An old woman?

This is another glaring revelation, considering that just a week earlier, the same newspaper clearly described the captured beast, firstly, as "he," and secondly, not as a human but as an apelike animal with tusks, and bearing the slightest resemblance to the old woman. And remember, just the day before, The Auckland Star had reported that the captured creature was a seal. So what was it, a seal or an old woman? Neither of these possibilities seems to point to anything resembling a gorilla—both the seal and the old woman are utterly at odds with this description. It's truly difficult to reconcile these reports. It's also strange that at no point does this article even mention the earlier article about a seal. And the text becomes even stranger as you read on. It goes on to say:

"We learned that two gentlemen had gone to see this most remarkable creature, and after a long walk they reached the place where it was kept. There they were shown a poor old woman who, in a sense, was as much of an enigma as a gorilla would be. She seems to have escaped the memory of all who knew her, and reached the age of 175. How this estimate was made, we do not know, and we cannot guarantee its accuracy. The woman had lost all her hair, except for a small tuft on the top of her head, and she is such a curiosity that the gentlemen who came to buy the gorilla would have done the same to her, had they only obtained permission."There are so many strange elements and things that don't make sense in this story that it's hard to even begin. Even forgetting for a moment the earlier report that the captured creature was a seal, it's truly difficult to imagine an old woman, even half the supposed age of 175, who would be mistaken for a gorilla with tusks, then found in a swamp by sniffer dogs, then dramatically captured and bound, presumably because of resistance, just to be described in an article as a gorilla with protruding tusks. How could an elderly woman do such a thing? What threat would she pose to be treated this way, and most importantly, how could anyone mistake her for a gorilla, even after her capture? And, incidentally, what happened to the seal mentioned in the article the other day?

Another strange issue is the woman's alleged age—175 years—which, as the article states, is as miraculous and mysterious as a gorilla roaming the wilds of New Zealand. The method used to determine her age isn't specified, but it seems—to put it mildly—exaggerated. This is a rather strange detail, especially considering that it's supposed to be the reason for the sighting and capture of a gorilla-like beast. Unfortunately, there's insufficient detail to determine exactly what the two men saw and whether the alleged age is accurate. However, it's clear that whatever they saw wasn't a gorilla, and there's no mention of protruding tusks. This, in my opinion, raises another question. If there wasn't a gorilla, and the reports didn't allow the two men who went to meet the woman to impose conditions on her, why did they go there in the first place? It seems they went there under the pretext of obviously expecting to buy a gorilla or similar creature, but instead they saw an old woman and that was it? If none of the reports were willing to deal with it and it wasn't actually a gorilla, contrary to what was being reported, then who invited these men in the first place? Who told them there was a gorilla for sale there? I suspect they heard rumors about the gorilla and went there voluntarily to find out and buy it without the knowledge of the woman or her family. But something about that just doesn't sit right with me.So we're left on a trail of strange little snippets that don't quite fit together. We have a series of sightings of a gorilla-like creature, most likely some kind of primate with tusks. Then a widely circulated report states that the beast has been captured—a beast described as ape-like, definitely not resembling a seal or an old woman in any way. Then an article appears, bizarrely claiming that a seal is responsible for the entire Maori Gorilla scare, only to be followed a day later by another article claiming otherwise, and that it's actually a 175-year-old woman. Were all these conflicting reports fabricated for some reason? Which story should we believe? What was the deal with the 175-year-old woman? Was anything actually captured, and if so, was it a seal, an old woman, or something else? None of the initial sighting reports offer any clues to anything other than this enigmatic large primate. It appears that one or more of the capture reports are false or inaccurate, or perhaps a gorilla-like creature was actually captured, and the conflicting reports were an effort to conceal the find by people who simply weren't present on the same page as the cover story. Did that happen in this case? Is it possible that the Māori gorilla was not a seal or an old woman, but something very real, its existence hidden under a somewhat sloppy cover, leaving us with these contradictory accounts? Or is the whole thing one big hoax?It's frustrating that I haven't been able to find any further reports on this case after the mention of the 175-year-old woman. I've dug through the archives where I found these articles and haven't come across anything more about the Maori gorilla. The story just completely stagnates and stops, so it seems there's really no way to reach a resolution to this case, leaving us with all these questions without clear answers. I'm not sure why such a widely reported story, covered by so many news agencies, was suddenly dropped like this, but it's certainly just another small, odd piece of the puzzle. So, this is the strange story of the Maori gorilla, a case I find very intriguing and one that lends itself to many theories.