JUST LIKE THE PAKEHA.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1005, 21 December 1910, Page 4

JUST LIKE THE PAKEHA.

. THE MAORI AND THE "TALKING , • WIRE." - IBy • Telenriyli.—Special Correspondent.! Auckland, December 20. : The Maori, says a writer in the "Star,* 1 is strongly imitative when a fashion .sets in to acquire some of the pakehas' inventions. '■ It flies like wild .fire, and the brown man will let nothing stand in his way, not even hard work. Up, North they recently developed a taste for the - telephone, and to-day all the kaiangas between Waiomio (near Kawakawa),' Oliaewai, and Kaihoe . are linked .'by the "waea korero" .(talking wire). "There they' go singing away . over the wire," said an old fellow, explaining the feat to a pakeha. "Kanui te mahi ote Maori" (great is thi industry of the Maori), and lie smiled the smile of a child' with a new toy. The amount of .work that, has been put into the line (which is just pleted) is remarkable, and the convenience to .the settlers is considerable. .The posts of solid totara are about twice as heavy as they need hav-s been, but this is typical of "the Native when he sets, out to do anything that interests him. ' He gets aa near the pakeha style as possible. There are branches from the trUiik line to each village, and the dusky housekeeper, novr enjoys the privilege of ordering the groceries over tho telephone, just like Mrs. Pakeha. Where the line crosses the Government wires the telegraph * -officials have insisted on insulating, and this has been carried out in a manner that might not perhaps comply with .Board of Trade requirements, but is essentially creditable to the ingenuity of the Maori electricians. Where they got the idea of running this network of wires across the isthmus is hard to-say,-but probably they had heard of the system put in by the East Coast and Bay of Plenty Natives ' between Point Awanui and Orete Point, some fifty miles' from Opotiki. There tile Maori, under the direction of a 'half-caste, put in a line that was. a 'boon and a blessing *to the settlers for miles round. The opening ceremony was h great event. . The subscriptions flung Into a wash-hand basin .in the middle -of ' the mnrae (village square) -amounted to over .£3OO, aud the talking-thereat was prodigious. The ceremony lasted overa couple of - days, and . many jjfgs and. much shark.was consumed. 'When the business was slack (generally in the evening) the Natives would switch on the instruments right along the line, and conrtect'up ■ with tho" "office," where -the Maori operator has a- phonograph; All the "subscribers" were': then"' in the fievintliJieatenjiLdelieht,;,