THE JUBILEE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8156, 18 January 1890, Page 3

THE JUBILEE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Feeling some cariosity bout the dance of the Maori girls at we celebration of the Jubilee, I applied for information to a neighbour who has been 30 years in the colony, and who, while living among the Maoris, was on eye-witness of their ceremonies at times of rejoicing, of grief, and also in preparation for war. My neighbour tells me that she never saw or heard of a dance of Maori women, younp: or old, and that with the exception or the wailing on the occasion of a c'eath, all public functions were kept in the hands of the men, the part of the wahine being to boil potatoes and to bear burdens. The same authority declares the war-dance to be a spectacle unfit for any decent person, and one, moreover, which cannot be enacted except under the influence of intense excitement, such as cap only be produced by strong drink or by anger, and she refers to a performance of the kind at the Nortli_ Shore some seven or eight years ago, which was then held and said to be a disgrace to Auckland. At the best the Jubilee appears likely to be marked merely by an excessive indulgence o£ the incessant and childish pursuit of amusement which is so striking a feature of the colony. Is this devotion to pleasure already bearing its natural fruit, and leading us back to barbarism ? To bring a large number of Maoris to Auckland, and to induce them to excite themselves into a state of semimadness. in order to afford us "infinite amusement," may be a fitting commemoration of much of the policy of the past fifty years, but it is also a piece of unchristian folly which speaks volumes for our need of a moral revolution. Are the citizens asleep that they thus allow the occasion to be given over to the lower orders? — am, &c., January 16. Mary Steapman Aldis.