MAORI MEMORIES

Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1933, Page 11 (Supplement)

MAORI MEMORIES

INTERMARRIAGE

(By

J.H.S.

-Copyright.)

• Over 70 years ago Dr. Thompson, who worked among the Maoris for eight years, wrote:. “The union of Maori and Pakeha is an ideal by which both may reach physical and mental excellence. Settlers may yet indicate illustrious descent and boast of the blood in their veins as from Hongi, Potatau, Rauparaha, Pomare, or other great warriors.” Physically he was wrong, mentally right. Half-castes are short-lived, though apparently of splendid frame, but they are mental giants. Was it that they failed physically because “We come of a race of noblemen? aye, but we can sin most fully on all the counts that your Pakeha religion forbids.”

Among the reasons given to the old Missionaries by the Maori as to why their modified form of polygamy should be allowed to continue were that “We judge from among the first-born of the union with several wives, which child is the most healthy and well-formed. That mother is then selected to bear our future children. Secondly, when a tribe is being depleted by wars, we establish homes in several villages where our five families may produce warriors and provide food.” Marriage, to the Maori, though deliberate, was equally sacred as with us. German Maori.

A Feilding Maori man of 65 years sought the hand and heart of a German lassie of 20. Naturally her parents were opposed to the unequal yoke, and invoked the law to prevent the sacrifice of their charming daughter, who seemed to be infatuated with the Maori. .Their strange mutual attraction was brought about by the fact that though he knew nothing of any language than his Maori, and she her own German tongue, each had secretly taught the other to speak both languages fluently. The father of the girl was obdurate, and in despair sought the assistance of the local Registrar of Marriages who spoke Maori and English, and the Presbyterian Minister who spoke German and English. The Maori lover was called in, and offered his plea through the Registrar, who explained to the Minister, qnd who in turn interpreted to the German. father. The Maori’s case was expounded mainly by token. He drew a large square in the dusty road with his big toe, and in the comer of it a tiny oblong. The square was 1000 acres, the little comer place his early grave. The inference, drawn from long experience of Maori symbolism by the interpreter, was that in a few years the young woman would be this old man’s rich widow. It was an irresistible. plea, and straightway the Registrar performed the ceremony. Moko Tuara.-

We are familiar only with the “Moko,” or tattoo, on the face of the Maori. The conventional dress of the Pakeha, to which Nature’s own Maori man or woman were complete strangers, have hidden the “Moko Tuara” on the lower end of the back from sight or mention. A lost tradition has it that only the “Upoko Kohua,” or low-born, v/ere so marked on the face to distinguish their serfdom, and that the Rangatira was tattooed with his tribal emblem on the “Taura,” which was. hidden by the “Maro” (waist mat). After the disastrous retreat from Ngu-tu-o-te-manu, where Von Tempsky, Buck, Hastings and other officers were shot from the Maori ambush in the tall rata trees, an old . Maori was seen trotting along an exposed ridge. Shot after shot was fired, but he halted, lifted his “Maro,” turned his back, and bowed his body double. This was regarded as a familiar act of contempt or derision, but he subsequently explained that it was merely to show the distinctive markings of the Chief thus made Tapu and safe from Pakeha bullets.

A more recent use of the “Moko Tuara” was that of a well-known lady litigant in the Maori Land Court, Mrs. Hamuera. When judgment of the Court was against her, or when her horse won a race, excitement banished all conventions, and in .the presence of the crowd she imitated the old warrior of Ngutu-o-te-Manu, merely to show her “birth-mark,” the “Moko of Royal descent! Pioneer Postal Service.

Away back in the ’sixties, the lonely postal carrier between Whanganui and Wellington via the sea beach, a distance of about 150 miles, plus one or two inland diversions, was a pioneer sailor man of the old type. He did.the journey in six days on foot one way, and returned the following week. The performance was the more remarkable from the fact that he could neither.ride nor swim, read nor write. . He could not afford to pay for canoe hire, so he kept a supply of the dry korari (flax sticks) light as cork, made into bundles 10ft. long and a • foot through. With one under each arm, his clothes and the mail bag on top, he’floated across the several deep rivers. His subsidy of £1 per week was supplemented by the sale of shilling “nobblers” of overproof rum carried in a two-gallon keg which he remarked “was still full at the end of each journey.” The Maori huts were hospitably > placed at his disposal, but in summer at least the keha (flea) spoiled his rest; so he lay buried to the neck in dry sand above high-water mark, and slept soundly. Never once was he robbed or interfered with by the Maoris on that lone tramp. In these early days they had not learned from us what ■ stealing was. Kaua koe e tahae, Kei mate koe (Steal not lest thou die) was a proverb.

Rapaki, Maori Kilt. There was no distinctive dress suit for man or woman. All wore 1 the same beau-tifully-made hand-woven flax kilt from waist to knee. Men, however, were generally bare from the belt up, whilst women wore a shawl of the same enduring material. The manufacture of these by. the women was so much a matter of personal pride that nd one would even think of appropriating a rapaki made by another to their own use. For this reason and the fact that food was for all, theft was unknown. The Maori travelled on foot, often in inter-tribal visits or fights, for very long distances, and in all weathers, with but the one garment for men and two for women, in this ideal dress neither dust nor perspiration worried them. They simply turned the rapaki inside out to be washed clean by the rain. The woman who knits or makes point lace with ready-made tools and material has no idea of the years of work put in by the Maori woman in making the scant garments for her. big family. Selecting the best variety of flax, dressing it with a pipi shell, washing, teasing, and drying in the sun to a silky fineness, then without needle or thread lovingly devoting many months to a single “frock.” ■