Rotorua In Festive Attire.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVI, Issue XXV, 22 June 1901, Page 1 (Supplement)

Rotorua In Festive Attire.

Wet mists enfolded the soft green wooded peaks of Mokoia, the "Sacred Island of Tinirau,” set in the still waters of Rotorua, and wreathed in heavy, fleecy clouds the adjacent bush ranges, when I paid my preliminary visit of inspection to the great Maori assemblage on the racecourse, which lies midway between Rotorua township and the Geyser Valley of Whakarewarewa. Rotorua iu mid-summer is chiefly remarkable for its inexhaustible supply of dust. Just now the most noticeable feature of the township and its surroundings is the all-pervading mud. The skies have wept over the assembling tribes for the last week. But given a spell of dry, dear weather the midwinter season in Rotorua is far pleasanter than the summer. I have seen the lake in June for days at a time a motionless sheet of polished silver under a cloudless sky, ' its surface unrippled by the faintest breath, with the classic isle of Mokoia rising like a glorious emerald from the shining waters. Such is not the aspect of the Rotorua-nui-a-Kahu at the time of writing. It is hard to put in words the colour. the animation, and the babel of sounds which are some of the things that strike one at this great congress of over four thousand people of the native race, representing every tribe in New Zealand from the North Cape to Otago. It is a good deal larger than the great gathering held at Taupiri in 1894 at the tangi over King Tawhiao, and is also a very much bigger affair than the important meetings held at Kopua and Hikurangi in 1878 and 1879 between Sir George Grey and the Kingites. In faet, there are only two meetings which will at all compare with it—the Remuera gathering of 1844 when tire might of Waikato under the redoubtable cannibal warrior Te Wherowhero made such a martial display that the white population of the infant capital trembled, and the conference of tribes at Kohimarama in 1860. But this Rotorua “hui” of 1901 outshines them all, and will be remembered in time to come as the last great combined display in force of the New Zealand native race. In the symbolic language of the Maori, the “Wai-tai” has come to meet the “Wai-Maori,” the salt sea-coast dwellers have journeyed to greet the “fresh water” tribes,- the inland people of the soil; pilgrims to a Geyserland Mecca. It is a fitting occasion too, in the Maori eye, for the tribes from east and west, and north and south, to meet on common ground, for the visit of the Great White Queen's “inokopuna” is the event of a life time; the sons of the soil liken the Duke to the . proverbial “Kotuku-rerenga-tahi,” the rare white crane whose flight is seen but once and no more in the span of one’s life.

The old order of things has been temporarily revived at this "hui.” On the wide racecourse flat we see the olden Maori costume, the ancient weapons—“rakau Maori”—the savage looking tattooed faces of historic Aotearoa. Centuries -».x>ld songs, snatches of weird incantations, dating back to the legendary Hawaiiki, of the thousand-isled 'South Sens, are heard as the long-severed clans greet each other, and the orators pace up and down, spear in hand, and leap into the air and pour forth poetical greetings, as in the days of old. Yet it is a curious mingling of the old and new. Deeply tattooed warriors, whose memories go back to the cannibal era, who have , as it were, hardly emerged from the stone age, sit side by side with young bloods who ride bicycles, and pound the big drum in the village brass band. The attire of

the people is a wonderful mixture, too. A great many are dressed in the height of pakeha fashion, and some sport frock coats and bell toppers, mats of flax and feathers abound, many of them very fine examples of Maori garments, and thrown over the shoulders or worn round the waist, they give just the touch of picturesqueness which is needed to redeem the costumes from the prosaic associations of European stores. But the ladies’ dresses certainly cannot be called prosaic, or common place. They are all colours imaginable; a pakeha ballet or a pantomime is nothing to a Maori “hui,” when the softer sex give their boxes a holiday. The encampment itself forms a sort of great semi-circle on the eastern side of the racecourse, and separated from the cleared ground in front of the Royal grandstand by a wide beft of very short manuka scrub. The one wide and long street is flanked in either side by many scores of tents, and by large raupo whares, and from the main avenue branch off various small lanes forming the divisions between the camps of the various tribes. Some hapus' are housed in large marquees, others ate detached in sections, like a regiment of soldiers in a line, or a square of bell tents;others make themselves at home in the familiar raupo huts, and all are happy, merry, and good tempered. Every Maori tribe in New Zealand has its representatives here; some in hundreds, others in smaller parties. There must be close on four thousand people in the encampment, besides the numerous hapus of tlie Arawa tribe, whose quarters are at Ohinemutu and Whakarewarewa, and who, as the “tangata-whenua,” the people of the place, share with the Governmen 1 tfie responsibility of entertaining the visitors. From the North Cape to Otago the tribes all have their delegates here to join in welcoming the heir to the throne; and the food supplies they have brought with them are as varied as the localities of the tribes. Tons of potatoes, kumaras. shell-fish, droves of cattle and pigs, flocks of *heep, are requisitioned to feed the hungry multitude. Then there are various delicacies peculiar to particular districts, potted pigems and wild duck from the Taupo district and the forests of Tuhoe Land; taro from the semitropieal Far North; and preserved mutton birds from the South Island. A great pile of a couple of hundred tons of firewood is stacked on the far side of the ‘marae,” close to the storesheds, where the Permanent Force men are busily engaged serving out the Government’s share of the provisions to the tribes; and at the rear of each tribe’s lines are the out-of-doors cooking quarters, where scores of boilers and native “hangis” (the primitive earth ovens) are going continuously.