THE FAMILY OF THE MAORI

Te Ao Hou, September 1967, Page 56

THE FAMILY OF THE MAORI Illustrated booklet with 7in 45 rpm extended play record Viking VSP 18 This is another excellent booklet cum record from Viking—beautifully illustrated, with a competent text and a short but comprehensive selection of items on record. These musical books do give the casual listener and souvenir hunter a rather better appreciation of the Maori people and their culture than do most records on their own. In places the text seems to draw heavily on Buck but within the restrictions of only twelve small pages it is scholarly and accurate. The author is Jim Siers, well known for his work on Wellington television. Whilst there is an emphasis on the Maori family, as suggested by the title, the text does cover much wider aspects of pre-Pakeha Maori social life and usage. Unfortunately the layout of the text is poor. There is no attempt to break twelve solid pages of text into minichapters with the use of paragraph headings and the like. The illustrations are of the quality which one would expect from Herbert Sieben. My one criticism of the book is that although the text is couched in past tense, and the small foreword mentions in passing that it features the family ‘in olden times’, the overall impression from photos and text could give the passing reader the impression that the book depicts a way of life which can still be found in New Zealand. Sandwiched in somewhere I would have liked just one small photograph showing a modern Maori family and brief mention in the text that though there have been changes in the pattern of Maori family life in this day and age, the family is still of vital importance in the Maori society of the Twentieth Century. The accompanying record features Hannah Tatana, the choir of Te Aute College, St Josephs' Maori Girls' College, the Waipatu Concert Party and the Motuiti Maori Youth Club. It gives good value and a varied selection.