A QUESTION Of RESEARCH

Evening Star, Issue 22817, 27 November 1937, Page 3

A QUESTION Of RESEARCH

I ACQUIRE HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE [Written by M.E.S., for the ' Evening Star.’] When my friend the historian heard that I was going to spend a week in X. ho spoke emphatically. “ Here’s your chance to do a little researdh. That place simply reeks with history. Try for once to be a little intelligent about the Native race. Find out facts for yourself. Poke round.” The advice depressed me profoundly. I was going to X. for. rest and a holiday: I did not want to do research; I am not intelligent about the Native race. Certainly I live amongst them, as did my parents and grandparents before me. I have “brought up” several of them, taking them in what might be called the raw state, training them into capable domestics, marrying them and later standing godmother to their babies; I am still dependent upon them for whatever help I need in house or garden; they still do all the shearing and contract work required on the farm. But I do not profess to know nearly as much about them as my friend the historian, who lives in town and reads about the Maoris all the time. Nor am I even as interested in their early tribal customs as every New Zealander worthy of the name should he; I am much more interested in their modern habit of suddenly becoming tired when there is a race meeting in the vicinity, in their infinite kindliness and almost unfailing courtliness. Last, but not least, I am no good at all at “ poking round.” But, being naturally a weak and obliging person, I did not pour all this passionate protest upon the head of my friend the historian; instead I murmured vaguely that I could see no more excuse for “ poking round ” a Maori’s “ kaianga ” than for intruding in a pakeba’s bedroom, but that if they volunteered any information I would be glad to pass it on to him. I could not deny that I was going to a place closely associated with Maori history and legend; all I could prophesy was that I would probably not see the right things or talk to the right people. The historian agreed gloomily and _ too readily, and we parted in mutual friendship and contempt. THE FIRST FAILURE. X. is an interesting little place; to me it attracts rather by its present peculiarities than by its historical past. To the historian it reeks of Maori legend; to me it reeks principally of rather stale fish, ..particularly of that variety of shark that the Natives hang up to dry in hot weather. How the population lives—save by selling each other fish—is a mystery to me, but then I was there in the “ off ” season. Not for worlds would I visit X. in the gala weeks of holiday when all the hillsides are infested by a rash of tents, when the sea is full of bathers and the sand of that peculiar variety of swimmer who stays on shore and acquires a suitable tan. It must be a horrid spot during the season, but at least in those two months the local inhabitants acquire enough to allow them to live in peace for the other ten. During these quiet times the little place dreams peacefully, and, since there is a preponderance of Maori over pakeha in its population, its dreams are presumably of ancient battles, of mighty deeds of valour and colossal feasts of victory. Such, I was sure, were the visions of that aged Maori woman—gnarled, twisted, tattooed, straight out of one of Goldie’s pictures—who sat asleep on the end of the wharf. Doubtless she could trace her ancestry back to the very origin of the race, for there were both dignity and distinction in that patiently slumbering form. Here was the very material I wanted; here was a positive mine of information only waiting to he explored. My friend the historian would have known how to do it. In 10 minutes he would have approached her, wakened her gently, persuaded her to talk. In another five they would have been deep in the early legends of her tribe and he would have whipped out that inevitable small black notebook of his and be writing rapidly. I knew all about it, for he had often told mo of his instantaneous success with his Maori friends. But I am not like that, and I was still eyeing her doubtfully when the old eyes opened and encountered my own; for a moment she studied me and then smiled—toothlessly and expansively. Encouraged by this, I drew near and remarked on the beauty of the day, the charm of the place. She nodded profoundly, and spoke at last; “It’s O.K. in the summer,” she said amazinglybut, oh, sister, it gives me the willies just now.” That seemed to dispose of the question, and I melted away, wondering exactly what the historian would have done about it. THE CHILDREN’S SONG. But hop© springs eternal, and I yearned to prove to that superior person that I, too, was not without intelligence in my contacts with the native race. Therefore I tried “to poke round” without actually intruding. My opportunity came next day when I saw in the distance a little group of Maori children under the big pohuta-

kawa on tho leach. They seemed intent, and it occurred to mo that this might be some sacred place and they entrusted to perform some youthful homage. Muffled .by distance, I could hear the guttural notes of some tribal song, the rhythmic beat of many small bare feet on the hard sand. Yet, so far as I could see, the dance was not akin to any haka I had ever known; possibly, then, I had stumbled upon something infinitely old, even unique. Dreams of confounding the historian by my discovery lent me wings, and presently I sheltered from sight behind a clump of flax not far from the childish group of devotees. At last I could distinguish words. My first reaction was of disappointment; the words were English; my second was of paralysing mirth; the words were “Im Pop-Eye, the sailor man.” As I ‘tiptoed away I regretted bitterly that the historian had not been with me when I made that discovery. ONE LAST TRY. Yet I would try once again, and if this, too, ended in failure then I would give it up. Now there is on the outskirts a very sacred spot _ which intelligent people like the historian visit with awe and reverence. There is supposed to be a very ancient relic buried in a grove of trees here, and the spot is accounted so “ tapu ” that neither Maori nor Pakeha approaches it closely even in these degenerate days. This attitude I deeply respected and entirely understood; I had no intention of “ poking round ’ in the vicinity; as well boil a billy on the steps of the Cenotaph, Yet I would approach it and try to assimilate some of that legendary colour with which my friend said the place was reeking. I did so, in the company of a couple of young commercial travellers to whom I had confided the extreme sacredness of the spot. It was picturesque enough; around the grove were dotted primitive Maori huts of pungas and nikaus. “ There you see the natural native,” I said proudly. “ Maybe,” agreed one young man, “ but I was looking at the clothes line. All locknit, and palest pink. Now do you suppose that was the stuff old Hongi used to watch so covetously in the London shop windows? The historian might hay© found an appropriate answer; I did not. I had a letter from him *• I have just been down to X,” he wrote, “ and am frankly amazed that you brought away no material from historical articles. It is steeped in history and legend, as I told you. I am glad to say that I got a lot of interesting stuff and will be able to publish a pamphlet from the results. My chief informant was_ an _ old Maori woman, who looked just like a Goldie portrait, and whom I discovered sleeping the sleep of her kind at the end of th© wharf. She was the genuine primitive Maori. Very helpful, too, were the children from the “ kaianga near the pohutakawa; they had been brought up in the tribal tradition and were entirely unspoiled by contact with Pakehas. They have dances of peculiarly pure Maori origin. Were you not thrilled by the sacred grove and its surroundings? Seldom have X met with the Native so entirely in his natural surroundings; th© unspoiled Maori of history and legend. But you, my dear M., say that you saw none of these things. I should hesitate to quote to you a certain verse about those who, having eyes, see not.” . . . That, I think, is the final insult. I shall not buy the historian’s pamphlet.