CONTEMPORARY MAORI WRITING

Te Ao Hou, 1971, Page 60

CONTEMPORARY MAORI WRITING Edited and introduced by Margaret Orbell A. H. & A. W. Reed, $2.95 reviewed by T. K. Royal Much has been written on the Maori way of life, our attitudes, our hopes, our fears, our feelings, our educational progress (or lack of it) and our need to develop even more in the wider society of New Zealand. We have been analyzed, examined, researched and viewed ever since the first Europeans settled on our shores. However there are very few books that capture the essence, the ‘ha!’ (breath of life) and the feelings more adequately than the new book Contemporary Maori Writing, selected, edited and introduced by Margaret Orbell. This 153-page book has 21 very readable short stories and six poems written by 14 of the best Maori writers of today.

Many of the stories relate, I suspect, to the boyhood or girlhood days of the writers. The nostalgic beauty of the old days emanates as the stories unfold into a wellrounded whole. I am enthralled with the description of the tangi, the experiences in the city, the yearning for country life, the wedding, the mystery of the tohunga working in a tent, the children playing on the marae, and the wholesome attitude towards kin, for it is through these stories that I recapture the rich experiences of my own boyhood days in the country. This does not mean that it does not hold any value for students of Maoridom or for those who want to partake in some easy and worthwhile reading for, apart from the useful glossary of Maori words contained in the book, it contains a mine of the golden ore which exists so closely beneath the surface of Maoridom. The aspirations of the Maori, the frustrations involved in gaining higher education and the fear of the university city for the Maori boy or girl are contained in the stories by Arapera Blanc, Sidney Mead and Mason Durie. The essence of Maori humour is captured by Arapera Blanc when the city slicker girls come home for Christmas and are described by the country youth as people who like eating raw meat (with reference to their lipstick) or people who would like to be taller (with reference to their high-heeled shoes). Further relishes are found in Riki Erihi's ‘Forbidden Tree’ when the wife of a slayer of his own brother's pig refuses to sleep with her husband and orders him to sleep with the children; and in Patricia Grace's ‘The Dream’ when Raniera and his TAB mates try to interpret his eeling dream from the pages of the ‘Best Bets’. One must make mention also of Rowley Habib's inspirational poems, ‘The Haka’ and ‘The Raw Men’ (Maori Battalion) as well as Hone Tuwhare's poems of truth and nostalgic splendour such as ‘That Morning Early’ and ‘The Old Place’. They are indeed worthy of a place in New Zealand's anthologies. The authors of the stories and poems are the first generation of Maori writers to make use of literary forms that are European in origin. In the oral literature of the Maori, songs and oratory had served to give rhetorical expression to a traditionally