MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 August 1939, Page 2

MAORI MEMORIES

UNORTHODOX UNIONS.

(Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”)

The simplicity of Maori marriage, and the complexity of our formalities cause painful confusions not always revealed. In Britain and elsewhere married women treasure their “Marriage Certificate.” In New Zealand not one of us has one. Here we get from the Registrar a “certificate for marriage,” which is handed over to the officiating Minister in return for a “Copy of the entry of Marriage.” A nervous young couple at a village in Manawatu called on an equally inexperienced Registrar, paid £1 2s 6d, signed the Marriage Notice Book, received the certificate “for” Marriage, and left on their honeymoon. A week later the omission of the real ceremony was discovered by the Minister to whom it was intended they should apply. He tactfully explained “that there was a mere clerical error,” and supplied the real essential of legality. Both are now at rest where real marriages are made. A lady left Taranaki to be married from the home of her parents in Timaru. A friend sent her a telegram—- “ Say, are you married yet?” but he thought that the lady who knew a few words of Maori, would appreciate it in that language, and he asked a Maori to write the message. It was accordingly sent as follows “Kei te moe tane koe, nei?” which we may politely translate as “Do you dwell with the man?” The receiving operator who knew only the literal meaning, but not the real sentiment of the natural Maori, intercepted it as indecent, and at an official enquiry the Inspector who was a Maori linguist acquited the sender, but judiciously forbade delivery.