MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 August 1939, Page 3

MAORI MEMORIES

MATRIMONY IN THE 70’s.

(Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”)

In the early ’7o’s, work for the woi'kless was scarcely sought. An avdfage of four “tramps” a day for seven days a week called at our house for a “bite and a doss in the hay loft.” Work was seldom rnentioried. Fol - some unknown prejudice, these “swaggers” never approached the Maoris, who in those days of united work were too busy handling their tools in unison and chanting their Waiata (songs) together, io entei’tairi these professional roadsters.

For some unknown reason, even among busy contented settlers, the men outnumbered the women as two to one. Their only alternative was to select an attractive Maori maid. The union was generally successful unless the man was to blame. Their progeny were distinguished among scholars and athletes, more than one of these Roiroi (half pie) lads gaining high honours in the universities in England and in public life here, thus proving the theory of an eminent author that 95 per cent of the world’s leading men are the result of crossing between men and women of different nations at some stage of their ancestry.

A few years later, Sir Julius Vogel’s Public Works policy, guided and guarded by a knowledge of finance altogether unlike that of today, brought a complete change by Reformation instead of disastrous revolution. Not a "swagger” was seen tramping the roads and beggars were unknown, though they seem to have revived today in the guise of institutions seeking alms for every imaginable "cause.” With the return of prosperity, even the Maori maid’s ranks were absorbed. So philanthropic matrons watched the arrival of eligible looking domestics at the wharf, and introduced them to suitable young men, who sometimes had the ceremony performed in the ship's cabin, thus defeating the proviso of “three days residence.”