MAORIS IN NEW YORK.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 14039, 23 October 1909, Page 3

MAORIS IN NEW YORK.

HAK.V IN MADISON SQUARE. Somo- of' tlm Now York papers Rushed wildly over this first appearance <>r the T.roupo of Maoris in . mat. city, ilio following, from the "Now York •tribune," is comparatively ijuito it scdato report:—■ Fourteen braves and viomen stood upon green, sightseeing ears yesterday afternoon (reports the New Voile Tnbuno oi' August ~8), ami executed the Moari "liaka." of welcome, to twenty •'■-ven other bravc-s and women, who helil the Madison Avenuo side walk to mako reply. It was such a salutation as Tuskegeo and Carlylo might exchange should thoy mix vmiuoo riLes with Apaoho dances with the college yell ill a virulent and nearly chronic form. All Madison Avenue stopped and fiddled with its walking stick, and 43rd Street stared unashamed. Tim strangers came from the 7'r>torua district, which is in New Zealand somewhero, to appear at .a spectacle in tlio Hippodrome. At San Francisco a chief was taken ill. His men would not leave him, so the others left him there to come directly to NewYork. For two weeks the hands hail not seen 0110 another; hence the shock to Madison Avenue nerves when they came together. The "liaka" was really not at all terrifying to look upon. The slouching figures lost the uncouth look that seemed to come from their half Occidental clothes, and swayed and gestured in sweeping rhythm, full of subtle grace and freedom. Spears and war clubs rose and fell; brown faces were wild and elated with the chant, and then both parties hroke and flung themselves 011 one another to give greeting with handshaking as cordial as the heartiest- Anglo-Saxon. A very nicely-gotten-up affair, it seemed to be, to catch the vulgar eye. Only the Maoris do not do things that way. Iviwi, tlie oldest and littlest of the chiefs, explained that, drawing himself up with an air that could not be mistaken. "The Maoris are the. only people England ever fought mid did not conquor," he said, and addcil diplomatically, "except the Irish and the Americans." Kiwi hemself remembers some of the trouble England Jiad with these strange, naked islanders, who combined a rare appreciation of" fair fighting with highly cultivated tastes in markmanship. Kiwi carries from those times upon his person, not a bullet wound got in an ambush, he would have you understand, but a clean sword cut. It was made the day when a lad of 34, he went- into 011 English trench with a storming parly, and. there met with a young English lieutenant. The lieutenant never needed his sword again.