HOW WE LIVE IN OUR KAINGA.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 534, 4 February 1870, Page 3

HOW WE LIVE IN OUR KAINGA.

The following Bketch Vis from the Auckland Weekly News: —

To tell the truth, we do not live very comfortably, but, then, we have reasons which prevent our grumbling. Our dwelling-house is composed of three adjoining whares, in one of which we sleep and eat, the centre one being the store, and the furthest tbe receptacle for unopened goods. We live chiefly on pork or salt meat and biscuit, and don't know what milk or fresh butter is. Our clothes are worth about 20s the suit, and our beds consist of blankets laid on sticks stretched across a frame. So you have already some of the causes of our uncomfortableness.

Jack and I (we are cousins) have been some time in the Maori trade, and a very fine business it is. We go on the principle of buying in the cheapest market, and selling in a very dear one. We dispose of our tobacco, prints, hair-oil, blankets, &c, at a very fair profit; and when we buy corn, pigs, or potatoes for Auckland, we take care to beat the sellers down to the utmost, and then pay them in " trade," which we have bought at auction for a mere song, and on which we naturally put our own price. Upon the whole I am sorry we are leaving off business, but people are so avaricious. Because we were doing well others must needs come and set up an opposition — most demoralizing this to the character of fair Maori traders — and as there was no room for two stores, and we were in honour bound not to reduce our prices, and had already pretty nearly cleared out all the cash of the place, and bought up everything the natives had to sell, Jack and I concluded to have a shy at the Thames. Had it not been for this you would not have heard from me.

Our Kainga is situated in the centre of a half moon, forming &° bay about five miles across from point to point of tbe abrupt cliffs of the promontories. The pah is built upon a slight rise, at the foot of which brawls a shallow stream which, flowing from the interior, bends to the right, and runs for about a mile parallel to the beach before meeting a mass of rock which turns' it sharply towards the sea. Behind us, and on each side, rise high hills, clad with thick bush, sheltering us from southerly and westerly gales. Pleasant it is on a fine summer day to lie on the sward, smoking the soothing pipe, gazing on the smooth, bright face of the unruffled bay, and listening to the ceaseless whish-whish and muttered thunder of the wavelets dashing themselves into foam on tbe Bteep shingly beach. Just at our backs, and to either hand, on the flats, at the foot of the untrodden heights, numerous clearings display plenteous crops of maize and potatoes, and gladden our eyes by a prospect wbich promises well for our pockets ; a few fishingcanoes lie motionless out at sea; children paddle about in the stream ; old women pass and re-pass, laden with heavy bundles of firewood ; and mosquitoes and sandflies, bite freely. Our pah is fortified in exact accordance with the moat approved principle of Maori engineering ; iand though we are really in a blue funk whenever Te Kooti r s name is mentioned, we bluster much about what. we have done for Government, and what we shall do again, when called upon to draw balf-a crown a-day and rations. Notwithstanding all this bounce, Jack, who talks Maori— l don't — tells me that, at the news of any re verse on our side, there is much quiet chuckling and secret congratulations. However, we didn't care. As long as their friends paid us for our goods, and did not take them, their private feelings were nothing to us. We are ra'her a noisy and talkative population, and will sit and discuss every subject under its every possible, or indeed impocsible, head. A stranger — a white man— passes through, and stops to give his horse a feed ; at once some twenty or thirty people turn out, and squat down in all dignity, wrap ping their blankets around them like so many Homan consuls— smoke their vile burning torore (why they prefer that to our cavendish at 8s the pound I can't understand) — and take notes of every gesture. Theu in

the evening the whole thing is gone over again. What the pakeha said, what he did, how he looked, what he ate and drank — all is repeated for the benefit of the unlucky ones deprived of the pleasure of the sight. We are a cleanly race outwardly, for old Hakaraia, our head chief, is supreme, aud has issued orders that the kainga should be kept clean;, and, unlike moßt Maori villages, it would be difficult to find offal or refuse lying about in ours. Then occasionally we go into the stream and lather ourselves to a large extent ; but this, of course, cannot be expected except during the summer. On the other hand, there are one or two little things connected with the person which makes me doubt the absolute cleanliness of our fellow-villagers. We are not very particular about our clothing, though on certain occasions most of us can turn out in riding-trousers (30s), shoes, and coats ; but our favourite costume, by day or night, is the blanket. When at work we use it as a kilt, and when walking, sitting, or lying down, we wrap ourselves up in it as if it were a virtue. We do a good deal of sleeping in the daytime, consequently we talk constantly the "whole night through, and are up betimes. When we go to bed we make up a big fire in the whare, roll ourselves, up, close every possible aperture, and grunt or smoke ourselves to sleep in an atmosphere which, like the Strasburg ovens, would give a goose a liver complaint. We work very hard — men, women, and children —in the sowing and reaping season, but these once past we have a holy repugnance to anything like labour. We like talking, we like sleeping, we like sitting down gazing into vacancy; we are fond of inane and indecent songs; we love gambling; and without the pipe our lives would be a blank. There is one other weakness I have not alluded to, because it does not come every day within our reach) but, when we see a chance of getting at waipiro, we don't stick at trifles. Our favourite game of cards is " hipi," a kind of brag, wbich we play at for pins and matches; and, in the way of calculating-amusements, we will beat at draughts the best player in England. Our musical talent is not highly developed; we are great on that melodious iustrument the Jew'sharp, and wegrunt away at hakas. Occasionally we get hold of some English tune— say "Auld lang syne" — and distort it to suit our voices and ideas of melody. Our food is not very varied : fish, potatoes, and kumaras constitute thestaple; while luxuries are occasionally indulged in in the shape of rotten corn or eels stewed in shark-oil. We have heaps of pigs, but we sell them; and are too lazy to milk our cows. We hoard up carefully any money we have; are precious sharp at a bargain, and very distrustful of every one. Amongst us there exists an individual called " Matin," whom Jack has christened the " Inspector of Weights and Measures." When we first came he was always poking about the store, and gaining every day information about our scales. Now that he is perfect in them, not a pound of sugar can be bought without his being brought up to ascertain that we weigh it out correctly— and he is particular to a hair's breadth. Talk of doing a Maori, indeed 1 It would take three Armenians to swindle him. What I like about the people of our kainga is the utter absence of shame in asking for things. Among them are a few rangatiras pretty well off, but they Will beg for anything they see like the veriest taurekareka. Old Hakaraia attended, the other day, a tangi down the coast over the remains of a cousin. He was of course much affected ; snuffled and whined after the most approved fashion and shed several pints of tears. The division of the property took place ; and to. his share fell; a very smart whaleboat, ctfojjiriHe ; so up got the old man, and enumerating the different degrees of relationship he stood in to the deceased, and his appreciation of her virtues, tangied again to such an extent that another relation, affected at his extreme grief, presented him with a horse. "Ah! that's very well," quoth Hakaria, "but what's the good of a horse without saddle and bridle ?" There were brought, bran-new from a store, and then the old humbug expatiated so largely on the hard-up-state of his hapu that he got, in addition, a present of a whole lot of clothing ; and didn't he grin with delight when he returned with his gifts? Last Christmas he gave it out as his intention to abolish drunkenness, and it was arranged that neither he nor the other rangatiras, nor tbe policemen, were to enter the store by day. But he tipped us the wink to keep some decent liquor for the evening. We sold that day over twenty gallons of rum, and as fast as a fellow tumbled down he was lugged out by the policeman and tied to a flax bush. But didn't Hakaria and . the policeman make up in the evening for their enforced sobriety by day ! One of our chief nuisances is dogs — curs rather. They abound in our kainga, are inveterate thieves (and if we kill one there is the deuce of a shine) and growl, snap, and bark at all hours ; they have made us pass many a sleepless night. We have spent an exhilarating day in doing nothing. Times being slack, perhaps, we have sold a few shilings' worth of flour and tobacco; we have nothing to read, and we have talked over every possible topic; so we have gradually smoked ourselveß to sleep, thankful that there is at last some occupation. All of a sudden a yelp is raised by a dreaming cur, and from every corner, from under the eaves of our whare, and every h le about, an answering chorus arises, prolonged in a hundred distinct howls. Gradually this sinks, and just as we are thanking our stars it's all over, some morose and discontented cur gravely stalks into the open, and, jealous of the repose enjoyed by bis friends, opens his jaws and gives vent to a melancholy howl. Instantly commences the universal charivari, which is only quelled by leaping out of the whare doore, and, witli many an ** Ah ■ ta," and "D — ; n," discharging sticks and stones at the brutes. Talking of whare doors, I don't think, now that I have lived in a Maori kainga, that I shall ever wonder at the phe-

nomenon of the reel in the bottle. I dislocated every joint in my backbone before I properly understood the method of getting into a Maori whare. You first, of all drop down and bend forward, loosening your spinal process; you then put your right hip out of joint advancing it into the whare, at the same time giving your neck a crick; you then make a violent shoot forward, and, if the whare's high enough, spring up, and hear all your joints clicking back into their normal position. On one occasion, Jack and I"j went a little way up country to buy produce, and were given a shake down in a big whare. By chance I took up mys berth underneath the window (an opening with a sliding wooden-shutter.) By-and-by men and women flocked in, and a fire was lit; this was bad, but, as I resisted every attempt to close the window.it was endurable. I went to sleep, and had troubled dreams, I remember fancying I was in the Black Hole of Calcutta; then I imagined myself in a still hotter place; and, lastly, I awoke with a choking sensation, perspiring at every pore, and panting for breath. All was dark, and the thick mephitic air was stifling. As I regained partial consciousness, I felt for the shutter — it had been closed during my sleep. Hastily I slid it back, and thrust my head out. The beat claret-cup I ever drank after a long innings on a bot day, was nothing as compared with that delicious draught of pure mountain air.

We have among us a few half-castes, chiefly girls, who speak English very well. Two of them were educated in Auckland, but prove the old saw of " What's bred in the bone." They are as much Maori as the oldest wahine in the place — tbe only advantage they derive from their education being the doubtful one of being able to translate for ignorant visitors the very questionable conversations and songs going on. For we are by no manner of means a moral people, though outwardly most religious. Every morning, at daybreak, I am roused by the tinkle of the bell summoning jthe pah to Protestant and Catholic worship, and every evening the ceremony is repeated ; while, on Sunday, the bell rings so often that I am reminded of the saturnalia of clangs on an Oxford Sabbath. But, those religious attendances notwithstanding, our talk and morals are of the loosest, with the exception of the married women, who are rarely known to break their vows. "