THE PRIMITIVE MAORI.

Otago Witness, Issue 3624, 28 August 1923, Page 8

THE PRIMITIVE MAORI.

LIFE IN THE UREWERA COUNTRY. A MISSIONARY’S IMPRESSIONS. People in the South Island see so little of the Maoris that it is difficult for them to realise that in parts of the North Island there are many thousands of this splendid race still practically untouched by the influences of civilisation and living under the old native conditions. This is especially true of the Urewera country, that great, rough, mountainous area lying mostly between the Bay of Plenty and Hawke’s Bay. The Rev. J. G. Laughton, a missionary- of the Presbyterian Church, at present visiting Dunedin, has been living arid working among the Maoris of the Urewera country for the past six years, and has gained an intimate knowledge of their ways. In this he is further assisted by the fact that bis wife is a Maori lady, who went through the course of training at the Turaldna Maori Girls’ School, and was afterwards a teacher among her own people. In conversation with a reporter recently, Mr Laughton gave some interesting information about life in this “Never-never country” of the Dominion. He describes the Maoris as a “fine, noble and attractive race,” and points out that the Maoris often seen about the towns do not give one a fair idea of their quality. The decrease in their numbers has undoubtedly been arrested, and Mr Laughton is of opinion that, having successfully survived the tremendous shock of coming into contact with the white race, they may very likely now increase, particularly as their children are being intelligently cared for and the rate of infant mortality much reduced. The Government has bought about two thirds of the Urerwera country, and the surveyors are all through it now and roadmaking has started, so that it will not be long before it is thrown open for ■ettlement; but nevertheless life still goes •n there under the old native conditions.

The houses are usually rough, unlined, paling shanrijas, with absolutely no furniture. Very do their cooking on a fire made in the middle of the floor. The only other form of dwelling in these parts is the real old wharepuni, a long, low house made by excavating the floor and piling the earth from the excavations round the very low walls. Entrance is gained by a little low door at one end, and the only other opening is a small port-hole with a wooden shutter. There is a thatched roof about a foot thick, and the Maoris in the winter time get a big fire gbing in the middle of it. When there are about a dozen or more of them smoking Maori tobacco it can well be imagined that the conditions are not such as could be described as healthy. On some of these wharepunis there are carvings that are probably the finest specimens of this class of native art now extant. The meetinghouse at Matatua, built in Te Kooti’s time, is one of the most historic of these buildings remaining. Two such were built by Te Kooti. the other one at Te Kuiti being much better known. Apart from these meeting-houses, the Urewera Maoris at the present time have nothing but the ordinary unlined paling shanty which very soon cracks and lets in draughts from all directions. As the country is high and mountainous, much of it 3000 ft up, severe frosts arp experienced there, and even a sprinkling of snow; so that the paling shanty is anything but suited to the conditions. All the clothing the Maoris have now is European, but it doesn’t amount to much. The Natives of this part are very poor, and a couple of garments has to do them. Potatoes form their chief food, and often their only article of diet for days on end. The Urewcras have had a very hard life of it from time immemorial. The frosts are too severe for kumaras, and there are very few fish in the streams. The occasional deer that come through from the Waikaremoana sanctuary are not hunted by the Maoris, though the wild pigs are occasionally made to contribute a feast for them. There are not many cattle in the district, and most of those that Rua’s followers had were swallowed up in the

expenses of the litigation that followed his arrest some years ago. There is very little cultivation because there is so little flat land available, and for many of them the failure of the potato crop would practically mean starvation. Asked about the persistence of old Maori customs, Mr Laughton said that in some places tire tangi is still as big an affair as ever, though in Hawke’s Bay. for instance, the influences of civilisation have reduced it very much. He has seen one of these celebrations kept up for a month, but a week is about the common duration in the Urewera. The law of Taua still holds there. Under this law an injured party claims damages or compensation from those who have wronged him, and it is the injured party who has the privilege of fixing the penalty. Thus, if a man interferes with another man’s wife, the tribe of the husband will go to the tribe of the transgressor and demand from it such property as cattle, horses, and blankets, and the payment will be made. There are no Mormon missionaries in the Urewera, perhaps on aooount of the poverty of the country, and it is so isolated that the influence of Katana, the wellknown faith healer, is not felt there to any extent. Mr Laughton sincerely wishes that it were, for he believes Ratana’s influence to be absolutely for good. He has thrown his weight dead against the old tohungaism and black magic which still persists, and in his struggle against the drink evil has turned scores of Maoris, who formerly were slaves of drink, away from it. Maungapohatu, where Mr Laughton has been settled for some time past, is the headquarters of the famous “prophet” Rua. 'the settlement has a population of about 300, the greater portion of whom do not speak English at all. A number of the younger people are learning it, but it can be said that none of the Natives there can speak English really well. Rua, Mr Laughton describes as a most interesting personality, and the most complex personality he has ever come across. Rua has always been very friendly to the mission, and has helped it in very many ways. He is a man of outstanding personality. “If he came

into this room,” said Mr Laughton, ‘‘you would be charmed with him. He has that strange power of personal magnetism, fie is very courtly, and in the best society he would conduct himself as if he had just passed through the latest school of deportment.” He had a large circular temple built at Maungapohatu by the Maoris, and it was really a wonderful piece of construction. He and his twelve “apostles” used to sit up in the circular gallery of tire temple and speak to the people assembled down below. As illustrating his ingenuity and shrewdness Rua used to sit with his twelve “apostles” in counsel at a circular revolving table. When opinions were wanted on any particular subject each man wrote his view and put it in a pigeonhole immediately in front of him. The table was then swung round a few times, and when brought to rest each man read from the pigeon-hole immediately in front of him. Thus the authorship of the various opinions whs effectively concealed. Nature has made Rua a. leader among men, but he is not the only clever or outstanding man among the Natives of that part. Their discussions and their oratory would surprise anyone who did not know them. For over twenty years the Presbyterian Church has had a residential college for Maori girls at Turakina, but up to the present no similar provision has been made by the Church for boys. The idea of a boys’ training farm has been in the minds of several, and it was recently given definite shape by t.ho action of the Maoris in making a gift of sixty acres of good land at Waimana far the purpose. The site is within nine miles of the coast of the Bay of Plenty. | The proposal is to construct there a technical and agricultural school for the bigger Maori boys. At present boys in the district have no prospect before them at all after leaving the ordinary schools but to drift back into the indolent life of the pa. Mr Laughton proposes ,to start in a small way with an absolute minimum of buildings and equipment and gradually increase the buildings with the help of the boys themselves till there is an accommodation for perhaps thirty. There they will bo taught such work as will give them ideas of hygiene, show them the evils of the old Native habits of life, and enable them to transform the conditions when they go back to their pas. Mr Laughton does not know of any other form of enterprise for the Maoris which promises to be as fruitful as this. In the past much effort has been thrown away because boys after having been well instructed right up to the most impressionable age have then been sent back to face the old conditions of life and have succumbed to them. Mr Laughton’s mission has a good deal to do with the drink problem, which is a bad one in many places. Liquor is not supposed to be allowed into the Urewera country, and as a justice of the peace Mr Laughton has something to do upon occasions with keeping it out. He considers that no one can know the heinousness of liquor until they have seen it at work among a native people, for there it stands unmasked in all its devilry. They have no idea at all liow to use it, and men. women, and children come under its influence. They even give it to babies. The Maori knows no moderation in the matter of drinking. If liquor is brought into a pa practically the whole of them take to it and take it to excess. While the King country and the Urewera arer on a slightly different footing as regards the introduction of liquor. Mr Laughton feels certain that if once liquor gets official admission into the King country, it would very soon be allowed into the Urewera also. That, he is convinced, would mean the destruction of the Maori people. Wherever there is a licensed hotel handy the Maori people are into it to their own ruination, and the salvation of them alongside such a place is about the nearest thing he knows to an impossibility. Mr Laughton is coming to the close of three'* months deputation work to raise funds for the boys’ farm scheme, and has been meeting with considerable success in the various districts he has visited.