GENERAL NEWS

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3925, 2 April 1929, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS

THE SUCCULENT CRAYFISH. The Maori’s love for-crayfish, particularly the extra succulent kind, was much in evidence at the Ngaruawahia regatta. For the European visitors the chief attractions were the aquatic events in which the Natives took part, but the Maoris revelled in the side-shows and other attractions specially staged for their benefit. Food was in constant demand, with a choice that ranged from smoked fish to watermelon, ice-cream and other dainties. Some well-tatooed patriarchs sampled pretty well everything in the eatable line, but crayfish, as long as the supply lasted, were in chief demand. MAORI BREVITY, Whatever one may think of some rather incongruous parts of the new Maori meeting-house at Ngaruawahia one can have only admiration for the dedication description. Though the lettering is obviously the work of a skilled pakeha signwriter, the sentiment is quite Maori, and most effective in its brevity, its expressiveness, and its lack of a string of names of the mayor-and-town-cleric type. At the top is the name of the building “Mahinarangi,” a famous ancestress of the Waikato people, then follow four lines which may be translated, “Waikato thought of the idea, the East Coast tribes sent help, the Government pushed it on, and the tribes of both Islands finished it.” The fifth line is merely the date of the opening ceremony. The whole thing might be taken as an example for many pakeha foundation stones. A TENACIOUS MIDGET.

A Wellington traveller was doing the journey to Napier by service car, and in the stage midway from Palmerston North the driver turned to him and said: “Do you mind if I open out a bit? I want to shake that little beggar off.” The little beggar was a midget car that had hung on behind for several miles. The traveller agreed, and the big car accelerated and ran on a few miles, but the midget was still there. Approaching a small township, the road widened out at a bend, and to the astonishment of the service car driver the midget slipped by him. Until within a few miles of Napier the midget kept the lead, and the traveller enjoyed the fun immensely. At the forked roads the midget went one way, the service car the other, and arrived in Napier in due course. A few minutes later the midget turned up in Napier also. He had taken the wrong road at the forks, or he would have been there first. DRESSING UP.

The Maori dearly loves dressing up. One saw instances of that at the big “hui” at Ngaruawahia. The police at Puea’s pa wore a halfbrassard of broad scarlet ribbon attached with a safety pin. One of them, who looked like a serang, had chosen an addition of his own, a sort of jewel-packet favour, a rosette made of glittering sequins, finished off with a small aigrette at the top. This quaint order he wore in his button-hole, just as Frenchmen wear a bit of ribbon when they belong to the Legion of Honour. Some of the dark-eyed charming daughters of the kainga wore the very last word in flapper frocks, silk stockings, bobbed hair and so on. Here and there a thoughtfulfaced kuia (old WoWan) stuck to the traditional black skirt and blouse, bare feet, and a handkerchief tied round her head. Somehow or other they seemed to fit more into the picture than their more ambitious grandchildren.