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The Autobiography of a Maori

A Child's Awkward Questions

A Child's Awkward Questions

Lately my five-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter has asked some difficult and awkward questions. While we were in bed, the wind blew so hard that she turned to me and said, "Grandpa, what makes the wind blow?" At school I had been told why the wind blew, but why it blew so terrifically that it carried a gig right across a paddock, I could not explain.

About this same time there was a terrific thunderstorm. The girl's boy cousin had told her that forked lightning often killed people, so she often asked me about it. When the heavens thundered she would ask, "Who made the thunder?" When she was told that God made thunders, she remarked, "God should not have made thunders."

It is the little girl's duty to collect the eggs and one day she asked her aunt, "Why doesn't a rooster lay eggs?" She later wanted to know if an egg came out of a hen's stomach.