MAORI PHILOSOPHY.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 969, 10 May 1872, Page 3

MAORI PHILOSOPHY.

The following extract is from one of a series of sketches supplied by a lady in Rangitikei to the " Australian" Its beauty of style, apart from other merits, is sufficient recommendation:— Essentially the Maori is a wanderer. Here for the summer season ; gone in the autumn; there in the fishing season, gone again at the " kumera " time. Here to-day and gone tomorrow ; unembarrassed by household lares and penates, robed in his allimportant blanket, provided with his never-failing pipe, he comes and goes, moving north and south as the fancy takes him. Household cares! Bah ! he knows them not. No thought of the future creeps with its cautious doubts and chills into Maori land. " Trust no future however pleasant ? Let the dead past bury its dead." Such a sentiment as this breathes mutely from every hour in the Maori life The present is all sufficing. The present kiss pressed upon warm lips, the present caress fierce aud passionate, the present hunger all prevailing, the present council of war all engrossing, the present " tangi" all abandoned to grief. To-morrow my mistress may leave me and her kisses and the soft twine of her arms be mine no longer ; to-morrow I may be more hungry than I am now, or not hungry at all ; to-morrow the fight may be over and the tangi be Bung for me. Pardieu ! give unto to-morrow the things which may be to-morrow's; let us live to day and forget to-morrow. Such is the summing up of Maori philosophy, simple and sweet. " Moko " kissed " Moringa" to-day, and to-morrow had gambled her away. " "Waimate" is far inland to-day and to-morrow he is lulled to sleep by the moan of the sea. To day the low flat is green and glancing, and to-morrow the flood waves, surging and muddy, eddying over each path and nook. In the night came the spirit of water, and today comes the flood. One day by the sea side are low thatched whares, the canoes float in the bay and the children paddle in the shallow rock pools. A little curl of smoke shines dark in the afternoon sun, and a heap of white mussel shells is left to bleach in the sun. A low chant sounds from the far canoe ; a man lies stretched on the smooth sand asleep. To-morrow they are gone ; the night wind has levelled the "hastily erected whares ; the ashes of the fire are eddied over the sand.