Costuming

Te Ao Hou, September 1962, Page 23

Costuming Sports trousers rolled to the knees or gardening shorts under the piupiu just did not do. Wearing dress rings and wristlet watches with traditional costume is just as spurious as the grease paint tattoo which many groups affect. I cannot speak too strongly against this latter practice. The Maoris are a handsome race and it adds nothing to disfigure the performers' faces with obviously artificial scrawlings which are rarely well or artistically executed and which gradually smear and rub off as the evening progresses. I had heard these scrawlings defended as adding to authenticity which is nonsense. If ‘authenticity’ is to be the catch-cry then performers must not confine themselves to ‘tattoo’ on their faces alone.