Netana, or Nathan was fourteen years old when he was taken prisoner at the end of "Titokowaru's War," or the "Third Taranaki War." That he was sentenced to hard labour in Otago is, today, staggering. They were initially sentenced to death, so it might have been expected of them that three years' labour would make them properly penitent and grateful for "mercy."
Neatana must have known little of life at his age and the death of a young man described as "so full of life" is infinitely sad to me. The description below of the conditions in which he was housed with the other "Maori prisoners" make it very clear why he died of tuberculosis - you could hardly design a better place for cross-infection, though the disease was very little understood at the time.
The only consolation I can think of in the sad story of young Netana, dying so young and so far from home and family, is that his Catholic faith might have given him hope that he would go to a better place after his death.
An inquest was held in the Hospital on Saturday last, at noon, by Dr Hocken, Coroner, on the body of Netana, one of the Maori prisoners, who died there the same morning, at one o'clock, from consumption. A verdict to that effect was returned by the jury, after hearing the evidence of the governor of the Gaol (Mr Caldwell), and Dr Yates, the resident surgeon of the Hospital. The deceased, who was only 17 years of age, belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, and on Saturday evening a number of the Maori prisoners attended at the Hospital, when the usual prayers for the dead were read by the chief Taurua, and a tangi was held over the body. Netana, or Nathan, belonged to Taurua's tribe, the Ngatiruanui, and arrived in the Gaol on the 6th November, 1869, under sentence of three years' penal servitude, for his complicity in Tito Kowaru's rising in the Wanganui district. The Fathers Coleman and Donovan were daily in attendance during the sickness of the deceased. This is the 18th Maori prisoner who has died since the arrival of the batch in November, 1869. -Otago Witness, 17/2/1872.
MAORI PRISONERS.
To the Editor. With very great personal regret I observed the death of the Maori Netana in your Saturday’s issue. Poor, good-hearted little Netana (savage and all), who, years ago was so full of life, and whose willingness and evenness of temper, made him the favorite of the kind sergeant under whom he worked for so long a time. "After hearing the evidence of Mr Caldwell," &c., half-a-dozen Maories, more or less, may be nothing, but as I cannot forget very great kindness received from these people, I have often wished to read the evidence (and not this stereotyped expression) given by Mr Caldwell at these inquests; for, as it has been written that nearly all the Maori prisoners exhibit a tendency to consumption, no doubt the particulars of the kind of work, &c, the Maori may have been placed at, will be given on such an occasion I read the other day that the Maories had been working in the water for a considerable time at Pelichet Bay. Should any of those unfortunates be consumptively inclined, I do not think that immersed in water for a number of hours would be likely to stay its rapid development; and this little Nathan, of all others looked, to my mind, two years ago, the least likely to be hurried off by lung disease.
Forty-two bunks — in a space of about 30 x 15 feet, constitute the Maori dormitory in the Old Gaol. These bunks (twenty-one on each side) are divided by a passage so narrow as not to admit of a moderately stout man walking through it comfortably. The first impression of a visitor is, that he is viewing a rabbit warren, yet I have known forty one men to be sleeping in this warren at one time. The men are compelled to wriggle in, feet first into their bunks, and when asleep, their heads are so close as to appear all together; add to this a watercloset on the right hand in front, and one immediately behind - the stench from which often compels the window of the cell in the New Gaol overlooking Stuartstreet to be closed on Summer evenings, and we have probably the reason why I have so often heard the inspecting officer of a night give expression to an ugh! and one of relief at having reached the door. To my unprofessional mind it has often suggested itself, whether this tendency to consumption is likely to be diminished by inhaling the foetid air and breath of those advanced in tubercular disease, for eleven and a half hours in Summer, and thirteen and a-half in the Winter months. All this is beyond the control of the Governor, and in his anxiety to remedy these evils, no doubt they are given in his statements to the different juries, which press of space and lack of interest oblige you, sir, to condense into “the evidence of Mr Caldwell.” — I am, &c., Humanitas. Dunedin, 12th Feb. -Evening Star, 12/2/1872.
Southern Cemetery, Dunedin.
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