SHEARING IN HAWKES BAY BY E. G. SCHWIMMER Shearing has been the great standby for many Maori families for generations. When there were very few sources of ilncome the shearing gangs in spring were always a certainty of some money to pay the storekeper. Many gangs went to live by the shearing sheds; others who could stay at their homes started off before dawn on their horses to reach the sheds in time for the first shift and were heard to gallop back through the pa long after everyone else had gone to bed. Although there are many other sources of livelihood now, there are still thousands who depend on shearing and the round of casual jobs in the off-season. They use trucks instead of horses, their working conditions have much improved, but essentially the life has not changed: secure and happy, but always a hard life where fighting exhaustion is part of the day's routine and where strength and adroitness are admired more than almost anywhere in the modern world. Nobody has ever written the history of shearing. Books contain very little about when shearing gangs were first introduced into New Zealand, and what shearing conditions were like in the very early days. No doubt sheepfarmers modelled their methods on the Australian stations. If there are any early documents on shearing, Te Ao Hou would be glad to see them. One of the best living authorities on New Zealand shearing is Mr R. Tutaki, M.B.E., who has been in the shearing industry for well over fifty years, and since 1920 has represented the New Zealand Workers' Union among Hawkes Bay shearers. Bob Tutaki was born at Ruahapia, near Hastings. He went to Te Aute College, but at the age of eighteen, rather than continue his studies, he took up shearing with his father, Panapa Stewart. Panapa was a lay reader of the Church of England and was given the job of boss of his shearing gang by Archdeacon Williams. Bob remembers some fine stories about these early years. His father had been given his job partly because of the moral influence he would exert on his gang. Every night after tea there was an evening service. A special feature of this service was, according to Bob Tutaki, the way his father dealt with shearing flirtations. He would ask the young man and woman involved, at the end of the service, whether they intended to marry. If they said they had no such intention, they knew they had lost their job, a severe penalty in those days.

Leadership in Shearing The greatest shearer of Mr Tutaki's youth was Raihania who with the narrow cut machine used in that period could shear as many as 343 sheep a day. He died, unbeaten, about 1924 at the age of fifty-six. Machine shearing was introduced in 1898, the first machine having only ten teeth. At about 1910 the modern wide-cut machine of 13 teeth first appeared—the Wolesley sheep shearing machine. After a few years, Bob Tutaki himself became the ringer of his gang. The ringer (the man who rings the bell at starting and stopping time) was also the boss of the gang. I asked Mr Tutaki whether it was difficult to maintain one's authority in such a gang. The important thing, said Mr Tutaki, is the struggle against the sheep. There should be a proper balance between the wishes of the man and the sheep. If the sheep is given too much freedom, it never gets shorn. On the other hand, if it gets irritated that can be just as bad. A champion shearer ‘sees the day out rather than fighting his opponent. He sits and smiles while other men are cursing and swearing.’ Respect for the leader is therefore mainly based on his shearing tallies. Bob Tutaki admits that ringers will go to great lengths to avoid being beaten. A familiar one is to ring the bell just after picking up a sheep. Nobody else can pick up a sheep after that, which helps to build up the tally. At one time, Bob himself fell into the bad habit of shearing carelessly to improve his speed. In one shed, the owner noticed it. At lunch time, Bob found that while the other sheep were all let out, his were kept in their pen. The next day the same