MAORI AND PAKEHA.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 350, 5 April 1911, Page 5

MAORI AND PAKEHA.

j Do Maori and pakeha understand j each other? This subject is discussed interestingly by the "Post's" special correspondent who attended the native gathering at Papawai. To-day, he say?, the young .Maori is in a critical position. He has sold his birthright, and he is eating his pottage. And when he is finished let one who is Maori speak. "You ask me," he said, "if the pakeha and Mauri understand each other'.' I say 'No.' The pakeha has had centuries with his nose to the grindstone; he may not like the process, but he is accustomed to it. at least he tolerates it. Well, it has made him the exact and exacting man he is. He is precise to his time, and the observance of time is a religion. To the Maori such precision is incomprehensible. You laugh and say, 'Ah, ah, Taihoa again.' But listen, friend, your child will skip for half an hour, or bowl her hoop, or do any tiring exercise she wills, but a3k her to clean the knives or do some work for half an hour, will she not tire of it long before then? You pakehas work not because you like it, but because you must. You think you like it, you sometimes say you do. Gammon! Your child in showing her delight in play and her distaste for work is true to herself. She is natural. So with the Maori; he is but a child of nature. Think kindly of him, then, when you do not find him so industrious as you are yourselves. "You have become as you are by a hard and, let me tell you, an tinpleasing process. The Maori is not enamoured of your state. lie cannot understand how you can be, and you can belive me when I say it, he does not believe that in your heart you are. "Now look how the Maori worked in his day," the narrator continued. "He's had a house to build. Very well, then, there were twenty or j thirty men to help him. All worked, j fitfully if you will, but all worked j with a will and worked hard, but their | labour was spiced with pleasure. It j was all one great jolly game full of ! fun, full of talk, laughter, jest, song and story. There was no time; an i eight hour clay was unthinkable. Day ■ began with the dawn, and when the j twilight came it ended. As with the j house, so with the canoe, and so, too, | with cultivation. Many hands made j light work-. It might be morning, it j might be noon, it might be nearing j evening. Some of the builders would \ say 'Let the women get the kai.' All i would agree. Work then ended at ! once for that day, perhaps for several j days. What mattered? Time was not of the essence of the contract, j You can see that people who work as if j they played could bring much energy j to bear upon the task in hand. Task ! i it was no task. lam wrong to call it such. It was a pleasure. No, let no man call the Maori lazy. That is not true. Bind the Maori down to eight or even four hours' work and expect him to keep at it and you will wound him to death. Worry him, hustle him, chivvy him, and ho will do away with himself. He must not be harassed like a dog in a city street." Then it was pointed out that the fondness of the Maori youth for billiards, joyful socks, tan boots, and gaucheries of an inartistic sort was surely foreign to him. "That is the young Maori of to-day," was the reply. But all you see is but proof of what I say. He loves pleasure, does the Maori. Is he wrong? Is he alone in that? Where he has the means he indulges and gratifies his tastes. Is he singular in that? It expresses itself, this love of pleasure, in motor cars, coloured waistcoats, large checks, yellow boots, and brass bands. Well, you say, the Maori is fickle in his pleasures or his pursuits. Can you blame him for never having the environment that made you the disciplined people you are? You might have smiled perhaps in the pa when those dancing in the hakas wore around them Scottish plaids as kilts. Who was it taught them the magnificence of tartans? Bless you, they will all be Macphesons, Gordons, Frasers, Campbells, Mac Leans, what you will, if you tell them that pakeha clans took pride in such things. Think not that the colours alone pleased. I cannot say what the young Maori will become, I am no prophet, but even j upon the material which the present supplies I will not venture an opinion. Both now dwell together in peace, and so they will continue, but friends, the one does not understand the other nor ever will."