Driving force is Maori

Mana (Auckland), Volume 2, Issue 4, 18 May 1978, Page 3

Driving force is Maori

The School of Languages at the Wellington Polytechnic celebrated the ending of one of the six weeks Intensive Maori courses, with a get-together of supporters and well wishers.

The evening was highlighted by Te Ika a Maui players who performed ‘Death of the Land'. The play, written by Roley Habib illuminates the strife of land sales today, with Pakeha words and the Maori ‘owners’ torn apart by bribes, conflicting values and a lack of understanding of the Pakeha words. In a nutsehll is was the story of “justice of the Maori and land for the Pakeha.”

Performed eight times, each in a different setting, it did not seem incongruous to see players sitting amongst the audience on mattresses, with the only props being.a desk, a bottle of whisky fon the Land Judge, white face paint and the effective use of the lights to indicate a change of scene or time.

“What we saw here we’ve been saying for years,” says one observer, “but we’ve only been saying it amongst ourselves. People don’t like what they’re hearing. They shuffle their feet and walk away.”