SENIORITY QUESTION

Northern Advocate, 5 February 1934, Page 8

SENIORITY QUESTION

MAORI-RAROTONGAN DEBATE. The curtain of evening was falling as the Rarotongan party landed. In consideration of tht fact that the visitors were still unfed, and also that the hosts themselves had fasted since breakfast, the welcoming ceremony was curtailed. A feature was the dancing of several pois by Princess Te Pena’s party. The lapping of t.ho waves on the beach a hundred yards away offered an atmospheric accompaniment to the sweet maiden voices singing “A Pari Pa,” or the tide song. The Maori is very particular regarding the seniority of his genealogical descent, and Mr Tan Henare got in first by expressing pleasure at being ! able to welcome such a representative party of the younger branch of the Polynesian race. "We made the Treaty ■with the British and calmed the sea : for you,” he said. ( This position, however, was not accepted by Matanepo Charles Cowan, jwho responded on behalf of all the arikis of Rarotonga present at Waitangi that day. 1 The genealogical debate was resumed at the meeting held the same night, j and a Maori speaker, substantiating his assertion that the Maori must have been of senior rank and possessed of the mana, pointed out that they oross!ed the great ocean to Aotearoa in ' rudely fashioned canoes, and even in some cases the ancestors of the present people claimed to have made the passage without any boats at .all. -In contrast to this, the: Rarotongans had 1 arrived in comfort aboard a modern liner! ,