The Orator.

When Wahanui rose to speak in public all was profound attention. His presence was commanding; his kingly head, covered with thick silvery hair that lay in natural waves, his imperious mouth and white drooping moustache, circled by the blue-lined marks of tattoo on cheeks and chin, his majestic deportment, easy, graceful gestures, compelled the admiration of all who saw and listened, pakeha and Maori alike. When he stood at the bar of the House of Representatives in 1884 and addressed the legislators, his dignified deportment and his speech aroused the surprise and praise of legislators. There was no orator, pakeha or Maori, in the House to compare with him.

Wahanui was at the height of his powers when he was engaged in public debate, whether in a meeting of the

Sir Robert Stout, Premier of New Zealand, 1884–1887.

tribes or the marae “under the shining sun,” as the Maori has it, or in the house of council. There were many eloquent and forceful speakers among the Maoris of his day. One remembers such a man as Te Ngakau, great of mind and body, who was at one time Tawhiao's secretary and chief orator. But at the gatherings of the clans for political discussion, it was towards Wahanui that all eyes and ears were directed.

The late Major Wilson, of Cambridge, whose wife was a chieftainess of Waikato, once set down his impressions of Wahanui as a speaker. He heard the chief of Ngati-Maniapoto addressing an assemblage of the tribes at Maungatautari. “There was no straining of the ears,” he wrote, “to catch the sonorous sentences as they were poured forth deliberately, distinctly, and with due and marvellous precision and emphasis. Every syllable was clearly enunciated. When the speaker ended, with the words, ‘Ko te ruri, me te reti, me te hoko, me mutu, me mutu, me mutu!’ (The survey, the letting of land and the selling must cease, must cease, must cease!) those listening knew that not only did he mean them to cease, but that they would cease.”

The same listener said that Wahanui's measured sentences and his accompanying gestures electrified even opponents, and drew forth the admiration of Europeans who understood not one word of the language spoken, “even as in Italian opera an English audience will sit spellbound for hours.”