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Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 85, 4 January 1930, Page 4

The Maoris are fond of fish, and in the old days quite a good trade was done by the coastal tribes taking dried shark and other delicacies miles inland and bartering them for other commodities. As the Maori had no mammals worth speaking about, he had to depend on other forms of flesh for his “hinaka,” or relish.. His main diet was vegetable, ami anything ol the nature of flesh was merely added to -ive it a tang. In the same way the people in the East use pungent and smelly things like ancient dried fish to give u taste to their dish of rice. ’Katana mid his devotees make a point of keeping up the feasting part of Christinas with as much thoroughness as a baron of, the olden time (remarks an exchange). > llls -Christmas they, showed a more delicate ualatc than their ancestors, who, at the sight of ii row of. sharks drying on n staging would experience the same giow of satisfaction as an alderman on seeing “turtle soup” nt the head of a This Christmas the chief dish at Hatana’s pa was crayfish and potatoes. Hundredweights of scarlet fish mid tons ot potaloes were consumed, and it would have made a gourmet green with envy to see the immunity with which the helty Maori tangata—and even the Indies—could stow away a whole crayfish without a thought of the prolonged nightmares that, would have haunted any pukeha who was rash enough to indulge in half the quantity.