Fish Story

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 318, 27 July 1945, Page 9

Fish Story

ACK of dairies, tinned beef, and other sources of protein to fall back on made it a matter of some’ moment to the ancient Maori whether his fishing expedition was fruitful, and no doubt a great deal of feeling went into the incantation preceding it. A most heartfelt and dynamic rendering of one of these , was given the other night by a gentleman brought in for the purpose by Miss Olga Adams, M.Sc., who was giving a talk on Maori fishing’ customs from 1YA. What people thought who tuned in at random while it was going on, I can’t imagine. It was a fine show. Se % * Miss ADAMS’ ‘talk itself was full of good material, so well assembled and delivered that I feel ungrateful in picking on what to me was its only blemish, and in making her a peg on which to hang a protest that I would make even more loudly in the case of many talks and stories in the Children’s Hour, 1ZB’s "Morning Reflections." and

some other sessions. It is a matter of literary style. We were taught at school, sometimes explicity, and always implicitly by the marking, that essays dealing with subjects of nature, of foreign peoples, other lands-anything bordering on the historic or romantic-should be written in a special language. "He ran quickly" became "Quickly he sped." "He waited anxiously" became "Anxiously he awaited." Boys and girls removed from us by time or space were "lads and lasses," and there was a bonus for words like "‘whither," "whence," and "wherefore." In committing herself to this style as the talk went on, Miss Adams had the backing of a substantial tradition. But for me nowadays a subject has only to be wrapped in this language, and it goes stone dead. Miss Adams so clearly wishes us to see the Maori as she does herself, as a living and mature human being, not as a weird child of a fairy story, that I ask her to consider whether the picture in her mind might not be transferred better to us in the prose. of .everyday life.