Kei hea ra Mama! Kei hea ra Papa!

Tu Tangata, Issue 19, 1 August 1984, Page 40

Kei hea ra Mama! Kei hea ra Papa!

Housie seems to figure large in fund-raising efforts by maori communities. While it brings in the money it is also a source of anxiety when Mum and Dad spend too much time playing housie and not enough playing home. However there’s no denying the special attraction housie has for maori people. Penny Tangaroa explains some of the ins and outs of housie.

You don’t have to be a gun to play housie. All you need is a good ear and swift fingers. Nothing to it. A ‘caller’ picks numbers from a box and calls them out. Numbers are from one to ninety. There are fifteen numbers on each card, (which costs from $2 to $2.60), and the player’s aim is to try to beat every other player to cover all the numbers on a card. When that happens, the big brave winner, who usually wears a grin from ear to ear, or is having a hard time controlling nerves and can’t stop shaking, yells out loud and clear to let everyone else know his or her card is the lucky one this time. So the card is checked and if the numbers have all been called out the prize is awarded. Prizes are sometimes quite good. They range from S2O to SSOO.

There are fifty games and these are the main feature when you turn up at housie. There are plenty of other timekillers to keep you amused as well. There’s the Lucky Starter, with a sheet of paper with groups of fifteen numbers printed on it and played at the start of housie. How about the Lucky Ender? Same thing but played at the end of the game. Kids’ stuff! Specials are another type of ender played after half time, which is usually after game thirty.

This is the best time of all where you can shout your mates a pie and drink at the shop if you won anything before the break, or you can have a quick ‘moe’, or even go outside and beat your head against the wall if you nearly won something. After the short break the raffles are drawn and you could be a lucky winner so don’t take too long at the shop or you might miss out on something good. It’s loads of fun and if you fancy getting away from home, boredom and overbearing kids and you just want to relax or claim your nerves, why don’t you try your luck? A good dose of housie could be just what the doctor ordered.