MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 November 1939, Page 2

MAORI MEMORIES

“THE ONLY HOPE FOR US.” (Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”) The best example of Maori carving is that of the whare whakairo (carved house), a sanctuary to the memory of Te Kooti erected by the Manaiapoto tribe Whose title appears to mean "Brief influence” or “For them is brevity." The wrongful imprisonment of Te Kooti at Chatham Islands was ever present in the mind of the Maori tribes whether friendly or rebels to the pakeha; but was never spoken even among themselves. This masterpiece of carving was its own Mahara Karanga ata (silent testimony). In speaking with an old warrior of this work of skill. I remarked that the next generation would lose all knowledge of it. "Yes." he said, “but their capacity will enable them to outpace their white teachers in the use of improved tools. For a few centuries the white men have learned to depend upon the genius of a few inventive men of genius, whose working minds and bodies have enabled the masses to be idlers in thought and action. Every Maori had to think out the ways and meanp of keeping alive with the aid of bone and stone implements which he had also to make learning yq (arts and crafts, Jn ir Jve ; * n y lls '‘