Maori And Clothing

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 72, 18 December 1937, Page 18

Maori And Clothing

Some amusing instances have been recorded concerning the first contact of the Maori with European styles of dress. Accustomed as they were to plain rectangular garments, the Maori found that the .intricacies of European clothing required some degree of initiatory skill in their manipulation and use. Coats and trousers were often worn back to front, shirts were used as kilts, and sometimes as trousers, with the legs of the wearer thrust through the sleeves. A Native was once seen vainly attemptng to force his legs through the sleeves of a coat. Polack records that he saw a man wearing a biack stocking on one arm and a white sock on the other. The Rev. William Yate observed a man walking into church wearing the sleeves of a gown as stockings, two small baskets being fastened on his feet as shoes. The same individual wore a number of feminine garments and the ensemble was completed with a pair of trousers tied round his neck. A Rotorua Maori greeted Sir George Grey in 1850 wearing a stocking on one leg, a broken Wellington boot on the other, a striped shirt as a kilt, and a soldier’s bearskin shako much the worse for wear.— G.L.T. (Masterton).