A PROLONGED TANGI.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1086, 19 April 1913, Page 4

A PROLONGED TANGI.

PROCEEDING FOR OVER TWO MONTHS.

ROUGH ON THE HOST,

AUCKLAND, April 1G

An unusually prolonged tangi at a Maori pa about midway between Ohakune and liaotihi is creating a good deal of c,ommeij.t ip the district. A native died there tw<? mofltfh* RS°> whereupon his father found himself the host of for ever- growing parties or Maori sympathisers- They began to arrive from all directions i|) buggies ami on horseback. Several even tramped out to the pa from the station at Ohakune. The gathering has not yet dispersed. The tangi (says a N.Z. Herald correspondent) is proceeding in an open paddock by the roadside in front of the meeting house, of Maoris are to be seen reclining ip varipns positions on the ground, on .stacks'of timber, in wheel barrows, or on water tanks, listening to one of their number who, an umbrella in his right hand to WMfl emphasise his points, holds forth for hours in expaiiatiou no doubt of the host s good qualities- Three flags arc suspended half-mast in the centre of the paddock. Some rough whu )'e-likc contrivances down by the oaiik of the creek shelter the women, who placidly smoke briar pipes or cigarettes and perform the culinary and laundry operations. D,ogs and chilflfcj), the latter in splendid shawls, prowl in and P’ c " turc, and the native mats of the tfihe hang out in the sun for an airing together with a hewn of blankets. Away in the corner of the pad4fl ( ‘!? stands a newly-built tomb of concrete, with an air-tight doorway. Here reposes the corpse. No attempt has been made to inter , the remains beneath the ground, and two or three times since the tangi opened the tomb has been opened and the dead man been brought opt fop further mounpPg attentions. Whether or not the cost of' this prolonged tangi will in time impoverish _ the old Maori who is footing the bill is hard to say. His first invoice for groceries at the outset of the functions is said to have been £3OO. From the way in which the various buggies and traps of visiting natives are lying around, covered with jtarpiqdbk;, fjpd the fact that an adjoining paddock contains ipapy jwses wearing the peaceful' hfbk 1 of undisturbed holiday-making, it would seem that the gathering hs\s forgotten how to disperse, a