THE WAY OF THE WAHINE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 800, 19 November 1954, Page 25

THE WAY OF THE WAHINE

2ROM Aristotle to the early Maoris, it didn’t take a particularly perceptive man to realise that woman was an inferior being. Having realised it, however, his problem was to find facts to explain it. According to Kate Shaw, whose series of talks, Wahine, will start from 1YZ at 11.15 am. on Tuesday, November 23, the early Maori’s explanation was that woman was created from earth by man, who at that time was a god, Those were the days, not so long after the separation of Rangi, the Sky father, and Papa, the Earth mother, when their children, who were all males, discovered that something was lacking --before the world could be peopled the female element must be found. When they had searched long without success, they decided that a woman would have to be made. So they found some red clay which they agreed would suit their purpose and fashioned her from thata human form with beautiful limbs and lovely features. Mrs. Shaw’s talk on "Hine-ahu-one, the First Woman," fittingly introduces a series of talks which is mainly concerned with life among the Maoris from the woman’s point of view, and woman being woman, it is fitting also that she should proceed immediately afterwards to talk about fashion. If we could have

been on the beach to watch the arrival of the Canoe Fleet, Mrs. Shaw says, we'd notice that the Maori belles who stepped ashore were wearing "the latest thing from Polynesia in short kilts

or skirts made from the beaten inner bark of the paper mulberry trees known as aute." That was her only garment, and it ended above the knee on a single girl and below if she were married; but it wasn’t long after she came to New Zealand that she found her skirt left her cold in the winter, so .a cloak was evolved for warmth. This talk tells how these cloaks were made, about the Maori girl’s love of ornaments, the way she did her hair, the use she made of flowers. There was something very toothsome about the old Maori foods, says Mrs. Shaw, in discussing food and cooking yesterday and today, and while she has her ‘own’ reservations about this and that-the huhu grub is one instanceshe is on pretty safe ground even with pakeha listeners when speaking of such delicacies as the freshwater crayfish. She includes some recipes, too. After

that she goes on to tackle a rather off-beat subject -Maori divorce proceed-ings-and her entertaining description of the way damages might be extracted from the families of those even suspected of infidelity suggests that in old Maori communities married folk had not only to tread the straight and narrow) path, but must appear to do so. A. social call-with Mrs. Shaw as guide-in the days just before the pakeha arrived in New Zealand brings Wahine to an end, and if there wasn’t today’s essential cuppa at that time there was, we are assured, the same love of gossip that distinguishes any gathering of women in pakeha society.