THE NGATIPONEKE YOUNG MAORI CLUB (continued)

Te Ao Hou, September 1955, Page 59

THE NGATIPONEKE YOUNG MAORI CLUB (continued) alone, but to all the other young Maori clubs, and there is a surprising number of them. Every Easter the Roman Catholic Church holds a hui on some marae, and Roman Catholic Maori clubs come from all over the country to compete for trophies for choral work, oratory, action songs, the haka, the poi, and different sports. In 1949, Father Riordan formed a Roman Catholic Club at Ngatiponeke which was named Riatana after him. This club, which has its own striking black and white monogram, includes most of the members of the Ngatiponeke Club, not only the Roman Catholic members (though the Maori has adopted Christianity he usually cannot be bothered with the religious discrimination frequently found among Europeans), and is trained by the same coaches, Karl Karepa, Nan Amohau, and Billy Rourangi, and is led by the same leader, Margaret Mariu. At this year's Easter hui held at Puniho pa, Taranaki, and attended by nearly two thousand Maoris, Riatana competed with fourteen other teams and managed to retain the aggregate shield. Ngatiponeke will almost certainly be competing in the Anglican hui to be held in Wellington this October. One of the foundation members reckoned that if a reunion were held of old members they would come from every corner of the country and the hall would not be able to hold half of them. The membership is always changing. As one of the association said to me—they come and they go, they come and they go—some stay a few weeks and some stay several years. That is why the club does not keep a roll and does not levy a subscription. All they ask is sixpence for supper each night. There is, however, a small nucleus of “permanent” members, who live and work in Wellington, but of these, only one or two really belong to Wellington in the Maori sense of the word. The rest are strangers to the city—and are drawn to Ngatiponeke for a variety of reasons. Many of them live in flats or boardinghouses or hostels, and perhaps they come to the club to escape the boredom of their digs, or to fill in their spare time. Some are drawn mainly by the music and the singing, and others come because they have met club members at the dances which the association holds in the hall every Friday and Saturday night. These dances, incidentally, were described in the latest police report as the best conducted weekly dances in the country. Whatever the reason, and there are probably as many reasons as there are members, it is safe to say, they all come because they want to come. The club is a group to which they can belong (a Maori without a group is a very lonely person), and the hall is a place where they can meet their own people, and do things together, and share common interests, yes, and have a good time. To my way of thinking this social side of the club's work is just as important as putting on a good concert, or winning a trophy shield, or even learning a traditional poi. For the sudden cessation of these three activities would not really affect the everyday living of the young Maori people who come to the hall every Monday night, but if Ngatiponeke itself disappeared overnight, the gap in their lives would be hard to fill. And what could the city offer them to take its place?