A FAIRY TALE

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3591, 27 January 1927, Page 4

A FAIRY TALE

‘WITH MAORI SAVAGES”

AMERICAN’S VIEWS OF CHRISTCHURCH.

The ignorance of a section of the United States Press regarding New Zealand, its cities and people, is at times remarkable, and the gullibility of some members of literary staffs when interviewing travellers does not rebound to the intelligence of the pressmen concerned. In 19£2 a very imaginative young lady, Beatrice A. Manning, paid a visit to New Zealand. Since then she has been some time returning to her home town, Albany, in New York State, a town about the size of Wellington. The young lady was interviewed by a pressman, and the tale she told regarding the semi-barbarous natives of South Island and the earthquakes in Christchurch on Christmas Day of 1922, would have done credit to the most imaginative and melodramatic of modern day writers. A cutting was sent to a King Country resident from one of the Albany (New York State) papers, and was headed: “With Maori Savages.” (says an exchange). THE STORY. , The article read as follows: — The South Island of New Zealand where Christmas weather is like that of northern Junes, provided the strangest Christmas in the experience of Miss Beatrice A. Manning', 409 State street, who has possibly ranged farther over the world than any other resident of Albany. Although for several years Miss Manning has passed most of her time in travelling and has Covered the remotest corners of the earth, the Christmas of 1922, which found her at the little British colony of Christchurch at the extremity of South New Zealand, is'the only one she ha s'* celebrated in 7 a foreign land. An earthquake, which rent the island in the midst of a balmy, hibiscus scented afternoon, and a semi-barbarous Maori tribe, were the highlights of a somewhat lurid holiday at the farthest end of the world. “We were motoring back to Christchurch after a fifty-mile trip across the island when the earthquake occurred,” said Miss Manning. “We were all seized with a dreadful dizziness, which we could not account for until we saw the earth heaving, throwing pedestrians to the ground and bouncing automobiles several feet into the air. SEEING THINGS. “The tower of a public building, 'and the steeple of a church in the centre of the city, crashed to the ground only a few feet away from us. Although the damage is outlying regions was heavy, and the loss of life among the natives very great, the town where we were, escaped with less punishment, and we did not realise at the time the extent, of the disaster. “The Maoris celebrate a feast of their own on December 25. I have

never discovered the origin of it, ,but coming at the height of the liarvest, and characterised in part by a ceremony based on ancester worship, it suggests a combination religious and harvest feast. They call it the day of thankfulness. ' “We sat down at evening with about 100 members of the tribe, ranged Turk fashion around a largo grass mat, with a huge earthen bowl in the centre, called the kava cup, containing a drink the natives brew from fruit and nuts. The dishes served were principally fish, the exotic fruits peculiar to the climate, and a native dish called poi. The tribes performed a sort of weird dance, in sitting posture during the feast, and danced after the meal was over.”

The foregoing extracts reveal that Miss Manning’s imaginations is in no direction at fault, whatever her sense of accuracy.