MAORI MEMORIES

Taranaki Daily News, 20 July 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

MAORI MEMORIES

WHAT THE MAORI FOUND

(By

J.H.S

.—Copyright).

The Maori came to a land of beauty and of climate more temperate than any other on the map,of the world. Slightly smaller than the United Kingdom, its southern latitude corresponds to that of Cornwall.

Coming from the tropics, the voyagers were faced with the problem of dress, even for our mild winter. At first their own dog skins sufficed, but the supply was limited. The flax plant, harakeke, was soon tested out, and found by r? patient process of scraping with pipi shells to produce an ideal fibre for mats and girdles, waterproof and warm, worn reversed at intervals to be cleaned in Nature’s laundry by rain. Thus the God of Nature provided shelters, clothes and baskets from the nuka (fibre), sweet drinks from the puawai (bloom), sustenance from the pia (gum), and healing from the bitter akaaka (roots). Soon the Maori taught himself the fine art of hand-weaving durable, comfortable and beautiful clothing. Warriors squatting amid dry vegetation or boulders were more effectually disguised by their straw-coloured kaitaka (mats) than our men in khaki.

They made beverages from tutu and kawakawa berries, stimulating, ’but neither noxious nor degrading as the waipiro (malodorous water) of the pakeha. Aruhe (fem root) and the fronds of mamaku (tree fem) with kiekie and berries provided vegetable food. Tuna and inanga from the streams, mango (shark), hapuka (cod), kekeno (seal) and patiki (flounder) were all secured from the sea by the aid of muka lines. Titi the mutton bird (petrel) lived at sea by day, and came to the cliffs in thousands by night. Like moths to a candle, they were attracted by a hundred bright fires on the cliffs, behind each of which crouched a Maori with a stick. The wingless giant moa, the kiwi and the kakapo were easily captured. The leg bone of the moa, unlike those of any other bird, was full of delicious marrow, and comparable to a shin of beef. Truly they found a land of peace and fertility, unsurpassed, where, but for the lust of war, they would have lived in comfort and happiness, free from extremes of temperatures. Earth tremors, the cause of which they knew as little as we do, had no effect on their well-built thatch whares.

Guiders of the Maori. The communal Maori people observed distinctions more closely than the clans of the Scottish Highlanders. The family was originally distinguished by the prefix Ngati, which later on was used in naming the tribe. Each sub tribe was a hapu and the tribe itself an iwi. Each iwi was governed by an ariki, one of birth and attainments. Should the ariki be deemed guilty of dishonour or of being a coward or tyrant, he was deposed by common consent without any direct action. Another, more worthy, merely took his position. An effective restraint upon the ariki was what to the Maori represented the Voice of God, public opinion. Conferences or Huihui were held at stated intervals, where men and women had an equal voice and complete freedom of speech, a privilege which, by reason of frank honesty, was never abused. By heredity the ariki was a sacred entity, whose person and influence were inviolable, just as long as he proved himself worthy of confidence. Seldom indeed did these men' depart from the high standard required of them. They became by emulation, training, and heredity as nearly the ideal men as. is possible to a human being. An ariki was not permitted to soil his soul or his hand, but tended the suffering in mind or body, translated their' visions, and told their fate. In the art of moko, in which his deeds of valour were indelibly pictured on the face of each warrior, the ariki was the master craftsman. A brave man’s face was literally his whaka ahua or a portrait of his exploits, shown to the initiates by every delicate line and curve. The Maori’s future life was to be an exact replica of this worlds’ experience. The effect of this firm belief upon his conduct, tempered only by his superstitions, cannot be over estimated. To those who knew him, before we unwisely destroyed his religion, he was „ nobleman in spirit. Reward or punishment did not enter into his thoughts. His spirit, dead or alive, was one and the same. In the law of tapu, which strongly influenced the life and conduct of the Maori, there was a strange similarity with the ceremonial of the Jewish law. In an inadvertent breach of this hallowed law the Maori was most generous, and when told of the killing of Captain Cook in the South Seas because he had (unknowingly) stepped on a sacred spot, they condemned it as kohuru (murder).

The Daily Work. The names kainga (home or village) and pa (the walled defence) are now used for all places of abode. War has ceased smee the pakeha made it his own monopoly With patience unknown to the pacemad white man, they fashioned the'-im-plements with which they must gain their daily food and nightly shelter. With broken fragments of the nardest stone, greenstone, granite or flint, after many years of rubbing with wet sand or rubble, they made a cutting edge of sorts, bored it with the drill operated by a string on a bent stick, and fitted to a wooden shaft. We who pay a disc of metal, in the making of which we had no hand, for a tool of steel with a razor edge, have no conception of their patience. Think of their felling a giant totara, and shaping a canoe to carry a hundred men, carved elaborately from stem to stern with grotesque tattooed figures and protruding tongues, a hundred paddles of tough manuka deftly shaped, all with no metallic aid, yet evenly balanced, strong and of graceful form, the whare with walls and thatch of raupo, proof against winds and water, lined with toi reeds of golden hue, the mahau (verandah) and tatau (door) of carved wood, the fireplace for glowing embers, lined with stones in tire floor of the one room where all slept tgether in peace and safety. The marae was their public square, where men and women talked and great speeches were made. The men undertook the heavy work,and the dangers of hunting for fish, birds and berries. The women cultivated the ground with the wooden spade (ko) and made flax baskets and clothing. They, too, were skilled in the unequalled art Maori cooking in the umu (Maori oven of hot stones), with never a vessel in which to boil and spoil food. The children played string games, knuckle bones, and raced on stilts six feet high. They were taught with kindness, and their enterprise was never reproved. They discussed on even terms with their elders each topic, and thus learned at an early age to think and reason.