CURRENT LITERATURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14252, 24 December 1909, Page 4 (Supplement)

CURRENT LITERATURE.

THE MAORIS OF NEW ZEALAND. .

HISTORY, RELIGION, MYTHS, CUSTOMS, SOCIAL LIFE, AND INSTITUTIONS.

t Thk Maori scholars of New Zealand are gradually compiling an invaluable store of knowledge concerning the Maori and his ways, which is not only of supreme interest to the present generation but will be a mine of information to future students of the evolution of Man through primitive society to civilisation. There is a very • uatv.vl tendency in this country to exaggerate the importance of the Maori and to 'magnify his progress iii the arts and sciences, for the. pakeha found New Zealand sparsely populated, not occupied, by anthropophagi, who contributed extraordinarily little to the . stock of plants, animals, and metals which •constitutes the wealth of natons, and only loom large against the wretched blacks of Australia. But the Maori possesses an interest for us in that he is our own, and Mi. James Higlit. M.A., in his introduction to Mr. James Cowan's "The Maoris of New Zealand" (Whitcombe and Tombs, Ltd., Christchurch) says very truly that "It is a just reproach against most New Zealand students of the political, economic, and general social development of mankind that they are content to take their illustrations of 'the principles of the social sciences sociology, economics, ethnology, etc.--from the experience of other races in otnci lauds, with no thought of the valuable data awaiting research in the records of the native civilisation." SCOPE OK THK BOOK. This charge cannot be made against Mr. Cowan, who has long been an enthusiastic student of the Maori, as he is and has been, and has now put on record the gist of his laboriously acquired knowledge. The book deals exhaustively and clearly with Maori history and origin, in record and tradition; with the distribution of the tribes; with the , great landings; with Maori cosmogony and religion, the tapu and the tohunga; with the whare and the kainga; with folklore and poetry; with theboid and the new weapons; with cannibalism, war, trade, and canoeing; with the Kingites and the Hauhaus;. with. , " huis" and tangis in short, with the whole fascinating, if somewhat limited, panorama which opens before the life-long student when he thinks of "The Maoris of New Zealand." Mr. Cowan's bowk will immediately take its .place among those which everybody who seeks to know something of the Maori must have on his shelf, and must study ardently. It is extensively and sympathetically illustrated, clearly printed on good paper, and excellently bound., A book so full of' information can be quoted from at hap-hazard. CIVILISATION AND THE MAORI. ' "Whatever advantages civilisation may have conferred on the Maori, there is no doubt that his physique has deteriorated. Speaking generally, the race has grown flabbier, more susceptible to disease, since the white man' came. Many Maoris are too obese to be healthy; but then we can say exactly the same of the pakeha. Every Maori in the savage old was an athlete, always ; in training. He needed no calisthenics, no dumb-bells, no punchingballs to keep him in trim; for he had his canoeing and his labour with axe and adze to develop his muscles of the shoulders and back and chest; his forest hunting expedition, his daily climbing to and from his hill Via, his often-practised war-dance a id lira, hafca, to make him agile and hardlimbed, sound in wirid and tireless of leg. The; tert y(tors' war of 1860-70. while a vast misfortune in other ways, at least revived ; J he half-forgotten military exercises of savagedom that helped to keep the Maori in perfect physical trim," t and that were the life and soul of the old generation. The peaceful farmer and trader, the village lay-readers, tore off all vestiges of civilisation with their trousers, and leaped into the wild action of the peruperu with a joy and fire that , were .all the greater .because so long repressed. Every Maori was a soldier bv instinct and by training, like the Highlander , of old. It is hardlv reasonable to suppose that the modern Maori has lost this instinct; the spirit of soldiering is in his blood, and given.proper training the .thousands of young natives in the land would he , a splendid auxiliary to tho white forces in time of war.." LIFE IN TOE KAIXGA. " Life in a Maori kainga in ancient days was the reverse of idle, though it may often have been monotonous. * There were the kum&ra and other crops to be attended to there were fish to be caught, the birds of the forest to ■ be speared and snared, trees to be felled, houses to be built, canoes to be hewn out. ' In all important undertakings, the full force of the tribe was employed, and, though it had its drawbacks in other ways, in these the communistic stage of society showed its advantages to the full. The felling and splitting of a great forest tree and the burning-out and stone-axe-hewing of a shapely canoe from its trunk were probably the most laborious works devolving upon the Maori of old. , They were really tremendous undertakings, when we consider the very primitive appliances at the command of these people, who had never seen or known of an iron tool till the white man came." THE MAO IU AS TATTOOEB. . " The Maori is pre-eminently the facecarver of mankind. Other tattooing nations, such as the Japanese, confine themselves to the body, sketching indelible pictures often from neck to foot, and the old British sailor-man is often wondrotisly moko'd, .as the Maori would say. In Polynesia the Marquesans and Tahitians formerly tattooed their faces in strange patterns. The Samoan to-day is almost invariably tattoed, but on the legs and body only. No man in Samoa is considered a " warrior, or is even accounted worthy the name of man until ho has undergone the process of tattooing. Every adult male Samoan is tattooed very closely from the waist down to the knees, and, the lines of the marking are so close together, and' so elaborate, that the skin is quite covered with the blue-black patterns. At Samoa, during the war of 1899, I watched Malietoa's native soldiers as they marched, rifles on shoulders, out of Apia, on their daily fighting expeditions. The sole garment of the warriors was a coloured print lavalava, fastened round the waist and falling to the knees, and it was generally caught up high on one side to show the' remarkable legtattooing. These Samoan jungle-fighters were as proud of their barbaric skin-orna-ment as the while soldier is of his smart tunic, his rakish cap, and his other martial trimmings." . ? "Some years ago a tattooing artist from the Urewera country made a tour through the Bay of Plenty district, performing the operation of tanga-kauae on the chins-of the young women. He earned considerably over £100 in cash as the result of his trip, and business was so good, in fact, that a Rotoru.l tohunga of the art announced his intention of touring the same district and decorating the faces of the young ladies at prices which, as pakeha shopkeepers would say, 'defy competition.' At Rotorua there is a female tuttooer, a lady who combines faith-healiig with knuae-engraving. She uses' need es set in a row in the ulii instead of the old-style chisel of bone or steel. A tattooer of to-day usually charges £1 or £1 10s for the kauao operation on the chin of' brown beauty. 5 "I asked Hiki, a handsome half-caste woman, why she had submitted to toe shisel of the tohunga-ta. , Said Hiki, with a curl of her patrician blue-lined lips, "' I like it because it is a tohu (a badge) of New Zealand. Besides, friend, did not pour European ladies have holes pierced in their ears for ear-rings, and don't they nqueezo ■ their waists in small, to try and look pretty. Well, that is a mark of the takeha. My kauae is the ornament of the laori.' ■. ' "To he tattooed, the fair subject lies town "fuJI length on a whariki, or flax floorrat, and the operator squats behind her, with her head resting against his knees.

First of all, the intended pattern is lightly traced on the chin { and the artist thenlifts to work with his little chisel, usually of steel, a blade a couple of inches long and less than half an inch broad, fastened to a small wooden handle. This is tapped sharply with a litlte mallet or striker. The blood which flows from each incision is carefully wiped away, and a tiny stick is dipped in the colouring matter and drawn along the lines. ■ This colouring substance is generally soot collected in burning certain woods, often kapara. tho heart- of the white pine, sometimes from the burn£ gum of the kauri. Songs are sometimes sung during the operation to distract tho attention of the subject, and next day her face swells painfully, but soon she is herself again, and very proud of her blue-black chin with its lvre-like tracery." A DKFKN'CN OK THE KIN'GITES. "The setting-up of the first Maori king, Potatau To Wtierowhero, in 1858, was not intended as an act of direct hostility to the point of war against the white settlers; but the political complications which followed it- widened the breach between tho pakelia Government and the Maori, and in five years after the proclaiming of the King (or the " Ingiki"——as ho was called by tho Maoris, who had rend a translation giving something of the history of Peru), the first shot was fired in Waikato. "The Kingite movement was nobly conccived by Tamehana and his fellow-patriots. It, had for its object the preservation of the land, mana and national independence of the native people. My old Kingite friend Patara te Tulii says that the notion of a King for the Maoris originated with Tamehana Rauparaha (son of the famous warrior Te Rauparaha), who went on a voyage to England and returned convinced that it would be an excellent thing for the Maoris to have one head chief over them, to be called a King. He vigorously promulgated the idea, and Matene te Whiwhi, of Otaki, took it up, and„ commenced the Kingite crusade. He visited the Rotorua tribes, the Urewera mountain dwellers, the Taupo people, and tho Waikato tribes, haranguing them to unite and set up a King, and prevent the pakeha from usurping their mana and acquiring all their lands."

THE NAVY LEAGUE ANNUAL. The Navy League Annual, 1909-10 (John Murray, "Albemarle-street, London, W.j, is corrected up to October 10 last. The editor, Mr. Alan Burgoyne, has done his work well, and the book is crammed with facts, figures, opinions, and articles bearing upon the great problem of the times. It is encyclopedic and up-to-date. For example, of the Invincible type of cruiser, one if which New Zealand is contributing to rtic Imperial navy, we* read: — "As was expected, tho three completed vessels of this type have more than fulfilled the highest demands made or expectations formed of them. Their respective trials, went through without a hitch; and on a recent full-speed run the Invincible maintained an average of 27.7 knots, on several occasions considerably exceeding 28 knots. The Inflexible has a record of 27.4, which she can easily attain in service; whilst the Indomitable, the first of her class, has many times reached 28 knots or over. The fourth ship, the Indefatigable, was laid down at Devonport on February 23 and will be launched on October 28. Though in the main a sister to the Invincible class, advantage has been taken of the experience gained by their trials to include certain modifications. The displacement has risen to about 19,000 tons, and the length has been increased to 560 ft, as against the 530 ft of the Invincible. Tho I.H.P. is designed for 45,000, and the anticipated speed is 28 knots, though designed for. 25. Whilst the main armament remains the same, the. 12in guns will be of the 50-calibre type, and the greater length permits of a better arc of training for the echeloned , guns in the centre of the ship. ; The secondary battery .will, also be augmented and the ' belt. will be raised so as to cover a larger proportion of exposed side. The Indefatigable will ue completed in February, 1911. A still larger battle-ship-cruiser, which rumour credits with a displacement 0f.21,500 tons and a designed speed of 28.5 to 30 knots, with 80,000 I.H.P. (turbines), is to replace the Indefatigable on the stocks in November. She is to mount 10 12in 50-calibre guns and several 6in Q. weapons."

BALLADS AND SONGS. . " The Shepherd" (George Allen and Sons, London) is called a book of ballads and songs by Herbert Arthur Morrah. It is more than this, being remarkable for the sustained strength of its verses, and for the forceful character of its Up-to-date philosophy. As in " The Shepherd The City's curse steel in . our human blood. Poisons the weak, but medicines the strong For task and toil. This wind, that bears .j alone: Us men, as straws on the relentless flood, Breathes to a lonely soul the word of fire. But you. O.foolish shepherd, could not see Th» flaming: light unquench'd, that bids aspire, There in your mountain-ranges calm and jy -. free. ■ ■_ * You. for the burning spark that cannot die. .Changed but the blazing torches of the town. ■ • " • With a rare zest you raised the brand on high. And with an equal madness flung it down. Here in the rays of the sun beating down in his glorious might. Reckon no longer for me the swift hours and . their petulant flight. ts Paint me no shadows, display me no menace ' of storm, Time in this place has no murderous deeds to perform. . Time is the slave of the singers who sing to a world beyond reason and sight. Bring me a posy wash'd sweet by the rainfall at noon. : . What if the glory of morning must vanish so soon ? What if von show me the vaporous nature of youth ' •• ■ - - T am no craven to turn me from death and the truth; Mine is a heart can retain all the pain and the passion and pleasure of June.

More, for though nightshade and rue with tho roses entwine. Pain, passion, and pleasure—drunk down to the lees of life's wine Purge me from treacherous fear of the infinite deep. Where is the secret? All secrets are mine, or to give, or to keep: All, save the secret of sleep, and the secret of sleep is divine.

And we can appreciate in our New Zealand -December Mr. Morrah' apostrophe of an English June: —