Third Instalment

Te Ao Hou, March 1960, Page 10

Third Instalment Peaceful times soon came and the Maori people of the surrounding district began to fraternise with the townspeople of Wanganui. As the wife of the proprietor of the leading hotel Puhiwahine came to know most of the leading chiefs and their womenfolk. Her sparkling wit and charm made her a popular figure in the town. Puhiwahine never took to drink, nor did she smoke. In speech she preferred to speak in Maori, and although she became quite proficient in English she would not attempt to speak it properly. There was always a tendency on her part to ‘maorify’ English words, and as a loving mother she delighted in teasing her two sons by exaggerating her speech in this way. Puhiwahine became a lady of fashion, and in European society she was a lady to the manner born. Her husband was indulgent towards her, and it is said they never quarrelled. She was a welcome guest at meetings of the river tribes at the principal marae, or courtyard, at Putiki, across the river from the town. As a guest at gatherings of the tribes she was often urged to sing her songs of love. It was at the first of these gatherings that she sang her Song of War. The people never tired of hearing her sing, and her artistic temperament responded gladly to the delighted shouts which her porformances evoked. Some of her women friends, and the chiefs, too, when they got to know her well, were prone to tease and provoke her about her youthful escapades. It was as the result of this that she composed one of her well-known songs. It is a class of song in which the composer seeks to make commonplace any oblique references to his or her behaviour. But Puhiwahine in her song outbids all others, and she gives a long catalogue of her love affairs and her many flirtations. The song owes its survival to the fact that the descendants of those mentioned in it have had the verses handed down to them by their forbears. Some present-day families know only the verse in which one of their line is mentioned. It is no exaggeration to say that mention of an ancestor in this song is like a citation for military honours.