shirt” brigade, when all we seemed to do was eat, and hatch up lots of fun, while the grannies toiled at their self imposed task, of tending the family garden. In season we had ample stocks of potatoes, kamokamo, corn, water melon, strawberries, kumara, and other vegetables all at the hands of our two grannies. All the other homes round about were similarly endowed with two, or at least one granny. We were all related one way or another with the result that the “long tailed shirt” brigade roamed from one end of the community to the other, mobbing up in gangs of the various age-groups, not always with good intent. Life for us was rather uneventful, apart from the childish pranks we used to get up to, but our real thrills came when there was a tangi or some other such meeting at the pa. How we revelled in these get-togethers, when crowds came from far and wide, bringing many more children with them, which pleased us greatly, since we were ever ready for any “new ideas”. Sometimes we mingled ourselves with the older folk and got to peering round doors and corners and through windows to see and know just what was going on, till hunted away by some elder who would brandish a knotty old stick and order “tamariki ma, haere ki tahaki”. Needless to say, we obliged, and scooted for our lives, back up onto the hills that skirted the pa, and from vantage points we could watch all that went on on the marae. There we played many a game of hide-and-go-seek, among the rocks and native trees, or perhaps we climbed to the very top of the hill to the old pa, where we staged real attacks and defences, or perhaps just played trains, steaming through the deep trench that had once served as an obstacle to the enemy that attempted to approach our forefathers' pa. Those were days of deep adventure, when we children moved in gangs and planned our adventures to last just precisely to the next meal, and we invariably arrived back to the pa to take up our positions on sunny knobs or banks just in time to hear that welcome call, “tamariki ma haeremai ki te kai.” Needless to say we obliged, needing no second bidding. In our quieter moods, we would all lie on our pukus, on the edge of the marae and just watch proceedings. The tangi of the women folk never failed to interest us, and we often pinpointed some who, one minute, gave a perfect interpretation of a broken heart and spirit, and the next minute would be placidly smoking an old pipe and chatting away quite gaily. Then to watch the old men and listen to them ‘taki’. How proud we felt if our own particular grandpop stood to ‘taki’ and how we vied with one another as to whose granny was best—of course, the one who yelled the loudest and shook his stick the hardest was the best. They stood up one after the other all day long it seemed, and when evening came they adjourned to the meeting house and carried right on into the night. The old women too, often joined the men in singing the waiata, sometimes for long periods, while everyone seemed to enjoy everything, and an atmosphere of loving comradeship ran high. Forgotten were the gardens for these periods, no one ever dreamed of breaking the spell by leaving the meeting. It was a time when the grannies really “held the floor”, as it were, and we children were to be seen (and that even very little) but not heard, yet we loved the excitement of everything and the sweet abandonment, and happy good-fellowship. After these breaks from the simple quiet life, we childern found it hard to settle down and so we roamed from home to home practically at will, since no one bothered much, as we were all related anyhow, and all the old people were our grannies one way or another. They always guided our thinking and acting into channels of “koutou koutou—tatou tatou.” They always taught us to respect one another's feelings though we often had some childish scraps, but no one took much notice, except perhaps to say “e pai ana ko koutou ano.” Our Granny Tomoana was a very industrious person and laboured constantly; when not at gardening she prepared flax, or muka or perhaps kie kie, for her whariki and korowai, of which she made a large number. Grandpa always helped her in preparation of dyes, etc., and often other grannies would come