when he shows that Rakau children can meet most of the challenges of their environment successfully, but that they feel inadequate at school. Therefore, at heart, the community resents school. It would take too long to go through all the chapters in this way. Dr Ritchie, after describing all the community's troubles, asks himself how in spite of them, people are able to remain so sane, placid and in relatively good mental health. He gives two explanations: the care with which the Maori avoids any but the most familiar paths in life, and several ‘mechanisms of tension release’, such as ‘the drinking parties, the gossip groups, the scapegoating of individuals, groups and institutions’. Some passages in the book are difficult and theoretical and I would not take issue with Dr Ritchie on these issues if he had not provoked me by damning his critics in advance! He says: ‘The critic who thinks that I may have failed to see the structure behind the organisation of activity in Rakau, or who thinks that the confusion is more a matter of my method than of life there, may be bound by his own model of what he thinks the essential structure of a community ought to be.’ But I won't let even Dr Ritchie shut my mouth in this manner. I do think that Dr Ritchie has a somewhat keener eye for psychological phenomena than for social custom. I am not complaining about this; indeed I think no investigator could do justice to both aspects at the same time. I have only space to mention one example of Dr Ritchie's indifference to structure, but there are many more. In the chapter entitled Leaders and Followers, he lists four types of leaders (elders, family heads, young leaders, young people's leaders) and four types of meeting at which he observed these leaders. One of these types, which he calls neo-traditional, includes leadership in land dealing. In a table (p. 100) he sets out the role each type of leader plays in land dealings: Elders: Role passive. Usually speak in welcome and exercise a final veto on any discussions. Family heads: As above (where applicable). Young Leaders: Exercise chief leadership. Prepare discussions, take over leadership after formalities complete. Organise event and make major decisions subject to veto of elders. This table is hard to understand. If the elders have power of veto, how can one say that the young leaders ‘exercise chief leadership’. Surely, any leadership exercised subject to a veto is severely limited. But then, are there not a number of regular customary moves the young leaders and the elders make before the meeting takes place? Are the elders consulted? Is there private agreement between elders and young leaders before the meeting takes place? Also, are there certain well-defined situations where the family heads should have the final say in land matters? Are there situations where the elder will accept the decision of a family head? A full analysis of the roles played by all these people would most probably yield far more regularity, far more structure than Dr Ritchie has shown. I don't think he should have been uncomplimentary to those of us who find these questions interesting. Helpful and Practical Administrators, teachers and social workers will learn a great deal from this book. The excellent index will guide them to the problems in which they are immediately interested; when they have found selected passages, looked up in this way, helpful and practical, they will make the effort to study the book as a whole. The passage on page 86 showing how Maoris make decisions, should be compulsory reading for all Europeans dealing with Maori groups.

The Book of the Huia by W. J. Phillipps Whitcombe & Tombs Ltd., 30/- The huia, whose tapu feathers were once one of the greatest of treasures, probably died out early this century. A beautiful and interesting bird (apparently, the only bird in the world in which male and female have differently shaped beaks), it was a victim of the changes brought about by European settlement. Trigger-happy colonists found it sufficiently interesting to stuff, but showed little concern for its survival. The clearing of most of the forest and the introduction of stoats and weasels further contributed to its fate. Also, though huia feathers had previously been worn only by men and women of the highest rank, by the end of the century the feathers were in great demand by all those who felt that they had any claim at all to chiefly rank. The price soon rose to £1 or more for a single feather—and this was not good for the bird's survival.