AN AGED MAORI WOMAN.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 52, 29 September 1864, Page 3

AN AGED MAORI WOMAN.

"The Marlborough Press contains the following: — Those who, wliofcher on business or pleasure bent, may require to make the journey between Picton and Haveloek, will occasionally be detained some little time waiting the arrival of a boat, at a place two miles beyond Mahakipawa, known as the Maori Pa. At this spot may be seen two or three stout-limbed, handsome-looking Maori boys and girls, ranging between the ages of twelve and sixteen years. The amount of raiment which these aboriginals of the primeval forest are content to apparel themselves in, is certainly no more than just sufficient to meet tho demands of civilization. Here they may be witnessed laughing and dancing, or wrangling and gesticulating according to their native manner or usages, much to the wonder and astonishment of all strangers. Presently the visitor may see, emerging from a poor portion of the small settlement, an elderlymatron, half nude, and smoking a short and highly discolored pipe, such as woidd be the envy of alf enthusiastic amateurs, in the matter of blackened dudeens. This female is the mother of the laughing or quarrelling boys and girls. Following^ or in done proximity to the woman, may be seen another female, very aged, but not infirm. Her face lias a thousand "wrinkles ; her eyes are bleared and fringed with rheum. One slight chemise is her only clothing from intense heat or unmitigated cold. Her legs arc absolutely fleshl e9s — nothing left of them but bone and parchment like skin, deeply ingrained with dirt. This aged crone is the mother of the boys and girls we have noticed. She too has a pipe, from which is inhaled the fumes of the weed, which, emitted from her deeply tatooed lips, ascends heavenwards, and scents the breeze. The mother of this grandmother lias long since been carried to her long home, but the grandmother's grandmother — the great, great grandmother of the laughing boys and girls, still breathes, and only breathes the breath of life. During the middle portion of the day, when the sky is clear and the sun warm; at a short distance from tho pa, may be witnessed a sight, which at first causes one to step back, almost horror struck, for here is something, which, to ap- ! pearanee, is not human, and unlike- anything ever before beheld — a creation, with the faintest | spark of life, to which nothing living can be compared. A closer approaehpand a minute scrutiny, disclose the form and lineaments of -a figure and face, which were once human in their aspect, but . now no longer so. It is the smallest heap of decaying, withering humanity the eye ever gazed upon. As it squats upon the groundj 'arid rests two skeleton palms upon the warm ashes, raked from the fire, it has more the appearance of some strange animal: of the dog species. The ' figure is completely nudo, save a small piece, of flax matting, -wnich pa.T-tiaXL^- covers tile back. It is n. woman — the great, great grandmother, quite deaf, all but blind, and scarcely able, from infirmity to balance herself on her feet." Memory gone,. sans taste, sans smell, sans everything, but the feeble pulsation of the heart, ■which keepa" the s-oirit from fleeing the body." „