MAORI VILLAGE LIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 21036, 21 November 1931, Page 4 (Supplement)

MAORI VILLAGE LIFE.

By LUCIE WINN. Before the white man came to >iew Zealand, the Maoris did not 3 as soma people imagine, spend all their tinie fightiug. They led very quiet and peaceful lives in their villages, working and playing, and sometimes a whole tribe would pay a friendly call on a neighbouring tribe, when the time would be passed in games and trials of strength and story telling. Thev were always happy and contented and rather lazy. They began work about ten in the morning when the young men went to fish or snare birds or cultivate their root crops. The old men stayed at> homo and did the wood carving for the houses and canoes and implements of war. Their most elaborate carvings were put on the patakas (or store-houses), buildings set high up from the ground to keep out the damp. . The women went on with their endless weaving, making elaborate mats and little flax baskets in which they served their cooked foods. The young girls went light-heartedly into the bush to gather berries and fern roots, their soft happy voices coming through the green stillness sweet as any bird's song. The children played gaily as childien do all the world over. Indeed, tneir earnes were very much like the ones you olav—they ran races, had wrestling matches, flew kites, spun tops, threw darts and skipped, and they even plavcd a kind of marbles with pebbles. The men and the maids came home well before sundown with much laughing ana jesting and not a few practical jokes.' Then the women opened up the pits an put the steaming iisb and kumeras in the little flax baskets, and the little brew children came crowding in from their pa> with their bright eyes shining and their small mouths watering, and the peace> - evening settled over; the hills and busH and pa.