(Continued from page 31) Puhiwahine and Turaukawa. Yet both translations belong in this country. Although Maori waiata (and carving) represent the highest evolution of Polynesian art, we have chosen to build almost entirely on one culture, as if the Maori had nothing to offer. For the Maori generally, the result has been the loss of his own traditions, good and bad alike, a loss that European culture has not yet made good. For the European, the loss has been in terms of wisdom and understanding. For instance, there is much in Maori waiata that has value as poetry, regardless of race or language. It is significant that the few waiata worth translating that come directly from living sources are from the three great centres of culture, where European techniques and Maori traditions have been integrated through the personality of past leaders: I refer to Parihaka, based on Te Whiti's doctrines of a Maori, Christian communal life; to the Waikato, where the King movement integrates Maori tradition and European political organizations; to Ngati-Porou and Rongo-Whakata, of the East Coast, where Ngata first gave the Maori communal idea a form and framework in co-operative farming schemes. I regret I can make no mention of Ratana. It is a movement of more recent origin, looking toward the future rather than the Maori past and working through pakeha religious and political forms. Most of the waiata have been published before, at least in the original Maori. I feel that work of great value can still be done, not so much in original research, as in sifting through the somewhat disordered middens of earlier research works in the Maori field.

A Farewell for an Enemy by PAENGA-HURU OF NGATI TAMA (Port Nicholson) ILLUSTRATIONS BY DENNIS KNIGHT TURNER This taunt was sung to the dried head set on a stake of one of the chiefs of Ngati-Ira, the original tribe of Wellington-Hutt Valley, displaced by Ngati-Tamara in the 1820's. The word kata refers to the way the lips were drawn back so as to expose the teeth, giving the dried head a grinning aspect. I am indebted to The New Zealanders, London, 1830, for the following recipe for dried head: “The skull is first emptied of its contents, the eyes and tongue being likewise extracted; after which the nostrils and entire inside of the skull are stuffed with flax. At the neck, where the head has been cut from the body … draw the skin together like the mouth of a purse, leaving, however, an open space large enough to admit the hand … then wrap it up in a quantity of green leaves, and in this state expose it to the fire until it is well steamed; after which the leaves are taken off, and it is next hung up to dry in the smoke, which causes the flesh to become tough and hard. Both the hair and teeth are preserved, and the tattooing on the face remains as plain as when the person was alive. The head, when thus cured, will keep for ever, if it be preserved dry….” pp. 219–220. With the coming of the pakeha, dried heads acquired a new value, in terms of trade. No slave or inferior person was safe. After the tattooing chisels came the axe; the industry could not keep up with the demand; dried heads were, on occasion, sold “on the hoof”. For instance, Marsden records in his Journal that having displayed an interest in the process, he was offered several still breathing heads by Pomare, but this free homedemonstration was not to Marsden's taste.