MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Daily Times, 14 October 1933, Page 4

MAORI MEMORIES

(By J.H.S., for “Tlie Daily Times.”) NGAU (CHEW). Living within a mile of a populous Maori Kaluga as a boy of nine, about sixty-eight years ago, I spent many sunny hours among them in the open Marae, taking silent note of their habits any sayings. Their uniformly courteous demeanour to visitors and to one another impressed itself upon my memory. Yet in seeming contradiction, they delighted in teasing all youngsters, apd making game of their questions. I remember my curiosity and desire to know the meaning of many things seen among them; but I dared not ask, lest they should have a joke at my expense —children are particularly susceptible to ridicule. One thing held me spell bound with this desire to know. As from one to two hundred Maoris sat on the grass on summer afternoons, placed in circles of about 50 to enjoy their leisurely meal, one old woman marked time with her hand, about fifty strokes to the minute, then after a pause with hand raised above her head, she resumed her count till the end of the meal, during which the silence to me seemed oppressive. Child like, I feared to question, and so lost the significance of this oft repeated habit of the Maoris. Long years after, I learned from an authority upon Maori, that it rvas a ceremonial rite of the ancient Yogi in India, who were thus taught to enjoy and benefit by their food through the habit of mastication. The exponents of this health-giving practice are always the subject of ridicule; yet the fact remains that even men and women of seventy or eighty, by its persistent use, may acquire health and the bloom of youth, of which many a young lady might be envious. This forgotten old-time observance of the Maori may now be added to the well known theories of Tregear and others as to their origin in ancient India. There can be no question that this simple act of chewing was the secret of universal health in the Hindu and the Maori. They tasted, enjoyed, benefited, and economised by it in far greater degree than we of common clay can realise.