MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Daily Times, 16 April 1935, Page 5

MAORI MEMORIES

(By J.H.S. for “The Daily Times.”)

ORANGA ME PUTANGA.

Early settlers, medical men, and missioners told of the strange immunity of the Maori from sickness, and in this respect honoured him by a comparison to a bird or an animal. The vitality of a European shows decline from the age of fifty or less, that of the old Maori from seventy or more. To the early doctors, they were a purely unbiassed study, for they were never patients except through accident. More than all, our women marvelled at the vigour and vitality of these dark sisters, who were interested to learn that ‘ ‘ smooth rosy cheeks were the pride of youth and the envy of age.” Dr. Thompson of the 58tli Regiment said there was but one cause for this vital difference between the health of tho two races, and this was disclosed in an oft-quoted aphorism, having reference to their practice of two meals a day—never more; and filling up with ample draughts of water in the intervals. “Kia iti te kai, he nui hold te inu; o ora tonu koe” (eat little and seldom, drink much and often, and have health always).

Another practice of the old time Maori will commend itself to our ladies, whose vexatious hirsute chins, did they but know it, are a sign of personal vigour. The man (or woman) with an abundant head of hair is the envy of their less fortunate fellows. Our men glory in the strength of their beards; in women it is deplored. Men say “a curse upon the fool who first invented shaving,” yet they aro seeking a permanent shave, equally effective as the woman’s recently invented wave.

Until Bishop Selwyn came, no Maori had ever seen or heard of a bald man or woman, and one who could remove his w r ig was a wliiro, or evil spirit to bo feared. Tho discontinuance of the practice of moko (tattoo) showed them the first full-bearded Maori man. Centuries of plucking the beard in youth with a bivalve pipi shell as tweezers, ono hair at a time, in an almost painless preparation for the Moko, has certainly shown its results in a nearly beardless race of Maoris, like tho Japs and the Chinese.

Bristles on tho face of men are now most offensive to tho Maori women, though they never kiss, but rub noses and press chins. Downy hairs on the face of a woman would be a bar to marriage; but tho anxious mother still keeps the treasured pipi shell tweezers and a watchful eye on her ' hairless heiress. The introduction of e pocket mirror now makes it a mor. intimate matter.