MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 December 1939, Page 3

MAORI MEMORIES

MAORI AGRICULTURAL “SCHOOLS.” (Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”) The main objectives of tribal raids were food supplies, and the lands where the fertility had not been exhausted by generations of cropping. They had no system of manuring, so built their homes to serve during the few years of successive cropping. Because of the difficulty of bush felling or draining, good virgin soil, was rare. Its means of defence against attack were secrecy and the law of Tapu, violation of which was punished by death. The kumara pits in every Pa were concealed from the eye of strange visitors by grass grown covers. Men were warriors who neither toiled nor soiled their hands. The women tilled the soil, planted, harvested, and cooked the food, or stored it. for winter. True it is that, men fished on lake, rive)', or sea. snared birds, and fought the enemy, in all of which were the element of sport. Maori men are not farmers in the primitive sense, but born mechanics, educated by heredity in the manufacture of tools, weapons, and war canoes witli the most primitive implements. Now we must, supply each family witli a ten acre market garden, or a 50-acre dairy farm in community centres, where they are unde)' instruction, and control of competent management such as thdt of the original scheme of Flock House. The younger men could then be drafted out to trades of their choice.

A class was asked by the teacher. "Where is the country they call England?” One bright lad put up his hand and said: "Please, sir. ma feythcr says there isna sic' a country. England is jist the name o’ the southern pair! o' Scotland!"