Grandfather’s Yarns.

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 23, 1 September 1894, Page 11

Grandfather’s Yarns.

AT WAIKAWA. BREAKING THE TAPU. INVITED TO “ RUB NOSES.” MAORI GIRLS AND WOMEN.

(All Rights Reserved). No. m, to

“ I’ll tell you about an old Maori called Kaupatiti to-night, if you like, boys,” said grandfather, so we all left what we were doing and came to his side. “ I had been down to Port Molyneux with Bloody Jack,” he began, “and on our way home we called in at Waikawa. There was a fishery there then, and in the afternoon we were in the headsman’s house, and I could see that one of our boat’s crew, a Maori, was quite faint with hunger.

44 So I said to the owner of the house, a Yankee named Mantell, You might let me give that poor boy something to eat. 4 Certainly, said he, 4 give him as much as he wants. 44 So I cut him off some pork and damper, and gave him a quart pot of tea; and he was sitting down quietly eating this when in came Jack. He asked the boy who gave him the food, and the told him that I did, so Jack turned to me and said, There* will be a row when we get back to Ruapuka,’ so I asked him why. 4 Because that hoy has a tapu on him: He’s not allowed to eat in a house like this,’ said Jack. 4 Wait till you see old Kaupatiti, his grandfather, and then you won’t ask whj .’ 44 Kaupatiti was a high priest, or something among them. He was for ever tapu-iug somebody, and woe betide the person who removed or disregarded his tapu. I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known at the time, but I couldn’t see the poor fellow half starving, and I wasn’t very frightened of his grandfather, though he was such a great man. He had more slaves, I believe, than any other person in the South Island. 44 When we were quite three miles off the land, one old fellow in the boat started hollering to Kaupatiti what I’d done. We could see him trudging along the beach with his stick in his hand, to where he knew we’d land. Of course it was a long time before he could Understand, but while we were a good way off, the old fellow made out the meaning of what they were nearly all by this time yelling to him. There was a strong wind blowing us ashore. 44 When we reached the beach he was about 100 yards off—we had reached the landing first—though we had been coming along the beach with him, as it were. 44 Jack told me to take my bag and run for his house, for even Kaupaiti daren’t go in there. So I shouldered my bag and ran for it, and he after me, storming and fuming and brandishing his stick. I reached the house before he caught me. I stood just inside and he outside, as near as he dared to come, making such faces, poking out ‘his tongue, and cutting such capers, and fairly foaming at the mouth with rage. 44 He called out to Jack to know what the Pakeha’s name was, and when Jack told him, his passion was over in a moment, and he wanted me to go out and 4 nose ’ him. 44 But I wasn’t going to 4 nose ’ him for anything. You see I was a regular white-headed boy among the Maories, and they thought far more of me than I deserved. 44 You should have seen the Maories afterwards taking off the little scene between Kaupatiti and myself —they were the best actors and mimics that 1 ever saw. 44 1 used to think it was as good as an opera when the boats came in to see the girls come to the beach to meet them. When we were whaling in

Otago, there was one particular point they always came to, and they danced on the sand as we came in, singing and clapping their hands and keeping time, forty or fifty of them in a row with their clean mats and shining hair adorned with chaplets of leaves of flowers. I suppose their ages varied from fifteen to twenty; there were some beautifully graceful creatures among them, too, but as a rule their eyes and teeth were their main features. “ But their dancing was really worth seeing, they kept such perfect time, and there was a certain graceful rhvthm in their movements that I have never seen in European dancing. “ The best of it was they only came there to make fun of us. I used to feel very angry sometimes, when we came in wet and hungry, to see all these creatures laughing at us; and the men would not hurry up, but row as slowly as possible so as they could watch these girls. There wes one fellow in my boat, an Australian black —I don’t know what his real name was, but he was always called Jimmy Mokomoke. The chorus of one of their songs was ‘ Jimmy Mokomoke, Jimmy Mokomoke, oh,’ with a long drawn-out wail; and the fellow used to be awfully proud of this, though we found out a's wo got to know their ways better that they were only bemoaning poor Jimmy’s ugliness. “ When I first came to New Zealand I was astonished to see how proud the Maori women were of their hair, and how well they kept it, considering they had no combs. Yet they’d do up their hair and take out every tangle with one piece of stick, or a red-bill’s beak. It must have taken them hours to do it, though, but I suppose they had nothing else to do.”