LOOKING BACK AT THE MAORI RECEPTIONS The 17,500 Maoris, young and old, who attended the special Maori receptions to the Queen, did not go back to a few days of life in the Stone Age; they went to salute their Queen as modern, educated citizens of a modern State. Yet they preferred to greet the Queen with their ancient ceremonial. This was not merely from racial pride. It was because they really had something different from the pakeha manner, and yet something singularly appropriate to the occasion. For such a welcome the Maori has a ceremonial that is subtle, dignified and appropriate. It is indeed, a remnant of a Stone Age culture when the visits of prominent chiefs were the greatest events of life, but this feeling towards guests and visitors did not disappear with the stone adzes; the plain fact is that the Maori can still express feelings of joy at the coming of a Royal visitor, through song and dance, with an artistry quite different from the ceremonial of the pakeha. To honour the Queen many thousands of Maoris returned for a few days to their ancient culture: organized in tribes, they rallied at Waitangi, Ngaruawahia, and Rotorua. Many came from the big towns or cities on December 28. At Waitangi the Queen was entertained by groups of performers from Auckland, Whangarei and Helensville. Many of these young men and women were born in country districts where the Maori way of life still to some degree exists.