MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 August 1939, Page 11

MAORI MEMORIES

NOT UNDERSTOOD. (Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”) About 80 years ago, one of two sources of excitement in those early days of "Poverty Bay,” that grossly misnamed district, was pig hunting among the wild pigs, the product of Captain Cook’s best-remembered gift to Maoriland, saved from extinction by the foresight of the ariki (high priest), who made them tapu (sacred) for the first six years. Unlike the Jewish aversion to pork, this rescued the Maori from the curse of cannibalism (kai tangata). The other and more serious subject was the resentment of the Maori people against those kindly evangelists who sought (perhaps vainly) to destroy their one effective check upon the evildoer, that ancient and most sacred belief in the supremo law of tapu. To emphasise this sacrilege, these wouldbe reformers tried to compel these simple people to believe in a new atua (God), who would lead the majority of them into the imaginary burning pit of everlasting fire. The natural reluctance of the Maori to mention any subject relating to love and worship, human or divine, has led to almost universal ignorance regarding these most important things in life. That is a main factor in our mutual misunderstanding. Silent love and silent worship, like Maori gratitude, for which there was not even a word in their language, are all the more genuine. They are too sacred for words. As a Maori convert said when asked to make a confession of his faith: “My love for a woman, a friend, or my God are not ‘professions’; they are of the manawa (the heart) only.” A century of protest against our translation of the best Maori title to their tribal lands, “Ahi Ka Roa,” literally “Keep the Home Fires Burning,” has elapsed. Many of us still urge the Maoris to accept our ancient belief in its orthodox meaning of everlasting punishment.