TUG OF WAR.

Waipa Post, Volume XX, Issue 1180, 10 December 1921, Page 5

TUG OF WAR.

WITH CHILD FOR ROPE.

MAORI DONNYBROOK AT BRICKFIELDS.

The irksome conventions which

hedge in the pakeha completely pre-

vent that joyous sense of the freedom of life which still remains the privilege, in many cases, of the Maori.

The inhabitants of the Maori camp in Park Road proved this to the amusement of residents' in that locality on Thursday afternoon, when a two hours' entertanment of a highly diverting, if not edifying, nature was provided by their primitive settlement of domestic affairs. A beautiful simplicity had apparently characterised the nuptials of a stalwart native man and wahine, and the absence of legal procedure attending their union (quite proper, and, indeed, the conservative course among natives) was extended to their divorce, which just happened, without the sordid details of publicity.

The fruits of the bird-like mating, however, crowed and kicked so admirably that the father was moved by pride to acquire him. He mustered up a dozen braves from the rival camp, and solved difficulties which a pakeha would have contracted by contact with keen legal minds by a successful raid, which was not accomplished without its meed of proclamatory din, in which the anguished wails of the bereft mother predominated. .

Kilting her skirts, she sped swiftly after the lorry on which the victorious abductors departed, and despite the clouds of dust her consuming rage gave her wings, and she seized the child's legs, the fore part of the unfortunate kiddy being in the grip of father on the tailboard.

Mothers who have been given uncomfortable twings by the way in which their darlings unhygienically elongate kittens will feel for this native child. There was a tug of war in which its stature was appreciably heightened, if only temporarily, and then the wahine had an inspiration. Her only chance of success lay in stopping the lorry, and with that end in view she seized the driver and puiled him over backward. Unfortunately, while lying on his back with a pain at the base of the skull as the result of contact with a bolt head, he endeavoured to still control the team from that position, with the result that the lorry capsized over a bank, and the abduction had reached its first serious check.

The wrath burning in the hearts of the dumped warriors was not lessened by the arrival of a batch of supporters on the maternal side, and a hot but indecisive battle ensued, lasting for some time.

The wahine bore her part in the conflict nobly, primitively warring with her tribe against the aggressors, but alas! when exhaustion due to heat and perspiration dictated a temporary truce, the unhappily elongated little cause of all the trouble was missing, and it was evenutally found in the possession of the father. A disgruntled battler, who bore visible and unmistakable signs of the encounter, won 'in the wahine's support, was heard to remark in town next morning, "He can have piccaninny—save us the jolly boot."