SHEARING IN HAWKES BAY

Te Ao Hou, August 1957, Page 12

SHEARING IN HAWKES BAY BY E. G. SCHWIMMER Shearing has been the great standby for many Maori families for generations. When there were very few sources of ilncome the shearing gangs in spring were always a certainty of some money to pay the storekeper. Many gangs went to live by the shearing sheds; others who could stay at their homes started off before dawn on their horses to reach the sheds in time for the first shift and were heard to gallop back through the pa long after everyone else had gone to bed. Although there are many other sources of livelihood now, there are still thousands who depend on shearing and the round of casual jobs in the off-season. They use trucks instead of horses, their working conditions have much improved, but essentially the life has not changed: secure and happy, but always a hard life where fighting exhaustion is part of the day's routine and where strength and adroitness are admired more than almost anywhere in the modern world. Nobody has ever written the history of shearing. Books contain very little about when shearing gangs were first introduced into New Zealand, and what shearing conditions were like in the very early days. No doubt sheepfarmers modelled their methods on the Australian stations. If there are any early documents on shearing, Te Ao Hou would be glad to see them. One of the best living authorities on New Zealand shearing is Mr R. Tutaki, M.B.E., who has been in the shearing industry for well over fifty years, and since 1920 has represented the New Zealand Workers' Union among Hawkes Bay shearers. Bob Tutaki was born at Ruahapia, near Hastings. He went to Te Aute College, but at the age of eighteen, rather than continue his studies, he took up shearing with his father, Panapa Stewart. Panapa was a lay reader of the Church of England and was given the job of boss of his shearing gang by Archdeacon Williams. Bob remembers some fine stories about these early years. His father had been given his job partly because of the moral influence he would exert on his gang. Every night after tea there was an evening service. A special feature of this service was, according to Bob Tutaki, the way his father dealt with shearing flirtations. He would ask the young man and woman involved, at the end of the service, whether they intended to marry. If they said they had no such intention, they knew they had lost their job, a severe penalty in those days.