"OLD MAORI MANNERS"

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 80, 2 October 1933, Page 8

"OLD MAORI MANNERS"

(To the Editor.) Sir,—l have read with interest the letter which appeared in your journal last night under the heading of "Maori Manners," and signed by. one "Kore Te Waharau." In'this he claims that "Xohunga's" artielo is incorrect in its reference to the cannibalistic tendencies o£ the old Maori. Surely a genuine Maori does not infer that the Maoris of 120 years ago were not cannibals? Why, it is only 113 years a"o that Waka Nene, his brother Patuone, and the famous warrior Te Eaunaraha led a war party down througu the Taranaki, Wangahui, and Manawatu dibtiicta imrely for the purpose of enjoying a spell of human diet, one of their feasts being celebrated on our own harbour of Port Nicholson. Cannibalism is cveu mentioned in the legends of old Maori as, for example, in the origin ot the kumera. Such a record need not necessarily ■be taken as a "black mark" against the iorefatbers of the present-day Maoris. Every race has its own particular "skeleton m the cupboard," the pakeha not excluded And if. the vivid book, which your correspondent claims may one day be written around the .old-time Maori, is to bs a genuine portrait, he must bear in mind that the Maoris' habits as they actually were will have to be described— not what their present-day descendants would have liked them to be.—l am, etc., TAMEHANA. September 30.