CUSTOM AND THE MAORI.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18175, 22 August 1922, Page 8

CUSTOM AND THE MAORI.

A PICTURESQUE ROOM.

COMMITTEE'S NEW QUARTERS

[BY TELEGRAPH.— SPECIAL BKFORTEB.] WELLINGTON, Monday. The room in the new Parliamentary Buildings, occupied by the Native Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, is to be formally opened on Wednesday next, when there will be an appropriate Maori function. The committee does an enormous amount of work. Petitions from Maoris, relating usually to the ownership of land, reach the House by the score every session, and the duty of investigation placed upon the committee is no light one. The room is quite the most picturesque in the building. Three walls are panelled in specially axacuted Maori carvings, and the fourth side has the Representation of a Maori meeting house, also elaborately carved. The cornices are suitably treated in plaster. Maori craftsmen have been in Wellington for some time, preparing the panels, and tho high-backed chair, to be occupied by the chairman of the committee, is at present in Rotorua. where the carvers are putting the finishing touches to it. The object of the Maori ceremony on Wednesday is to lift the tapu. from the room, after which the nativ<ss will be content to have their tribal *nd family differences discussed in the right atmosphere.