MILK FROM GRASS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 119, 22 May 1928, Page 9

MILK FROM GRASS.

METHOD KNOWN TO. MAORIS.

PREPARATION OF HERBS.

USED WHEN NECESSARY.

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

WANGANUI, this day.

In a London cable yesterday reference waß made to the making of milk from ! grass. This secret was known to the Maoris hundreds of years ago. When the necessity of providing milk for a baby arose, which was not an infrequent occurrence, and the mother had to provide a substitute, she used a product of grasses, finely pounded and liquefied. The idea would probably not find favour to-day as a substitute for humanised milk, but the splendid type of manhood which greeted the pakeha on his arrival was a tribute to the simplicity of the diet of the Maoris.

The subject was referred to an Auckland authority on ancient Maori habits. He said that in the old days Maori women knew of a preparation of herbs which had the tendency to increase the flow of mother's milk, and a concoction was made and given infants to drink. A separate whare was set aside for the birth ceremonials, special foods were pre-* pared for the mothers, and finally a ceremony to free the mother from tapu was carried out. It was a subject that had been dealt with fairly extensively by at least two Maori scholars of note To say that milk could be made from grass was merely a literal way of expressing it. The modern Maori mother probably found that a bottle of stout was just as efficacious as the old-time herbs.