No. 4 Vol. 9 (No. 2)

THE MAORI IN PAKEHA SOCIETY

Some months ago, a New Zealand novel of distinction, Tangahano, by Frances Keinzly, showed New Zealand readers for the first time, to our knowledge, the emotions and fortunes of its characters against a background of large-scale engineering—Tangahano is a hydro-electric station on the Waikato River. Miss Keinzly claimed in her novel, successfully in our view, that the pioneering character of New Zealand life, no longer apparent in the cities, may still be discovered in these huge industrial enterprises. In this issue of Te Ao Hou, we reprint an article by A. S. Fry both in English and in Maori translation, first published in the New Zealand Listener last October, which makes it quite clear how large a part Maori men now play in these enterprises. Mr Fry goes so far as to suggest that in his assumption of dominion over the machine, the Maori is reverting to his ancient attitude towards the land: one of territorial mastery rather than respect for the soil as soil. Mr Fry demonstrates convincingly enough that the Maori has a natural affinity for machines which require some rhythmic control for their proper use: this rhythmic response is part of the Maori heritage. At all events, the large number of Maori men now managing, controlling, and performing highly skilled operations with power machines, sometimes in situations that the pakeha may baulk at, may stimulate the movement of young Maori men from the rural to the urban and industrialsed areas, where they are sorely needed.

Also in this issue, we reprint from the magazine Education the remarkable account of a Maori school childrens' tour, by E. G. Schwimmer, Editor of Te Ao Hou, at present on leave. For a fortnight, these young people from Punaruku were exposed to the whole range of pakeha society, from its large-scale industrial enterprises like the pulp and paper mills at Kawerau, to the superbly equipped Mormon school near Hamilton, and to a variety of arts, from opera and music in the classical European modes to exhibitions of modern art at the Auckland Festival. We find Mr Schwimmer's account full of remarkable insights into the Maori condition, from the moving account of the community's slow progress from reluctance to enthusiasm for the project, to the assumption of leadership by one of the most unlikely members of the party, to the alternating bewilderment and commonsense of the young people as their journey went on. Here, it seems to us, is the whole area of what has been, somewhat inelegantly, called “acculturation”: the adaptation of a people from one kind of culture to another. Mr Schwimmer's lively account leaves us in no doubt that solutions to these problems can and will be found.

TE MAORI I ROTO I TE AO PAKEHA

No roto o enei marama tata ka puta te pukapuka a Frances Keinzly, ko Tangahano te ingoa, ko te Tanghano whare mahi hiko o te awa o Waikato ra. Katahi ano pea ka ata kitea te wairua o era tu mahi, te wairua e ki ana ko taua wahine nana i oti ai nga mahi onamata, he wairua kaore in nga taone engari kei nga mahi pera anaka me Tangahano ka kitea kei tenei putanga o Te Ao Hou ka taia ai ano ki te reo Maori ki te reo Pakeha nga korero i puta ra i te pukapuka i te Listener i tera Oketopa mo ta te Maori wahanga ki aua mahi nunui. Ko te korero a Fry, te kaitito o aua korero, ko te take pea i tino kaingakau ai te Maori ki te mahi mihini he haupa nui i te oneone, ko te nui whenua hoki to te rangatira tohu. Tetahi e ki ana ano ko taua Pakeha ma te maheni o te whakangau e reka ai te mahi a te mihini a i te mea he haka he waiata te kinaki o a te Maori mahi he hanga noa iho ki a ia te mahi. I te tokomaha o nga Maori kua tohunga ki nga rawekeweke o nga mihini nunui nana noa e kore i roto o enei tau tata ka pera noa atu te heke mai o ratou taina tuakana i noho mai ra i tuawhenua ko ianei hoki he mahi ma ratou.

Kei konei ano nga korero a E. G. Schwimmer i puta ra i te pukapuka i te Education mo to ratou haerenga ko ana tamariki kura ki te haereere. I roto o te rua wiki i kite aua tamariki i te katoa o te ao Pakeha, tae ratou ki nga mira nunui pera me Kawerau, i kite ratou i nga kura nunui pera me te kura o nga moiona kei Hamutana, i tae ratou ki te matakitaki i nga whare putunga o nga ahua me nga mea whakamiharo ona mata a i ronga hoki ratou i nga waiata me nga mea whakatangitangi whakamiharo. Ka mutu i nga korero a Schwimmer mo ta ratou haere e whakamarama ana ia i to te Maro kaupapa me te miharo o nga tamariki mo nga mea i kite ratou. Ko te whakamarama tenei mo te whai a te Maori i to te Pakeha kaupapa hei maramatanga mona.

EPILOGUE

Midnight: Author seated at desk with books and papers lying around on desk and floor.

Author: Where shall I seek? Let me see, let me see; is not the leaf turned down where I left off reading? Here it is, I think.

Enter Ghost of Goethe

Who comes again to spite me, when I am seeking for some clue to the mystery of Gotty's birth? Come in. Speak to me: what are you?

Ghost: I am the spirit that denies. Your predicament, O man of the Antipodes, has compelled me. and I appear. I am Goethe!

Author: Over these books of yours and my own papers from this my desk, often through the night I have searched, with much labour, through and through! And here I stick, as wise as when my steps first turned to school. I have no fond illusion, that I know anything worth the knowing; so I've turned me to speculation.

Ghost: All my works are but fragments of the grand confession of my life. You will find there, in the pages of the books I see around you I have woven my living garment. But I warn you, where you find a dark corner in me. it is terribly dark.

Ghost vanishes.

Author: You will not daunt me! I will sit here and gum together pieces here and there. I will hash up scraps from others' feast. I shall conjure up and tell a story from the ashes whence the life has ceased!

Enter te Rangihirawea.

You have come at a time most inopportune. How shall we set about this task?

Te Rangihirawea: Pardon—I heard you shouting; doubtless some lines of poetry you were reading? I come direct, filled with the most profound respect, to know the story of my great-grandfather. You did say his father's name was Antonio, and I came to tell you that my younger brother, now long since dead, was baptised with the same name by our late priest, Father Langerwerf, on his return from Germany.

Author: It is now too late to know how much Father Langerwer knew. I wrote to Potsdam for information about Gotty's father, Antonio, whom your grandfather described as a cavalry officer in the Prussian army. The reply was that the records of the former Army archives, including those of the old Prussian army, were burnt in the air-raid on Potsdam on 14 April 1945.¹

Te Rangihirawea: Could it be that Antonio or Antonia was a son of Goethe, or was one of his own baptismal name? My heart and soul are yearning to hear what story you have to tell.

Author: The story I shall tell you can only be speculation. I begin by telling you there were many women in the life of the poet, Goethe, but Gotty was not his son by any of them. Gotty could have been the poet's grandson. For various reasons, which would take too long in the telling, I have formed the theory that Gotty's father, Antonio, was the son of Anna Elizabeth Schönemann.

Anna, immortalised as Lili by Goethe, was the daughter of a great banker in Frankfurt. Lili's mother was widowed, and she was sixteen years of age when she first became acquainted with Goethe. She was young, graceful and charming. Lili's fascination over him, Goethe has expressed in a poem. Here are three verses from it:—

• Wherefore so resistlessly dost draw me

• Into scenes so bright?

• Had I not enough to soothe and charm me

• In the lonely night?

• Dreaming thro’ the golden hours of rapture

• Soothed my heart to rest,

• As I felt thy image sweetly living

• Deep within my breast.

• Alas! the gentle bloom of spring no longer

• Cheereth my poor heart,

• There is only spring, and love, and nature,

• Angel, where thou art!

The parents of both sides were not in favour of a marriage. At a later stage the lovers were told by a certain Demoiselle Delf that she had managed to overcome objections, and gain the consent of both families. Subsequently, however, it turned out that the feeling of friends and relations had

not altered. In 1775 he tried an experiment to see if he could forget Lili. He went on tour to Switzerland with the two Counts Stolberg. In Switzerland “amid the lovely scenes of Nature”, the poet wrote this verse:—

• Dearest Lili, if I did not love thee

• How entrancing were a scene like this

• Yet, my Lili, if I did not love thee,

• What were any bliss?

On his return to Frankfurt he learned that Lili's friends had taken advantage of his absence, to try and bring about a separation. But Lili remained firm; and it was said that she had declared herself willing to go with him to America. In his old age Goethe wrote in his Autobiography, “so unlike the love in novels, the very thing which should have animated my hopes depressed them. My fair paternal house, only a few hundred paces from hers, was after all more endurable and attractive than a remote, hazardous spot beyond the seas.”

He was restless and unhappy during these months. “He lingered about the house o’ nights, wrapped in his mantle, satisfied if he could catch a glimpse of her shadow on the blind, as she moved about the room. One night he heard her singing at the piano. His pulses throbbed, as he distinguished his own song:—

• Wherefore so resistlessly dost draw me

  • Into scenes so bright? …

the song he had written in the morning of their happiness! Her voice ceased. She rose, and walked up and down the room, little dreaming that her lover was beneath the window.”

In September 1775, Karl August, the hereditary prince of Weimar, repeated an invitation for Goethe to spend a few weeks at his court. With some difficulty he obtained his father's consent. He left Frankfurt, his birthplace, for Weimar, and on the 7th of November 1775, Goethe, then aged twenty-six, arrived at the little city of Weimar, on the banks of the Ilm, where, as it turned out, he was to live until he died over fifty years later.

Goethe and Lili were together again in 1779. This meeting took place on the 26 September whilst he was on a visit with Karl to Frankfurt; “in the afternoon I called on Lili, and found the lovely Grasaffen (‘budding miss’) with a baby of seven weeks old. her mother standing by… To my great delight found the good creature happily married. Her husband, from what I could learn, seems a worthy sensible fellow, rich, well placed in the world; in short she had everything she needs. He was absent. I stayed to dinner…. In the evening saw Paesiello's beautiful L'Infante di Zamora. Supped with Lili and went away in the moonlight. The sweet emotions which accompanied me I cannot describe.” Goethe latter summed up his feelings respecting Lili, the woman whom, according to his statement to Eckermann, he loved more than any other. “She was the first, and I can also add she is the last, I truly loved; for all the inclinations which have since agitated my heart were superficial and trivial in comparison. My love for Lili had something so peculiar and delicate that even now it has influenced my style in the narrative of that painfully-happy epoch.”

I shall now refer to the poet's dramatic works. With regard to his drama Stella, which was composed during the “painfully-happy epoch”, I would say that in it I detect a biographical element in the characters of Fernando and Cecilia, his wife, the mother of his child. Turning our attention to Faust, the magnum opus of Goethe, it is to be noted that although he conceived the idea of the old legend (Faust-fable) during his love affair with Lili, he wrote nothing of the work until he had sketched Gretchen's catastrophe, the scene in the street, and the scene in Gretchen's bedroom. He did not publish Part One of Faust until 1808, a year before the birth of Yohan Gotty. There are large slices of this great work which appear to be of a biographical character. The mother of Gretchen was a widow and the twist in the story about her baby dying, could have been contrived by the great poet to cover the biographical element in the drama with an impenetrable mist.

The years rolled on, and we came to the period of the Napoleonic Regime (1806–1813). On the day of the battle of Jena on the 14th October 1806, a few French hussars rode into Weimar. A young officer came to Goethe's house to assure him that it would be secure from pillage; and it had been selected as the quarters for Marshall Augerau. “The young officer who brought this message was Lili's son!”

I have not been able to trace any further reference to “Lili's son”, but about this time the poet was involved in an affair with Minna Herslieb, a young woman who exercised a fascination over him which his reason in vain resisted. He addressed sonnets to her, and in the novel, Elective Affinities, may be read the fervour of his passion.

There are four characters in the novel, which was published in 1809 (the year Yohan Gotty was born). The identification of the character Eduard with Goethe, of Charlotte with Goethe's wife, Christiane, are but thinly disguised. Ottilie in the novel may readily be identified with Minna; and the Captain, according to our conjecture, was Lili's son.

As was the case in Faust “the child” dies. The child in the novel is born—rather unexpectedly be it said—to Eduard and Charlotte—the marriage of twenty years had been childless—but it resembled “in a striking manner both Ottilie and the Captain.” Lewes, in his work on the life of the poet, has described the characters of the Captain and Eduard as a dramatisation by Goethe of the two halves of his own character.

(Continued on page 15)

I. PUNARUKU AND ITS SCHOOL

It is reading period and I see two boys looking at the same book, while another one lies unused by their side. “Why don't you read the other one, Henry?” I ask. “Oh, I have read that one at least 20 times.”

Both books are about fish. All books about fish are very well read in our library.

II. AN EDUCATIONAL TOUR IS PLANNED

III. ON THE ROAD

SINGLE PREMIUM MORTGAGE REPAYMENTS

The Board of Maori Affairs now has authority to advance money for Maori housing to pay the premium on a single-premium mortgage repayment insurance policy. Legislation passed in the last week of the 1960 Parliamentary session provided the authority for the Board of Maori Affairs to make the advances. This brings the Board's policy nearer that of the State Advances Corporation which already lends, under certain conditions, the cost of single premium mortgage repayments. Insurance premium loans will be made up to £120 and would be additional to money loaned mortgagors towards the cost of house-building.

It is felt that too few Maoris take advantage of this type of insurance cover, which in the event of a borrower's untimely death lifts the burden of a mortgage debt from his widow and children. This is due probably to the fact that, with their larger families and smaller incomes, most Maoris find it difficult to meet annual premiums, and impossible to raise the large amounts required if the cover were a single premium, as well as the cost of furniture and the cash payment toward the new house.

Under this scheme, where the premium is advanced by the Board of Maori Affairs, the approved insurance offices would be those approved by the State Advances Corporation for mortgage repayment insurance. The new policy will apply generally to existing loans, provided that the re payment term for the additional loan does not exceed five years, and interest would be charged at 5 per cent.

KO TE UTU TOPU I TE INIHUA MOKETE

Kua whakamana Te Paori Mo Nga Take Maori ki te tuku moni i runga i te mokete hei utu topu i te moni inihua mo te mokete whare. No te wiki whakamutunga o te tunga o te Paremata i te tau 1960 i whakamana ai taua Paori ki te tuku moni penei. Kua rite Te Paori Mo Nga Take Maori ki tera Tari Kawanatanga ki Te State Advances Corporation kua tuku moni penei noa atu ki nga tangata e tika ana. Tera e eke taua moni ki te £120 a ka apititia atu ki te moni mokete mo te hanga whare.

He tokoiti rawa atu nga Maori kei te tango inihua penei, ara he inihua mo te mate rawa ake te tane ka ea te moni mokete a ka noho pai te wahine me nga tamariki. Ko te take nui pea e kore nei e tango i taua inihua ko te nuinga o te hunga Maori e tango moni mokete ana hei hanga whare he tokomaha a ratou tamariki a pau tonu te oranga ki te utu haere i te mokete, ki te tango taputapu mo te whare a kaore e taea te utu topu o tenei momo inihua.

Ki te tukua e Te Poari Mo Nga Mea Maori taua moni kei Te State Advances Corporation nga Tari Inihua. Ka taea e te hunga kua tango moni mokete noa atu te tango tenei momo inihua engari me hoki taua moni i roto o te rima tau a e 5 paihaneti te itareti.

JUDGES' REPORTS

Haere ra, ho a Riri

Haere ra, e koro e
I tou tira ko koe anake,
Kia wakairia koe
I runga o Waiwhetu.
Ae kata ra, e koro e,
Kei hoki wawe o koutou waewae.
Kore nei aku toto
Te inu mai ai koe.
Kua pakihi au
I hui ou rangi ra-i.
Tenui tou roro,
Ko te kowhatu e tu ki te ahi-kai;
Kia rekaiho ai
Taku kainga iho-e.
Mawai e ranga
Tou mate i te ao?
Me te po tu mai
I runga o Tirohanga?
Ma te po taka mai
I runga o Kaihinu?
A engari ra ia.
Tenei, e Hika-e.

Farewell to an Enemy

Farewell, noble sir,
Where are your friends?
Let them all see you
Standing over Waiwhetu.
Bare your lips, sir.
Well may you grin,
But be careful, lest your feel
Bring you back too soon.
I have no more blood
For you to drink.
I am done, I can no longer
Honour your great name.
Would this cooking-stone
Were your brain—
I would eat it,
And it would taste good, sir.
Who will mourn
Who will sing your fame
To the world?
Perhaps the mist that sits
on Tirohanga,
Perhaps the mist
Gathering on Kaihinu.
Yes. Better leave it at that. sir.

Te Hanganga o Te Wahine

E aha, i taia te huakina,
He atu to e a,
He ata marama.
No te ata tenei tauira;
Kai te kuku nui tanga
Mai i Hawaiki;
Kai te whaka ringaringa
Mai i Hawaiki.
Tuturi mai i roto,
Pepeke mai i roto,
Tiki matua.
Ka whai ringaringa mai i roto;
Tiki matua, tuturi tanga,
Pepeketanga; he o kai tangi
He wharorotanga.
Tiki; ka riri Tiki,
Tiki, ka reka Tiki.
Tuturu te waikura nui no Rangi.
Uaki te whaitoka nui no Papa.
Putauhinu ki waho ko Hine-mana-hirt.

The Creation of Woman

Ha! It leaps into life
It is first light
It is bright morning
Out of dawn comes the disciple.
The people of Hawaiki
Drawn in
Like the clenching of a hand
On Hawaiki.
Crouched within
Knees drawn up
Tiki, the spring—
Hands, take shape
Tiki, the source, the kneeling one
Knees drawn up
Feed me, he cries,
And stretches
Bold Tiki!
Soft Tiki!
Red rain falls from the skies
Open the great womb of the earth
Come forth! It is the daughter!
The stranger, Hine-mana-hiri!

The different types and methods of adzing: (a) The “Ara Haratua”, (b) Ngaotu and Ngaopae, (c) Poke, Poka and Ta.

7. (a) The “Ara Haratua”. The straight line or straight edge. When this stage begins in the learning period, the pupil really starts to learn how to handle and master his adze. The ara haratua is really the striking of a line either on the edge of the timber or on the centre. This can be achieved by two methods, one, working with the grain, and two, working against the grain. This is a very difficult cut to achieve, for the slightest miscut will reveal a flaw. However it is one where the learner gains further progress or otherwise, because of his previous exercises. A demonstration by an expert is very necessary.

(b) Ngaotu and Ngaopae. These two types of adzing are really the same, ngaotu being the progress of the adzing straight across the grain and timber, while ngaopae is that running across and diagonally on the timber. The former is used for straight and clean-grained timber, the latter for stringy, crisscross and knotted timber. But in both methods of adzing, the cuts by the adze are laid out in a pattern, width and spacing of adzing in perfect array, row upon row. Its achievement is gained by a learner only after months of adzing.

(e) Poke, Poka and Ta. Poke and poka are adzing terms applied to digging in and obtaining relief in carving, and ta, the meeting point of the adzing where the chips are finally released. These methods of adzing, the cuts by the adze are laid when figure adzing is described. The grain and easy cutting of the totara is experienced by the learner, but further holding cutting and eye concentration are essential to obtain desirable results.

 

Ka tutaki au ki a Eramiha Kapua i Te Teko.

No te 10 o nga ra o Hanuere 1930, ka hoki au ki Rotorua ki te Kura Whakairo. Ka tae atu au ki Te Teko, ka ui au ki te kainga o Eramihi, a haere tonu atu au na raro ki reira. Tae atu au e miraka kau ana a ia, ko au tena ki te awhina, me te ki atu, waiho taku take mo muri kia paenga tenei mahi, ka korero ai maua. Ka ki mai me moe au ki a raua ko taria kuia, ka whakae atu au, ka karanga atu ki tana kuia he manuhiri ta raua, ka moe iho ki a raua. Ka mutu ta maua miraka, wehe i te kirimi, whangai i nga poaka, ka ahu maua ki to raua whare, ko tana kuia hoki e nau mai ana. Ka hongi maua ka ki atu au no Ngatiporou au, taku ingoa, a e ahu ana au ki Rotorua, ki te kura whakairo, a peka mai nei kia kite, kia korero hoki ki a Eramiha i tetahi take nui e manakohia ana e nga kaiwhakahaere o te Kura Whakairo, a ko au ta ratau karere, he tangata hoki e ako ana ki te whakairo. Ka ki a Eramiha me waiho nga korero mo te po, kia mutu te kai me te karakia. Po rawa ake kua ki to raua whare-puni i o raua whanaunga e tata mai ana, na raua i karanga atu. He Ringatu te iwi nei, a mutu rawa te karakia, katahi ano a Eramiha ka manaaki i au.

He tohunga ki te korero, ki te whakatakoto i te kupu i te whakaaro, a ka mutu ana manaaki ka patai, he aha rawa ra te tino take o taku haere ki a ia, a he karere no te Poari Whakairo a tuarua he aha te wahi ka taea e ia e te kaumatua, kati, ka whanga ia mo taku whakautu. Muri iho ka tu mai te iwi ki te manaaki i au pera ano te wai o nga korero i ta Eramiha. Ka tu atu hoki au ki te whakautu. Ka mutu aku mini atu ki a ratau katoa, ka timatatia e au aku korero mai i te wa i whakaturia ai he kura mo te iwi Maori

 

 

8. Preliminary adzing prior to carving: (a) Split Timber. (b) Milled Timber.

There are two types of totara timber used in carving. The first is that where milling is impracticable, and to obtain length, width and thickness, the timber is cut into lengths and opened by blasting or by wedges in half. By careful use of wedges, the width and thickness is obtained. This slab of totara is not square, but it has one pleasing feature and that is its greater resistance to opening up or developing cracks during its drying stages, than a squared slab cut by a saw at a mill. The reason for this is in the case of the former, the grain is intact; in the latter, the grain has been disrupted.

(a) Split Timber. First, the learner will note that it will not lie squarely on the floor; the corner of one end is up and the same with the vertically opposite corner at the other end—in other words it wobbles lengthwise and across. A good way to obtain quick results is to mark out the maximum space of the wobble at the corners, steady the slab, and draw a line right round the ends and sides of the slab, and then adze down to the marks. This adzing is known also as ara haratua. It is of the greatest importance to know the right side of the slab to carve on, so before drawing a line on the sides, look at the ends and you will locate radiating lines; these are the annual rings. If they work up and outwards then go ahead and draw your line, if downwards then turn your slab before drawing. There is a reason for this. By carving on the outer surface, you further minimise the cracking or opening of the surface of your carving, but when you carve on the inner surface this tends to increase the openings on the carved areas particularly the bulky rounded forehead, shoulders and body, all being in high relief.

Let me quote Eramiha. “Kaua e whakairo e taraitia ki runga ki te puku o te totara, e ngari hei runga i te tuara, ka ngawha hoki te puku, engari te tuara, toitu tonu.” “Do not shape your carvings by adzing on the stomach or inside of the annual rings, but do so on the back or outside

 

 

hei ako ki nga taonga mahi a ringaringa a te Maori, te whakairo, te tukutuku, te kowhaiwhai, mo nga tau tuatahi, a muri iho ko era mahi a te wahine. Na Te Arawa i ki hei Rotorua te kura, kei a ia hoki nga tohunga mohio ki te whakairo hei ako i nga tamariki tane o te motu ina kowhiria. Kua whakaeke o Waikato, a ko au to Ngatiporou a kua rua tau te kura e whakairo ana. I Tihema o tera tau ka tae mai a Apirana ki te kura kia kite i a matau, i a matau whakairo hoki mo te whare o Wiremu Potae o Ngatiporou. Ka korero au mo tana titiro ki a matau whakatu i te whakairo, a ka whakahau ia i au kia hoki ki te Tairawhiti ki te rapu i te matauranga o te whiu i te toki kapukapu, hei whaka-atanga mai i te wehi o te whakairo, ka mohio ra au, ka hoki mai ai ki te ako ano i te whakairo, mo katoa ano hoki tenei korero.

Kua tae au ki Ngatiporou, ki ona marae maha hoki, ki te rapu i te taonga nei, kua pataitia e au nga kaumatua o te takiwa mai i te Muriwai tae noa atu ki Raukokore, ko te hua, kua ngaro te mohiotanga i a ratau, engari no Raukokore te korero nana taku tira i mau mai ki konei, ara, “haere ki te Teko kei a Eramiha Kapua te mauri o tenei taonga e pupuri ana. No reira ka korero au ki a Apirana i Poneke i mua atu i taku haerenga mai, ko tana whakahau tenei ki au. “Tikina e koe tenei tangata, e mohio ana au ki a ia, mauria ki Rotorua hei ako i a koutou katoa o te kura whakairo. Ma taua a ia e manaaki e atawhai, ki atu ki a ia, kei te karanga te rangatahi o te iwi Maori ki a ia hei kai-ako hei matua, hei kaiarahi i a ratau ki nga whare whakairo maha o nga marae nunui o te iwi Maori e taria mai nei e nga iwi ma te Kura e whakairo.”

“No reira Eramiha ko te tumanako tenei o Apirana, tae atu hoki ki a matau katoa, nga tamariki tane o te motu kei Rotorua e tatari mai ana. Me aroha mai koe ki a matau. Kaore e rere te wehi o te whakairo i te purupuru anake, kua tino kite taku hinengaro me aku kanohi i nga whakairo o te Tairawhiti, poka ke te kororia o nga whakairo na te kapukapu nana i waihanga i

 

 

of the annual rings, the stomach or inside will contract, the back or outside stays permanent.”

Having thus inscribed the lines, turn the slab over, secure it by blocks, take your upper garments off, for now the learner begins to appreciate the handling and use of an adze. Check up on the following points: Is the handle correctly fitted and firm, the cutting edge sharp, your boots lightly laced up, your belt fixed at the correct hole, your brain and muscles in tip-top order? Then start by cutting down to the inscribed lines and adze along the edge your ara haratua, with the block of the adze against the grain and the adze applied at an angle. From one end to the other you will come across light and heavy adzing, uncut chips will accompany you all the way, big and small—you've had experience before with them, and pride and exhilaration flow through you as you confidently deal with them. You repeat the same operation on the other side and when you have finished that, you will then proceed to count the number of cuts of each side and compare the results. Say the slab is ten feet long and your adze four inches wide; if you are a learner with about 160 hours of adzing to your credit or four weeks, then the cuts should average 40 to 60 per side, but if you had 6 months' teaching, then the cuts will average between 25 and 30. I have done this in 20 cuts a side in my normal adzing time.

Having outlined the ara haratua, the next step is to adze right across from edge to edge, allowing in the process the centre of the slab to sink down about an inch. A straight piece of timber laid across will help to judge this. This hollowed effect is to allow the slab to fit snugly on to the wall later.

You will next proceed to apply the ngaotu and ngaopae method of adzing—chips wide, long, thin, of all shapes and sizes, will now appear; you will be instructed to form a pattern of adzing, and if your rating is 50 cuts for a length of 10 feet, go ahead and produce 50 series of regular and uniform patterns across the slab throughout the whole length. It is during this preliminary adzing that you will appreciate the first lessons, the holding and swinging, the ease with which the chips fly out and how the grain of the totara runs, thus making adzing easy. Now turn the slab over and you are now ready for the final preparation of the area to be carved. You will note the square sit of the slab on the floor and it is at this stage the expert will instruct the learners how to eliminate all waste timber, thus paving the way for easy working of the different sections of the figure to be carved. Having finished this part of the adzing, the exact width is marked out and adzed and planed to the marks.

(1) First, a centre line is marked out throughout the length of the slab, then lines are drawn about one to two inches from the floor line, thus indicating the death of the carved relief.

(2) Secondly, an arc is drawn at the ends to illustrate the extent of the timber to be adzed

 

 

nga whakairo na te purupuru nana i karokaro, nana i manihi. Ma te tohunga anake te mea tuatahi, ka taea e te kuare te mea tuarua, a, kei te whakairo tuarua tonu nei matau inaianei, a. ki te kore he kai-ako ki te mau kapukapu, kaori te kura whakairo o te iwi Maori e haere whakarmua, engari ka noho tonu i kona karokaro ai, rapirapi ai. Ka hara mai korua ko te kuia, ka haere tatau ki te karanga a Apirana me nga tamariki tane wahine hoki o te iwi Maori. Ma maua ko Apirana, tae atu hoki ki nga tamariki tane wahine o te motu korua e atawhai, i Rotorua, a, tae atu ki nga marae maha o te iwi Maori e karanga whare whakairo mai nei mo ratau. Ano tenei tono ki a korua, ka mate atu korua ki nga marae maha o te iwi Maori, ina hoki te kaupapahaaro o nga whare a Ngata e korero nei a ia, huri noa te motu, me te Waipounamu. Kua tae taku wahine i tenei po ki Rotorua, kei te whakamahana mai i te kainga mo kurua, kei te taha tonu o to maua. Hara mai e hika ma tatau ko haere ki te motu ki te awhina i a Apirana ki te hanga hou i te iwi Maori kia tu poupou, ai i te taha o te Pakeha, ki te waihanga hoki i ona taonga hei pupuri i to tatau Maoritanga,” ka mutu ka timata au i taku waiata: “To toki e hika.” A, kaore i roa ka tu mai ratau ka hapainga te waiata nei tae noa ki tona mutunga. Te mutunga ka mihi atu au, kua mene atu aku korero i whakaarohia e au, ka noho au.

Ka whakae a Erumiha Kapua ki te ako i roto i te Kura Whakairo.

Noho ana au ka tu mai tetahi o nga whanaunga o Eramiha, ka mihi mai mo aku korero, me taku

 

 

off. To guide the learner further, lines are drawn on either side of the centre line, two inches away, from which the learner is shown the best way of cutting away the timber. The slab is then raised to a convenient height off the floor, six inches being the usual, making sure it does not wobble.

(3) Thirdly, the expert stands at the left edge of the slab and starts to adze from the line drawn next to the centre line, all the timber indicated by the arc at the end, towards the line marked for the carving relief, maintaining the width of cut from top to edge. He will proceed like this along the length for about a foot, then he is confronted by too much timber that sometimes does not break off conveniently. This always happens. So by quick cuts of his adze at right angles, and about six inches away, the chips and timber are easily broken off. The cut thus used to obtain this release is the poka. After a demonstration of about three feet, the pupils then begin to try their hand.

The elevated position of the slab is soon appreciated, for this allows natural and free adzing movements; there is hardly any stooping, the feet are better braced to carry the swaying body, and the arms rise and fall naturally, and physical fatigue is reduced by the flying chips and every increasing pattern of the ngaotu stage by stage. It is a remarkable fact that at this stage of the learner's period of adzing, his eyes are particularly quick to detect any variations in the depths of his adzing, whether digging in too deeply or

 

 

kaupapa ki a Eramiha raua ko tana kuia. Katahi ka huri ana korero ki te tokorua nei. “E Miha, e Wai, ina tenei taonga kua homai nei e to tatau matua e Ngata ki a korua. Titiro atu tatau ki tana kaupapa kua whakaaturia mai nei e tana karere. Ahakoa i roto i to korua kaumatuatanga, e Miha, horahia nga taonga kei a koe. Tuatahi ki nga tamariki tane o te iwi Maori, te mau kapukapu, te whakairo, te waiata, te haka, te patere, te tu marae. Tuarua, te kaupapa o te Maoritanga ki nga marae maha o te iwi Maori. E Wai, pera ano koe, akona nga wahine ki nga taonga hei uhi, hei whariki i nga whare ka hanga nei e to tatau matua e Api. Hara mai haere korua, hei ringa, hei reo, hei kanohi mona ki tena iwi, ki tena iwi. Kaua e maharahara ki muri nei.” Ka mutu ana mihi, ka tu mai hoki tena tena o ratau a mene katoa ratau ki te maioha atu ki a Eramiha raua ko tana kuia ko te Wairata pera me ta te kai-korero tuatahi, apiti atu hoki ki te whakaaro o tena o tena o ratau. Ka mutu ratau ka tu a Eramiha ki runga ka waiata i tana oriori ka tu katoe hoki te whare: “Popo e tangi ana a Tama ki te kai mana.”

Ka waenganuitia te hari a ratau i te oriori nei, ka maringi mai ki roto ki au tetahi wairua hou, te koa, te hanga reka, te ngakau papaku, me te miharo, pera tonu me ta ratau hiki haere i nga kupu o te oriori, he wana hoki, ano ra, i ia hikinga o ratau reo, ko au tena e tarai ana me taku toki kapukapu, a ko nga maramara o taku taraitanga e makere ana pera me ta ratau hiki haere i te oriori nei. He tino mohio au ki tenei oriori, no te Tairawhiti hoki, engari mai i taua po, te 10 o Hanuere 1930 tae mai ki tenei po 21 o Hune 1959, kaore ano au kia rongo i tetahi ropu kia pai ake i a ratau. No te mea e waiata ana ratau katoa, he tangi he koa, he poroporoaki, he aroha kei roto i o ratau ngakau mo Eramiha raua ko te Wairata. Ka mutu ta ratau waiata, ka ki mai a Eramiha. Ina ka rongo atu nei i te take o to hara mai, apiti ki nga korero a te whanau kua korero mai nei, kei te hari te ngakau mo tenei taonga nui ka homai nei e koe hei whiriwhiri, hei whakaaro maku. Kei te tangi ki nga korero a to tatau matua a Ngata, tae atu hoki ki nga tamariki tane o te motu. Kua he ke nga ra o taku tinana me aku kanohi, engari ia ko te wairua kei te koro ingo tonu, waiho ra me huri ake au ki taku rangatira, mana e whakatau te tono a Apirana ki a maua.” Ka huri ia ki a te Wairata ka ki atu, “E Wai ma taua a whiriwhiri te whakautu tika, pono hoki, mo te tono a Ngata, mau e ki kua pu te raha, he oi ra, mau e ki ka haere taua, kua tau ki tena. Homai he korero ki te karere nei, kia wawe te mohio mai a Apirana.” Ka mutu ana korero, ka noho ki raro.

He roa te nohopukutanga o te whare, katahi ano a Te Wairata ka tu ki runga, ka ki, “E hika ma katahi nei te taru kino, ka riro ma te wahine e whakatau tenei tono ataahua a te iwi Maori, a Ngata, a te rangatahi. E Miha na to waiatatanga i te oriori na i a Popo, mohio tonu atu au kua

 

 

too lightly and taking notice too of the work and progress of the other learners. When a learner has completed a ten foot long slab from start to finish and it is reasonably done, he shakes off adze shyness, and nervousness, and he will do another slab with confidence and with a will. One of the surprising features of adzing is that at the end of the day there is no body fatigue, and I put this down to the fact that as each section of the work is completed there is a pattern left by the adze worked out in an orderly and regulated manner.

We have now completed the preliminary adzing prior to carving of a non-milled slab, now we will take a milled log and prepare it like the first slab.

The learner will consider the following points: (1) The correct side to carve on. (2) Scribing the edge to indicate the depth of relief in the carving. (3) Adzing out the back. (4) Marking out the centre and guide lines. (5) The actual adzing which follows on the same lines as the previous unmilled slab.

9. The art of shaping a figure in sections

When the learner has acquainted himself with adzing, his next step is adzing out of the different portions of the carving to give the greatest relief possible to those features he or his employers desire. The chisel cannot compare with the adze in finish and symmetrical balance, the lowered slanting eyes, the raised defiant eyebrows, the bold sweep of the head, all three features that enhance and make more prominent the gaping mouth with protruding tongue thrust boldly on to the breast, all these features easily, quickly and smoothly executed by the adze in the hands of an expert, and a learner must go through his paces before he too can do likewise. Once again the learner must watch the expert carefully in all the phases of cutting that he employs, furthered by repeated personal guidance, for not all carved figures are identical in adzing detail.

(a). Adzing the head, eyes, nose and tongue.

After the preliminary adzing, the figure or figures for carving are drawn out on the timber and these are then chiselled in with a v-shaped chisel as a guide for adze and chisel. The carver then starts to form the brow and eye on one side until completed. before starting work on the other side to balance it. He will adze out between the eyebrow and upper lip. If the relief allowed by the timber is six inches, then the adzing is at least three to four inches deep near the centre (i.e. the bridge of the nose) and as it slopes off to the edge it eases up to an inch. The cut employed at the eyebrow is poka, and at the upper lip ngaopae. The area for the eyes, after taking out quite a bit of timber, is then plotted and marked, and, by alternate use of adze and chisel, this is gradually separated from the brow and upper lip.

The greatest concentration of effort and work is that of the eyebrow, and the finished product has a slightly curved result. There is a feeling of satisfaction in doing and completing this part, for

 

 

whakae to wairua me to ngakau me haere taua, ahakoa kua koroheke ke taua. Waiho i ta te oriori i korero ai hei whakatau ma taua, Ka haere taua ki te mau i te wai-u mo nga tama maha o te iwi Maori, e tangi mai nei ki te kai ma ratau.” Ka mutu, ka noho.

Katahi ka tangi te titihaoa o roto o te whare, ka tu katoa, ka waiata ano i a Popo. Ki taku mohio tonu i taua wa, kei taku taha katoa aku tipuna mohio ki te mau kapukapu o te Tairawhiti, kua mate noa atu ra, kei taku taha e korero ana mai, awhitia enei kaumatua, akona a puritia ta raua taonga ka homai nei ki a koe, manaakitia, mauria kia kite te iwi Maori. Kei te miharo hoki ki tenei wahine, nana nei te whakaetanga mo taku tono, engari ia i te wa e tatari ana au kia tu ia ki te korero kei te kuku te po i au. Ina koa kei te ngangahu a, roto i au, kua ea taku powaiwai haeretanga i te rohe o Ngatiporou, kua rite ki ta Wiremu Potae i whakahau ra, “Tomokia nga rohe o nga iwi a whiwhi noa koe ki te tohunga mau toki kapukapu;” Kua tomokia te rohe o te waka nei o Mataatua, a kua whiwhi.

Te mutunga o te oriori nei ka mihi katoa matau ki nga tokorua nei, a e hia hoki nga waiata nga patere, i waiatatia, ko tona manaaki hoki tera i nga taonga a taua a te iwi Maori.

Ko Eramiha te whakamutunga ki te korero—ka mihi ia ki tana kuia, ki ona whanaunga, a ki au hoki, katahi ka ki mai. “E tama, ko au no Ngati Tarawhai, no Te Arawa, e tika ana ma Te Wairata maua e tuku i runga i te rangimarie, kaati kua puta mai etahi kupu ataahua mo te tono a Ngata ki a maua. Hoatu ki to taua iwi ki a Te Arawa, he ngahuru tenei, ka paenga ra nga hua o te tau ka whaiti, ka hara mai koe ki te tiki mai i a maua. Te ahua nei mate atu maua ki kona, ina hoki te kaupapahaaro o nga hiahia o nga iwi puta noa, a tae atu ki te Waipounamu. Kaati e pai ana, ko to tatau matua ko Apirana kei te matau ki te arahi i te iwi Maori, kia tipu ai, kia pakari ai i roto i te maru o tana kupu e rangona ake nei i te Maoritanga.

Ka akona matau e Eramiha Kapua i roto i te kura whakairo ki te mau kapukapu. No te wiki tuatahi o Pepuere 1930 ka tae mai te karanga a

 

 

the learner will be told that all other portions are much easier to do. Stroke after stroke of the adze is struck, shaving this more or less straight up and down cut, until one is satisfied, or the expert, that the result is good, then the opposite side is to balance and coincide. It often needs a further touch up before the work is done.

When the eyebrows and eyes are finished, the adze and chisel shape off the nose. Similarly with the top of the head, a slight rounding off at the top end of the timber, finished off by marking out the centre position of the topknot with bevelled chisel and adze.

Then follows the deepest adzing on the whole figure, that of bringing into relief the mouth, the tongue, the lower jaw and the shoulders. This adzing is somewhat easier than the previous adzing, for the angle of cutting is not so pronounced. In this adzing the lower jaw is recessed, the tongue cut wedged-shaped on to the chest and the shoulders deeply swept back to the base of the lower jaw. Actually a few strokes bring all parts at once into high relief, and by use of the paring and bevelled chisels, except for deepening the mouth cavity, the whole operation is simple. The ease in obtaining this result, of course, is due to the previous training, and the eyes soon detect and correct any off balance.

(b) The shoulders, arms, hands and body.

Now that the head is completed, the learner will immediately see that, because of the previous adzing, the shoulders, arms and body are almost shaped, only a few cuts at the armpits, at the base of the forearm and downward adzing at the navel to form the body. The final placing of hands and fingers is done with a chisel.

(c) The legs, knees and feet.

Here again no special technique is required, except careful adzing, and if there is to be a figure below the feet then you just do preliminary adzing here and your main concentration will be on top of the head, eyebrows, eyes, mouth and tongue.

Comparison in Output

I have stated at the beginning that it is the normal output of an expert to complete a carved panel 10 feet long 2 feet wide 8 inches thick in 8 days. My own output is one in 5 days or 40 hours. The learner must know this from the very first lesson. As he progresses with his adze on carving, he will be constantly reminded that only those portions of the carvings not covered by surface decorations are to be cleanly adzed, for far too much time is wasted by unecessary adzing. This of course is not discouraged, rather one is weaned off gradually.

The learner will take seven to eight weeks to finish a panel. He will require a year to reduce this down to four weeks, and at the end of two years take two weeks to complete one, and that is an excellent rate of progress. Very few pupils from the Maori School of Arts have attained this standard and those that have are now the leading carvers of the Maori people. By and large, adzing

 

 

Eramiha kia tikina atu raua. Kua mohio a Apirana kua whakae a ia ki te ako i a matau, a kua rite te kainga, te taha oranga mo raua tae atu ki te waka tiki i a raua. Ka tae atu au ki tona kainga ka utaina ana taonga, a ka ki mai a ia kei te pa i Kokowhinau, kei roto i a Ruataupare whare whakairo te po poroporoaki i a raua a te iwi, a mo te ata matau ka haere ki Rotorua. Kua mohio katoa nga hapu maha o te Teko e haere ana raua ki te Kura Whakairo i Rotorua ki te ako i nga tamariki tane o te motu ki te mau toki kapukapu hei arahi i te whakatu o te whakairo kia atanga, kia rere te wehi. Te unga atu ki Kokowhinau ki tonu te marae i te iwi e pohiri ana mai i a matau, a ka tuku matau ka whai-korerotia mai au i te tuatahi, a muri iho ki aku kaumatua, kei te tu tonu kei te tangi. Ka mutu nga whakahoki a matau ka hongi, ka haere ki te kai, ka mutu, kai uru ki roto o Ruataupare whare. Tuaki rawa ake te po, ki tonu to matau whare i nga iwi o Matatua. Ka mutu te karakia Ringatu, ka tu te iwi ki te poroporoaki i nga kaumatua nei. Etahi korero ataahua i puta mo raua, a ko taku marama taka mo Pepuere 1930 ki tonu i a ratau kupu mo raua, te pono, te ngakau whakaiti, te hapai i nga mahi a te iwi, te pupuri i te whakapono, to raua matau ki nga waiata, ki nga oriori, ki nga patere, te matau o Eraminha ki te hanga whare, ki tarai waka, ki te whakairo, ki te mahi kai, ki te miraka kau, a to Te Wairata ki nga mahi a te wahine, ki te raranga takapau, kete me era atu mahi. Kaore o ratau awangawanga mo ta raua haere, mo te mea

 

 

is merely employed to expedite the cutting to achieve high relief and more rounded and flowing lines of the carved figure. The Maori student excels in adzing, and very few have failed in excellent work, but it is the surface decoration and finish in carving that is so hard to obtain.

 

ma Ngata raua e tiaki, a ma te mate rano raua e whakahoki mai, ka haere raua hei matua mo nga tamariki o te iwi Maori. Katahi ka tapaea ki te taonga. No tetahi rangi mai ka haere matau ki Rotorua, ko nga tangata ako ki te whakairo o te Kura e tauwhanga mai ana, a, ka manaaki ratau i nga kaumatua nei. No muri noa mai ka manaakitia raua e nga kaumatua o Te Arawa.

Kaore i ra tahi te whakanohanga o Eramiha ki to raua kainga kua ki mai kua hiahia ia ki te timata ki te ako i a matau. Ka koa katoa matau. Mai i te whakakoi toki tae noa ki nga ara maha o te tarai ki runga porototara, tae noa atu ki te tarai ki runga whakairo, apiti ki nga kupu e tika ana mo tena wahanga mo tena wahanga, ka piki haere ke atu to matau kaingakau ki ta matau mahi, ia ra, ia wiki, ia marama, a ka kite ka mohio hoki au ki taku kuaretanga ki te whakairo.

Ehara a Eramiha i te tangata whakatapu i tana mahi tarai ki runga ki te whakairo, ko te hua, ka tauwhawhainga matau ki te whai o ana tohutohu i ana hanga, a pau rawa ake te tau, i mua i to matau haerenga ki Ngapuhi ki te whakairo i te Tiriti o Waitangi Whare mo te rau tau o Niu Tireni, ka whaikupu a ia ki a Ngata, kua taea e te kura te mau o te toki kapukapu ki runga whakairo, kei te koa ia ki tena ki tena o nga tamariki, haere rawa ake ki runga ki nga iwi ma ratau tonu e ako nga mea e pirangi ana ki te ako. Ka mihi hoki a Apirana ka ki atu, “E Miha ina a taua tamariki, haere koutou ki nga iwi o te motu.”

Tekau tau maua ko Eramiha e mahi tahi ana i runga i nga marae maha o te iwi Maori, a, i roto i ena tau e rua tekau ma wha nga tangata nana i ako no nga iwi katoa o te motu, no Ngapuhi, no Ngatiporou, no Waikato, no Ngakikahungunu, no Ngati Raukawa, no Taranaki, no whanau-a-Apanui. Ko Eremahia te tohunga whakamutanga o te oa tawhito, ka waimarie nei matau, nana hoki i whakaatu te huarahi ki te tarai i te taitea o te rakau kia tu ko taikaka, ki te whakatakoto i te ara haratua, ki te mau haere i te ngaotu i te ngaopae, ki te poka hoki kia tarewa ai te poka o te arero i runga i te whakairo, a haere atu he whare whakairo i runga i te motu ko te ha o tona akonga i a matau e waitohu ana.

Haere e Miha, kei muri nei to taonga e takoto toitu ana i roto i nga ringa o tamariki maha puta noa te motu, engari haere atu korua ko te Wairata me a korua patere, waiata, oriori, whakakoemi, whakangahau i te paopao a te patupatu ki runga i te whao, ko enei a korua taonga kaore i taea e te rangatahi—Haere korua haere.

Pine Taiapa 21.6.59

MAORI GIRL

By Noel Hilliard. (Wm. Heinemann Ltd., publisher) Reviewed by Melvin Taylor

This Is An extraordinarily well-written, gripping novel dealing with a subject close to the Maori people—the problem of the young and unsophisticated Maori impelled by a variety of circumstances to leave their country homes and work in the city.

There is probably no Maori who has not met this problem, either in their own experience or through some one dear to them.

For this reason alone, quite apart from its entertainment value, Maori Girl should have universal interest and appeal in the Maori world.

Basically, Maori Girl is a documentary study of the stress and tragedy of city life swamping a young Maori, Netta Samuel. But it is much more, too. It is extra good entertainment, a pleasant way of passing the time. But it is much more than that, too. It is a powerful and moving drama as indeed is the real life story of the thousands of young Netta Samuels who must make their way in the cities, though ill-equipped to cope with the city which is equally ill-equipped to cope with them.

The story is told with a great depth of feeling and insight into the problems with which young Maori people and their parents are all too familiar. It is full of the human, warm and homespun touches that make it easy to identify one's self, friends and relations with the characters involved. I can hear many a Maori saying, “that sounds just like what happened to Kura, or Wai or Bubs,” for it is a story that has been lived many times though no other writer has seen it so clearly or painted it so vividly as Mr Hilliard.

This is the problem that administrators necessarily paint with cold statistics. This is the major Maori social problem of our time. This is the plight of the Maori people in their migration from country to town. This is that problem, in the raw, crying out for an answer.

Mr Hilliard paints the picture with a skilful use of words. He sets the changing scenes swiftly with a few lightning strokes of his word brush so that one naturally captures the current mood of his characters.

For those who have waited years for this theme to be dramatised, and there are many, I would say that this is it—the New Zealand novel of our time, in that it deals successfully with perhaps the major social problem of our time.

Mr Hilliard does not spell out the moral, he does not lecture. He simply tells the story which carries its own dynamic message, tinged with sadness, of the pitfalls of city life for those not armed to meet its thrusts.

THE POHUTUKAWA TREE

by Bruce Mason. Price Milburn, Wellington 7/6. Reviewed by Earle Spencer.

The Pohutukawa Tree by Bruce Mason, is a play about a widow of sixty, Aroha Mataira, who lives with her two children Queenie and Johnny, at Te Parenga. As her children grow up Mrs Mataira teaches them to believe in their Maori-tanga and in the Christian religion. When the play begins, Queenie is seventeen and Johnny is eighteen. The family works for Mr Atkinson who has fifteen acres of the best land in Te Parenga laid out as a citrus orchard.

The story is simple enough. Queenie meets a young man and falls in love with him. After three months she finds that she is going to have a baby but he refuses to marry her because she is a Maori. Mrs Mataira sends Queenie away to her people, the Ngati Raukura, at Tamatea, to have the baby. Johnny reacts violently to the family's unhappiness. He gets drunk and taking a taiaha, goes to the Church and smashes the stained glass window of the Light of the World behind and above the altar. He is charged with wilful damage and sentenced to three months' reformative detention.

The play makes it clear that the young ones, Queenie and Johnny, will outlive their troubles, but the double disgrace kills Aroha. The people of the community who know her and respect her cannot comfort her. She wills her death rather than have anything to do with their cheap alternatives. She is found at the end with the taiaha by two old Maori women dressed in black with black scarves around their heads. Ka to he ra, ka ura he ra.

The play was first produced in 1957 by the New Zealand Players Theatre Workshop at Wellington and Auckland. It has since been produced in 1959 on the B.B.C. Television Sunday Night Theatre series and in 1960 in New Zealand by the New Zealand Broadcasting Service, and recently, most successfully in Wales. Aroha Mataira and her children, the farmer Atkinson and his wife and daughter, the Reverend Athol Sedgewick, Claude Johnson, the land agent, and the others in this play have been introduced to millions of people. These people have seen and heard Mr Mason describe things as they are.

Roy McDowell, the grocer's son who refuses to marry Queenie, the daughter of twenty-five generations of the Ngati-Raukura, says, “Aw, what does it matter to my Mum that Queenie comes from a long line of chiefs. She's just a Maori to her.”

When Mrs Mataira is mortally sick Mrs Atkinson, the farmer's wife, says, “For nearly twenty years I patronised her, thought of her almost as a servant…. And when it comes to a crisis what do I do? Snip flowers.”

Clive Atkinson has a rough affection for Mrs Mataira but he wants her land. Johnny at eighteen loves horses and reads comics. And then there is Aroha Mataira herself, who minds her own business and who will not listen when the Reverend Athol Sedgwick says to her, “Forget greatness; forget history.”

Mr Mason has dedicated the book to the Maori people with these words, “Nga mihi me taku aroha ki te iwi Maori.”

I recommend it to you.

DUTCH CLERGYMAN JOINS MAORI SYNOD

A Dutch Imigrant clergyman has accepted an appointment with the Maori Synod. He is the Reverend P. H. de Bres who has been chaplain to the Dutch immigrants in the Wellington district since his arrival in New Zealand in 1954. Mr de Bres resigned from this position early this year. Mr de Bres, who is also the minister of St David's Presbyterian Church, Lower Hutt, has accepted an appointment with the Maori Synod, which he will take up by the end of the year. During 1961, he will devote part of his time to the study of Maori language and culture.

A LETTER FROM AFRICA

The following letter will explain itself:

• The Bata Shoe Store

• Murandy Square,

• Enterprise Road,

• Highlands,

• Salisbury,

• South Rhodesia, AFRICA.

Dear Sir,

I am an African boy of 23 years of age. As I heard of some interests in that country of New Zealand, I have decided to ask you if I can get in touch with some of the Maori people, who can do speak and write English. I am not also so good in English as I am not an English boy but an African black having black curly hair.

I kindly ask you again if at all you have a paper which publish pen pals page in New Zealand to publish my request in there.

My interests are of knowing far countries especially overseas and to write some other people of all races letters especially the Maoris as the people whom I am really interested in hearing from them.

Sorry sir for your worries have done to you. Hoping to hear news of New Zealand soon through you sir,

• I am, sir,

• Yours faithfully,

• Lazarus M. Zishiri.

Readers of Te Ao Hou are invited to correspond with Mr Zishiri.

A CHAIN REACTION

The Practical measures that induce closer racial integration move through a circle of chain reaction, says the Hunn report. Better education promotes better employment, which promotes better housing, which promotes better health and social standing, which promotes better education and thus closes the circle.

TITLE REFORM

The object of land title reform must be to bring about sole ownership and to prevent it from disintegrating. Fragmentation of ownership proposed a serious bar to the proper use of land in the interests of the Maoris themselves, and in the national interest also.

INTEGRATION

Intermarriage is relentlessly integrating, even assimilating, Maori and pakeha while philosophers soberly meditate what the policy should be, states the Hunn report.

Intermarriage was believed to have reduced the number of full-blooded Maoris to 30,000, or about 20% of the Maori population. Consequently, says the report, the number of Maoris with some strain of pakeha in them may be as high as 120,000. The Maoris have taken quite remarkable strides forward in the last two generations. In another two generations, it states, they should be almost fully integrated. Full integration of the Maori people into the main stream of New Zealand life was coming to be recognised as about the most important objective ahead in the country today.

The report asks, what precisely is New Zealand's policy for the future of the Maori race? The answer was elusive, because nowhere was it defined. This was probably deliberate and wise. It recognised that evolution would take its course and pay scant attention to statutory formulas. Evolution governed policy, not vice versa. This would be the lesson of South Africa's attempt to force a policy of apartheid on an unwilling people.

Integration means combining, not fusing, the Maori and pakeha elements to form one nation in which Maori culture will remain distinct. The Swiss-French, Italians, Germans—appeared to be an integrated society. The British—Celts, Britons, Hibernians, Danes, Anglo-Saxons, Normans—appeared to be an assimilated society. Britain passed through integration to assimilation. Signs were not wanting that that might be the destiny of New Zealand in the distant future. The Maoris today could be broadly classified in three groups:

1	A completely detribalised minority.
2	The main body, pretty much at home in either society.
3	Another minority complacently living a backward life in primitive conditions.

The object of policy should be, presumably, to eliminate the third group by raising it to the second, and to leave it to the personal choice of group 2 whether they stayed there or joined group 1—in other words, whether they remained integrated or became assimilated.

Here and there were Maoris who resented the pressure brought to bear on them to conform to what they regarded as the pakeha or alien mode of life. It was not, in fact, a pakeha way of life, simply, but the modern way, common to advanced people—the Japanese, for example—in all parts of the world.

MAORI AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT

In one form or another, the Department of Maori Affairs would survive for many years to come. Other departments might have the main responsibility for particular aspects of Maori welfare—health, education, employment—but the Department of Maori Affairs should be conceded, and should accept a residual responsibility to keep in close touch with these functions, and if necessary, exert its influence on behalf of the Maori people. Granted that the policy was to let Maoris stand on their own feet and deal with the ordinary departments; granted too that more of that could be done even now; the more of it that was done the more would the Department of Maori Affairs be forced to assume a watching brief over other departmental operations. The time had come, however, to think of transferring its physical operations—house-building, land development—to agency departments.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDY

Forty Wellington archaeologists spent their holidays in January working in the Wanganui area on ancient pa sites, among them the fortress of Tarata. The expedition, under the direction of the assistant ethnologist of the Dominion Museum (Mr D. C. Smart) was trying to learn more about early Maori culture. In earlier excavations on the site of Tarata last summer and winter, the archaeologists have already discovered interesting features in this ancient stronghold, which has unusually-shaped food pits and house sites, plus the main entrance to the pa. The entrance ramp was specially constructed of earth instead of the Maoris choosing a natural feature for the purpose. It was the only way of approach to the pa and was built narrow, so that only a few attackers at a time could assault the entrance. This feature is still largely preserved and above ground. Much of the remainder of the pa is within a few inches of the grass on the crest of a hill overlooking the Waitotara Valley.