MAORI COMMUNITY ANGERED BY BOOK

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30576, 20 October 1964, Page 1

MAORI COMMUNITY ANGERED BY BOOK

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, October 19. The small Maori community at Cape Runaway is angered over the publication of Lynne Owen’s book, “School At Cape Runaway,” which, community leaders said tonight, was full of inaccuracies, exaggerations and distortions of fact. The book, which has been on sale for a week and is selling well, according to the publishers, caused heated discussion at a meeting of the Waiariki Maori District Council on Sunday.

Criticism of its contents was led by the Cape Runaway delegate to the council, Mr M. Waititi, and the postmistress at Waihau Bay, Mrs Waenga. The council decided to Investigate the book further. It will write to the Maori Council and the Maori Women’s Welfare League. Lynne Owen is the pen name of Mrs Lynne Izzard, of Taylor place, Birkdale, Auckland.

Her book is described as an account in faithful and loving detail of her experiences as the infant teacher for 11 years at the Whangaparaoa Maori School and a notable contribution to the cause of Maori-pakeha understanding. The chairman of the Whangaparaoa Maori School Committee, Mr Joe Waititi, said the book had caused a great deal of personal pain to residents. “None of the names are the same,” he said, “but most of the people are easily recognisable.”

One particular passage

angered the Cape Runaway community. The author referred to two brothers, one of whom had a horse and one a saddle. The book said the brother who owned the horse swapped his wife for the saddle.

“This is not true at all,” said Mr Waititi. Mr John Waititi, Auckland Maori welfare officer and a member of a Cape Runaway family, said the book was causing a greater commotion than “Washday at the Pa.”

It brought up incidents which happened 30 or 40 years ago and gave the impression that they happened while Mrs Izzard was at the school, where she taught for “nine years from 1949 to 1958, not 11 years as was claimed in the book."

Mr J. C. M. Cresswell, manager of the Auckland branch of A. H. and A. W. Reed, said tonight that the publishers stood by the book and had no regrets about publishing it. Mrs Izzard said tonight that the book described Maori life as she found it.

It was a friendly and lighthearted account of the life at Cape Runaway through European eyes, and there was no intention to criticise the Maori people there. “I liked the life,” she said. “That’s why I stayed so long. “In the book there was nothing actually pinned on any person. It was all changed around. I even invented a shack or two.”