose every movement and expression betokened him a born adventurer. His confidence, courage, high opinion of himself, impatience of weakness, recklessness, conjoined to a stalwart frame and great good looks, all were qualities that appealed to the warrior race in whose shining river his anchor went down for good. He had seen something of the rough side of life before he set foot on Hokianga's shore. Born in Dublin on July 5, 1811, his father took him, with the rest of the family, to seek a new home round the curve of the world, in 1824. The long sailing-ship voyage ended at Hobart. After nine years in Tasmania, Frederick, then twenty-two years old, took ship again, this time on his own account, to try his future in Cannibal Land. Hokianga was then the great seat of the kauri timber trade. Many of Maning's compatriots—one was Lieutenant McDonnell, late R.N., who established a shipyard at Te Horeke—were then settled along the shores of Hokianga Harbour, and vessels were continually arriving to load kauri for Australia and England. The life there as a trader and intermediary between the ships and the Maoris fitted in very well with Maning's liking, and presently we find him becoming the complete pakeha-Maori by taking to wife the daughter of a Rarawa chief, a handsome lass with a tattooed chin and a pedigree going back six centuries and more.

Maning's Purchase of Onoke.

The Gunpowder Merchant.

Another document shown me is worth quoting because it indicates the extent to which firearms were used by the Maoris in the old bush days and the means by which it reached them. It reads as follows:—

“Native Secretary's Office.

Auckland, December 31, 1860.

The letter is signed by Donald Maclean (afterwards Sir Donald), the Native Secretary. Maclean and Maning were old friends. It is to be noted here that Maning had always before him the possibility of the Northern Maoris being called upon to assist the Government against the King Party tribes in Waikato and elsewhere, and that at the date of this letter the Taranaki war was proceeding. Ostensibly the Hokianga and other northern chiefs were being supplied with ammunition for pigeon shooting, but Maning—as will be seen from a letter to be published later—privately appreciated the likelihood of making other “pigeons” the targets for Te Rarawa and Ngapuhi tupara (double-barrelled guns).

Maning as a Free-Lance Fighter.

It must be remembered also that Maning was something of a fire-eater himself. He had carried his double-barrel gun in the battlefields of North Auckland himself, in Heke's war of 1845, alongside his friends John Webster and Tamati Waka Nene. John Webster, in his Reminiscences, has told the story of Maning's retort to Colonel Despard's arrogant question: “What do you civilians know of the matter?” when the three comrades went to him to protest against the attempt to carry the Ohaeawai stockade by storm. Maning indignantly said: “We may not know much, sir, but there is one apparently that knows less, and that is yourself!” When Despard threatened to arrest them, Tamati Waka made a contemptuous comment which still further infuriated the stubborn Colonel. All protests were in vain, and that afternoon Despard's insane order cost forty lives and a great many wounded.

John Webster's Memories.

From John Webster, that fine old man of Opononi, Hokianga, hero of many a close-call adventure in Australia and the South Sea Islands as well as New Zealand, I heard many stories of Maning, too long to be recounted in this brief survey of the pakeha-Maori's career. Webster's life is a book in itself—more about him later. He and Maning were associated in trade and timber ventures at various times, as well as in the glorious life of free-lance campaigning on the fields of Omapere and Ohaeawai. Webster told me that he gave Maning much of the information which “Pakeha-Maori” used in his story of “The War in the North” (which is bound in with “Old New Zealand”), and that he wrote some notes for him on the subject.

John Webster, of Opononi, Hokianga. (Maning's comrade in many adventures, and author of the “Last Cruise of the Wanderer.”

That story of Heke's war, by the way, as given by Maning, purports to be the translation of a narrative from the lips of an old Ngapuhi chief, and it has been accepted literally as such by some writers who quoted passages from it. But it is really a composite story, partly from Maning's own experience, partly from what his Maori kinsmen and friends told him, and partly from John Webster.

Maning as Judge.

In the mid-sixties Maning was appointed a Judge of the Native Land Court, a position for which his consummate knowledge of Maori land tenures and customs well qualified him. One of the most important Native Land Court cases which came before page 28

Railwayman: “Wonderful smoke this National Tobacco. I believe it is the healthiest tobacco on the market.”
Man behind the Counter: “Yes, I smoke it myself. Apart from the fact that the tobacco is one hundred per cent. in quality, it is produced by a company that is one hundred per cent. New Zealand. I believe that company pays hundreds of thousands to the Government in freight and taxes and employs over a thousand workers. Why, dash it all, the more we smoke the better for the country; and the loyal way the company sticks to the Railways in fares and freight, helps to keep the railwaymen in their jobs.”

page 29 Maning was the investigation of the original title to the great block of Te Aroha, situated on both sides of the Waihou River, and including the site of the present town of Te Aroha; the area was about 200,000 acres. The recorded judgment, which is clearly from Maning's pen—he had a colleague, Judge A. H. Monro, on the bench with him—is of exceptional interest because of its skilful epitome of the long inter-tribal disputes going back several centuries, narrated in the Court by the old tattooed warriors of Ngati-Haua on the one side and Ngati-Maru and Ngati-Tamatera, of the Waihou Valley and Ohinemuri, on the other. The date was 1871. This eloquent extract is one of numerous passages which make the judgment more readable than such documents usually are. Maning sums up the evidence, in awarding the land to the Ngati-Maru and Ngati-Tamatera (old Taraia's tribe):

“No human flesh and blood, however hardened, could endure much longer the excitement, privations, danger and unrest which the equally balanced forces and ferocious courage of the contending parties had now [1830] protracted to several years' duration on that small spot of the earth's surface and between two petty divisions of the human race. War had attained its most terrible and forbidding aspect; neither age nor sex was spared; agriculture was neglected; the highest duty of man was to slay and devour his neighbour. Whilst the combatants fought in front, the ovens were heating in the rear. The vigorous warrior one moment fighting hopefully in the foremost rank, exulting in his strength, laying enemy after enemy low, thinking only of his war-boasts when the victory should be won; stunned by a sudden blow, instantly dragged away, hastily quartered alive, next moment in the glowing oven; his place is vacant in the ranks; his very body can scarcely be said to exist. While his flesh is roasting the battle rages on, and at night his remains furnish forth a banquet for the victors, and there is much boasting, and great glory.”

The Dunedin Railway Cadet Football Team, 1900.
Back row: Left to right—Messrs. H. Millar, J. L. Jacobson, W. Sinclair, J. Stewart, L. H. Campbell, L. Aikin, E. Scanlon, E. Wright, J. Davie-Parson, J. Short, G. Livingston, and R. M. Isaac. Front row—H. L. Gibson, T. Bateman, H. W. Franklin, C. L. Hope, E. J. Paton, W. P. Miller, R. A. P. Francis, and A. Urquart.

Maning and the Maori Soul.

Casual writers and speakers on New Zealand frequently refer to Judge Maning as the writer who had the most profound knowledge of the Maori and who best described Maori habits and thoughts. The truth about Maning is that—apart from his intimate knowledge of land tenures and history and related subjects—he was a dealer in superficialities. He described very graphically the surface of old-time Maori life, the obvious things, the excitements and humours and tragedies. Maning had this much in common with his one-time antagonists, the Missionaries, that he regarded the Maori system of religion and mythology as mere superstition and mumbo-jumbo, and he made his contempt for that sort of thing so plain that he was never admitted to the innermost confidences of the learned men of the race. In his later period he somewhat modified his attitude, but he had missed unrivalled opportunities. “Te Manene” could have given so much more; as it is, we are thankful for “Old New Zealand,” superficial though it be.

In one or two brief legends and in a poem, “The Spirit Land,” Maning showed that he had the gift of poetic insight and expression in some degree, and could have developed it had he chosen. In one poem he pictures a seer standing on a hill on the Far North way to Te Reinga, “his eyes fixed on the spirit path that leads to the spirit land.”