SOCIAL USAGES OF THE MAORI.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 7, Issue 431, 3 December 1918, Page 4

SOCIAL USAGES OF THE MAORI.

Under the above title, an interesting little booklet has been issued, comprising the text of a lecture recently delivered at Wellington by Mr £lsdou Best, a recognised authority upon the habits and customs of the Maori race. In his lecture Mr Best has catered for the average intelligence auditor, rather than for the strictly scientific man, and has managed to make his address highly interesting, without involving his hearers in the technicalities usually so beloved by the past-masters of any subject. He has done much to enhance popular knowledge of one of the most interesting primitive races of modern times, who were living actually in the Stone Age, when this country was settled by the white man only two or three generations ago. The Maori was strictly a communist. The unit of the social structure was the Whauau (or family group). A number of Whauaus were associated together to form a napu (or community, or, as Mr Best prefers to call it, a clan), and an aggregation ot clans constituted the Iwi (or tribe). There was no national life, or even federation of tribes, but each was an entity in itself. They owned their goods in common, and their land theoretically in common also, though in practice each family group held its own area, but had no power to alienate it. The Maori was a peculiar mixture of aristocrat and democrat His high-born chiefs had great sway, but only while they remained what the people considered of good behaviour. If they failed to show good qualities they were deposed, and others put into their positions. Men and women alike had an equal right to express their opinions on any public question, and the chief who failed to consult his people, or who acted contrary to their expressed wishes, was riding for a fall. The Maoris were essentially a warlike people. Inter-tribal wars were of continual occurrence. Mr Best says " Every man was ready at a moment's notice to defend the commune. Let but a signal fare gleam on a far range, or the doleful booming of the war trumpets resound through the forest, and every able-bodied man seized spear and patu, girded up his loins, and in single file swing out upon the war-trail. Nor did the Second Division man stay to claim 3d. moie per day —he jumped right into it. And Mrs Second Division often went along, too. She went to cook the dinner—and you know what that dinner was." There is a large amount of information about the institution of tapu, and its strong influence over Maoris ot all classes. The power of imposing [oi removing; tapu in great measure accounted for the vast influence the tohungas (or priests) had. The religion and the gods of the Maoris are described at some length, and an excellent account is given ot the singular custom of " ruuru." Muru means "to plunder" and was used as a punishment for evildoers, and very often against people whom we should consider more sinned against than sinniug Altogether Mr Best has given a most interesting account ot a most interesting people.