HORI AND DAD

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 896, 5 October 1956, Page 5

HORI AND DAD

Sir-Surely the Maori deserves from us something better than this vulgar guying which many must deplore as a gesture of disrespect-even contemptfor our fellow New Zealanders, who during the one hundred and fifty years of joint occupation of these favoured isles, have suffered so much at our hands. Tf only those who profess to find amusement in making of the Maori a figure of fun could know just what the more cultured and racially-conscious of hii people think of pakehas who descend to this form. of "humour" they would-unless case-hardened by habit and ignoranceblush for shame. The attitude indicated by such-performances have little point now that few Maoris speak as do the characters: in the Radio Roadhouse sketch; most of them today are products of good schools and many can set an example to pakehas in the use of English. In fact the Maori of the short story and the joke corner was never typical and is now outdated. He survives only where lack of good taste and understanding prevail. If some Maoris appear to tolerate such expressions as form. the basis of ‘Ffori and Dad," it is only. their better manners that make them hide their contempt for those who so offend them: or they have become accustomed to these insults and with a mental shrug, say "He aha ki to Maori?" ("What is it. to the Maori?"). This attitude toward what is handed out by the pakeha is deplored by those of both races who seek to raise the Maori to a sense of dignity and responsi--bility lost through the period of association with white people. At a time when Maori leaders are striving to save the. remnants of native culture in all. its forms as a means of inspiring the race toward a better way of life it ill becomes the NZBS and its journal to encourage the presentation of Maoris as a medium of doubtful humour.

M. B.

SOLJAK

(Whenuwapai).