Five Years Down South

Te Ao Hou, June 1964, Page 15

Five Years Down South Later, Rowley spent five years down south; for much of this time he was associated with the Maori Club in Dunedin. ‘It was there in Dunedin that I found myself being pulled back strongly to my Maori side. I think it might be because I got such a fright how much Maori-tanga had died out down there. I realised that if we weren't careful the same thing could happen in the North Island. But make no mistake about the quality of the Maori in the South Island, even though there are only a few of them. I count some of my best friends amongst them. And I know that in recent years there has been a drive to get back what they have lost.’ But whatever the reason was, he says, the outcome is that he has become ‘a bit of a fanatic’ on anything Maori. He regrets that he cannot speak the language too well (probably because his father was Pakeha, and the language was not spoken in his home), but he says he is picking it up fast. For the last four years he has been a public servant, first with the Ministry of Works and now, at Bulls, with the Agriculture Department.