MAORI MEMORIES.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 June 1938, Page 9

MAORI MEMORIES.

TRADERS. (Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age”) Maketu was the sunny little seaport to which the Pakeha Maori trading agents resorted to exchange the tribal produce for British goods. Every tribe was proud of its agent, who spoke Maori and saw Maoris only, for three months at a time, between the arrival of trading vessels. A week was the average stay of the lone white man with his pakeha brothers until the vessel sailed. They feasted and got drunk with wine and joy, feeling like Highland chiefs in the midst of their clans. The reign of the Pakeha Maori trader among each tribe was like that of a king, but it was dispelled when trading houses were established at Auckland, Taranaki and Wellington about 1841. The number of these cute Pakeha Maori agents, mostly Scottish, rose from 6 in 1814 to 100 in 1835, and 150 in 1840. It fell to 10 in 1853.

These men sprang from all grades of social ranks, ex-convicts to sons of honoured parents, who had fallen from Puritan grace by some boyish prank or social indiscretion; yet, strangely enough, they acquired honesty among “savages” by the absence of all trading instincts among these simple folk. Rogues prefer the excitement of the city to still their conscience. Retirement and reflection unconsciously promote a regard for the goodwill and affection of others similarly situated. The perceptive faculty of the Maori is so acute and so apparent among these simple people, that the fear of discovery alone will make their agent honest.