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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 8, Issue 3 (July 1, 1933)

Maning and the Maori Soul

Maning and the Maori Soul.

Casual writers and speakers on New Zealand frequently refer to Judge Maning as the writer who had the most profound knowledge of the Maori and who best described Maori habits and thoughts. The truth about Maning is that—apart from his intimate knowledge of land tenures and history and related subjects—he was a dealer in superficialities. He described very graphically the surface of old-time Maori life, the obvious things, the excitements and humours and tragedies. Maning had this much in common with his one-time antagonists, the Missionaries, that he regarded the Maori system of religion and mythology as mere superstition and mumbo-jumbo, and he made his contempt for that sort of thing so plain that he was never admitted to the innermost confidences of the learned men of the race. In his later period he somewhat modified his attitude, but he had missed unrivalled opportunities. “Te Manene” could have given so much more; as it is, we are thankful for “Old New Zealand,” superficial though it be.

In one or two brief legends and in a poem, “The Spirit Land,” Maning showed that he had the gift of poetic insight and expression in some degree, and could have developed it had he chosen. In one poem he pictures a seer standing on a hill on the Far North way to Te Reinga, “his eyes fixed on the spirit path that leads to the spirit land.”