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Te Ao Hou, June 1962, Page 43

On page 39 there is a description of the way in which gourds were made into humming tops. Elsdon Best tells this story about a top of this kind: ‘When a certain meeting was held in the Waikato district prior to the war, for the purpose of discussing the matter of electing a Maori King, a trial of humming tops [was said to have been made] … The Waikato folk proposed that the representatives of each tribe should make a humming top, and that the tribe whose top hummed the loudest in a competition should have the privilege of electing one of its members as Maori King … each of the visiting tribes made a humming top of matai wood … but the local folk of Waikato made a large potaka hue, or gourd top, which they named Te Ketirera, and which hummed so loudly that its owners easily won the contest, and thus elected Potatau as King’. Maoris in the Tokaanu district at Taupo have taken delivery of their own ambulance, for which they subscribed more than £1000. It is the first ambulance for a Maori subcentre of the St John Ambulance Association. The subcentre has eighteen enthusiastic members and is just over a year old. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ Miss Ruby McLean, a 21-year-old member of the Mercury Bay Aero Club, has become one of the first Maori girls to gain a private pilot's license. She has at least one predecessor, however, Mrs G. T. Cassidy, a Maori flyer whose maiden name was Kay Emere, Mrs Cassidy gained her license in 1955.