HINE AND THE MATE by Enid Tapsell Hine was dying with the MATE—she had had it nearly all her short life—but Hine would not believe she was dying—she didn't want to. She knew she had the MATE but she had become so familiar with it that it was now just part of herself. In fact, her second self. And what matter if some said she was PORANGI and that the MATE made it worse. She just wasn't going to die—Not yet. The district nurse had a different name for the MATE. She called it the ‘T.B.’ and said Hine was a menace to those around her. She wanted to stop Hine going to the pictures and the dances, and she said Hine should sleep by herself in the nice clean uncomfortable hut provided by the Health Department—Hine who was a married woman! Hine who had been twice a married woman, and whose first husband had also died of the MATE. When Nurse pointed this out to Hine she just shrugged and looked blank. And there's nothing so difficult for the pakeha to combat as that blank stubborn look that a Maori in the wrong knows so well how to assume. Hine continued to go to the pictures, in fact she never missed the weekly serial, and as time went on she coughed and coughed more frequently at the pictures until the few pakehas who also went to the pictures in the crowded badly ventilated hall, started to complain. They'd say, ‘Poor Hine, isn't it a shame the way she coughs and coughs, and she is always so bright and ready to crack a joke. But really she shouldn't be allowed to go to the pictures, it's not fair.’ Then one or the other would run to the district nurse the next time she came to the village, and nurse would say, ‘What can I do?’ hopelessly. ‘Hine won't listen to anybody. She's a law unto herself!’ And that was very true for Hine was not only lawless, but a despot as well. It was simply short of marvellous the way people, pakeha and Maori alike, gave in to her. Even as a child she always managed to get her own way, and when she was growing up, it was ‘Hine this’ and ‘Hine that’—and Hine says this, that or the other—at basketball, at hockey or at running a dance, and Hine had a cutting turn of wit that provoked and often annoyed the butt of her jokes. She had sudden crushes on people and would quite literally live on their doorsteps morning noon and night. She'd go around that village arm-in-arm, or more often than not, cheek-to-cheek with her arm tightly wound around the friend's neck—and usually the friend was someone years older than Hine—And this was a sight that annoyed all Hine's well wishers, for they said, ‘Isn't it disbusting the way Hine hangs onto Mary’ (or Jean or Millie)—‘They (presumably Mary or Jean or Millie) should have more sense—and Hine with “T.B.” too—didn't they know how catching it was?’ Then they'd say, ‘Haven't you noticed lately that she coughs more and there is quite an odour when you're near her…?’ Of course this last might have been due to her teeth—for soon, Hine had them all out and went around all gummy for awhile. This gave her face a more witchlike appearance. Hine's mouth was outsize and narrow-lipped, and it had been made attractive by a very wide smile—until her teeth started to go on her. And Hine was very affectionate too—if she was not hanging on to someone, she had a kitten perched on her shoulder, or a mongrel dog with a wagging long tail at her heels, and she was always to be seen at the village store with sundry animals hanging around her, particularly at mail time when everybody congregated there. Then Hine got a goat—a young billy goat which caused great amusement at first by its antics and the antics of its owner to certain onlookers—but after awhile people began to