A MAORI MASQUERADE.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2167, 27 February 1880, Page 3

A MAORI MASQUERADE.

The dresses worn by the Maoris at the festival at Otaki presented in some cases a comical appearonce. One young man (says the Foxton paper), a fine-looking fellow, was dressed in a very tight pair of men's under pants, white shirt, black hat, trimmed with a great quantity of spotted muslin, and around his loins some yards of the same material wound in a very picturesque manner, giving him rather a “ Grecian bend ” appearance. Ho was one of tbo front men in the procession. Some of the articles worn by those in the procession included silk and holland coats, duck and flannel trousers, white shirts and ties white boots and canvas slippers, and other equally peculiar mixtures. Some of the men looked well in white shirts and a sheet wound round the lower part from the waist. One Maori of a religious turn of mind, with a desire to copy the surplices of the clergymen, appeared on the scene with a nightgown on. And he looked well in it, too, as it became his portly figure. In contrast to the European costume, a handsome young chief named Karaitiana walked about all day clothed in a rich mat of Native make, in which were blended some beautiful colors. Stuck in his hair were two feathers of the native bird huia, a large black feather with an inch of white at tip. Inhis right hand he carried a magnificent greenstone mere, about a foot long and several inches broad, with the edges rubbed down as keen as a knife. As he strutted about he excited universal admiration.