MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 February 1941, Page 2

MAORI MEMORIES

HAKARI. (Recorded by J.H.S.. of Palmerston North, for the "Times-Age.") The vast stores of varied food in different compartments were filled to overflow with kumara, taro, maize, aruhe. preserved birds, dried fish. Karaka and other berries. Sometimes these feasts consisted of the highly esteemed Aruhe (fernroot) alone, when they would be followed by a special period of vigour and rejoicing for which this food was noted. When a return banquet was given it was always expected that the food supplied would be more generous than the other. Good natured chaff would follow any failure in this respect. The share of each tribe in accordance with the number present was pointed out by the host, and the guests carried away what they were unable to consume. As many as 6.000 guests have been tallied at a hakari. Like victories in battle, these feasts were famed for many years by virtue of their surplus. The wood in the great stores for food was used by the guests as fuel to cook their food. The tribal pastimes were celebrated at each hakari. Dancing, singing, talking. wrestling, racing, crying, swimming. flying kites, poi balls, even the amusement of buying and selling were represented by giving and receiving presents. Since 1840. firing guns, playing cards, draughts, and horse racing were introduced. Maoris who visited England or Australia, when they returned, gave rude mental sketches of what they had seen and heard abroad and aboard. They told how ladies disguised their beauty and their virtue with useless coverings, and in pantomime display, amid roars of laughter, how Englishmen got drunk, quarrelled, and fought.