MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 February 1939, Page 3

MAORI MEMORIES

BETWEEN PLANTING & HARVEST.

(Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”)

After the seasons of harvest and planting the Maori had leisure for pleasure which included the .strenuous adventure of canoe fishing at sea or tramping the forest. A well-known old fellow said to be 80 years, walked for three months from the Far North to Cook Strait as a deputy from the Maori King, barefoot and hatless save for his matted hair, his only clothing day and night a calico nightgown, and a flax mat. with no chance for a change or a wash when it rained through. ” Isolated cultivations (Mara) are often left in spring time for a month or two, during such absences in the sole charge of one old man or woman, to whom the new found joy of Kai paipa (smoking a clay pipe) was a Maori heaven. Another luxury brought by the Pakeha was the horse with a blanket tied on the pommel as the only luggage for a hundred mile journey and back. Canoe parties were quite another kind of diversion taken in companies of 50 or more with the women and children —up stream first, so that on emergency the return journey was comparatively easy and speedy. This was in compliance with a philosophy expressed in the proverb of an old Maori chief Utiku Marumaru, of the Ngatiapa tribe, ”Te Mahi Kawa i te tuatahi —te mea ahua reka to muri.” "Do the unpleasant thing first; the more pleasing last.” Up stream was a strenuous pull: down stream a leisurely pleasure. We should always follow Utiku’s lead.