A FAIRY TALE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 27 January 1927, Page 8

A FAIRY TALE.

‘WITH MAORI SAVAGES.”

AMERICAN'S VIEWS OF CJfcfIUSTCHUROH.

ISLAND HEIST BY EARTHQUAKE.

The ignorance of a section, of the United States Press regarding K««' ( Zealand, its cities and people, is at, times remarkable, and the .gullibility of some members of literary' staffs when interviewing travellers doe® not redound to the intelligence of the pressmen concerned. lo 1922 a very imaginative young lady, Beatrice A.‘ Manning, paid a visit to New Zealand. Since then she has been some time returning to her home town, Albany, in , New York State, a town about the size of Wellington. The young lady was interviewed by a pressman, and the tale she told regarding the semi-barbarous of the South Island and the earthquake in Christchurch on Christmas Day of 1922. wouhl have done credit to the most imaginative and melodramatic of modern day writers. A cutting, was sent to a King, Country resident from one of the Albany (•New York State) papers, and was headed: “With Maori Savages.” THE STOPvY. The article read as follows: The South Island of New Zealand, where Christinas weather is like that of northern Julies, provided the strangest Christmas in the experience of bliss Beatrice A. Manning, 409 State Street, who has possibly ranged farther over the world than any othci resident of Albany. Although for several years Miss Manning has passed most of her time in travelling; and has covered the remotest corners of the earth, the Christmas of 1922, which fouJnd tier at th-e little' British colonv of Christchurch at the extremity of South New Zealand, is the only one she has celebrated in a. foreign land. An earthquake, which rent the island in the midst of a balmy, hibiscus scented aft moon, and a feast at sundown with a semi-barhardus Maori tribe were the highlights of a somewhat' lurid holiday at the farthest end of the world. ‘•Wo were motoring back to Christchinch after a fifty-mile trip, across the island when the earthquake occurred,” said Miss Manning. “We were all seized with a dreadful dizziness, which wo could not account tor nut) we saw the earth heaving, throwing pedestrians to the ground and bouncing automobiles several feet into the SEEING THINGS.

“The tower of a public building, and tIA ,steeole of a church in the centre of the city, crashed to the ground only a few feet away from us. Althougn the damage in outlying regions was heavy, and the Toss of life among the natives very great, the town wlieie \ie were escaped with less punishment, and we did not realise at the time- the ext nt of the disaster. “The Maoris celebrate, a feast o their own on December 25. I have never discovered the origin of it,., but coming at the height of the. harvest, and characterised in part by a ceremony based on ancestor worship, it suggests a combination religious and harvest feast. They call it the day of thankfulness. ~, , . “We sat down, at evening with about 100 members of the tribe, ranged Turk fashion around a large grass mat, with a huge earthen bowl in the centre, called the kava cup, containing a drink tli-. natives brew from fruit and nuts. The dishes .served were principally fish, the exotic fruits peculiar to_ the climate and a native dish called poi. The tribe performed a sort, of weird dance, in fitting posture during the feast, and a need after the meal was over. The foregoing extracts reveal that Miss Manning’s imagination is in no direction at fault, whatever her .sense of accuracy.,,.,.