MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 June 1939, Page 3

MAORI MEMORIES

MAHI TATA (CONTRAST).

(Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”)

A .country infested by rabbits when compared in numbers with the ancient Maori Kiore (rat) was but a small percentage. These little creatures livedi on berries and succulent leaves, their only enemy was man, until the Maori dog came. These little vegetarians were originally the only four legged animals in this country and were in countless millions. Their food value to the natives has been compared with that of five sheep to the acre with us. Their favoured resorts were the ranges of hills and mountains, which generally divided the lands of the various tribes. There they were captured and killed for food in tens of thousands. This caused the tribal and family Rohe (boundaries) to be strictly Tapu. No one dared io eat a rat from another's land but by consent. The boundary on the sea or river was equally important, as it extended to fishing at sea and eel weirs on rivers.

Above and beyond all their conventions and laws concerning land, the attributes of courage and skill in war were of paramount importance. To acquire property by war and plunder was accounted to be more honourable and desirable than by skill and labour. Their cruelty to prisoners and callousness to suffering in themselves and others singularly contrasted with their kindly domestic relationships and universal hospitality to guests or visitors. Whatever good qualities were exhibited in their quiet social moments were utterly lost when acting under the impulse of passion, the mad excitement of war, or the fanaticism of superstition. Their tender love of children disappeared when frenzy of war or hatred came upon them.

Nothing more clearly illustrates the truth of that old adage, “The best corrupted, is the very worst.’'