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Vanished Arts.

It is undeniable that the modern Maori, in this area at least, is fast losing the arts and customs of pre-European days—and in so far as these arts and customs were truly artistic and humane, then the fact is to he regretted. Tohungaism, and the practice of makutu, with the evils of tapu, are all practically dead, but in their day all were a real power in Maoriland—and it is well they are no more, especially makutu, or the power to bewitch, even to death, the exercise of what in the Dark Ages of the world was called "the evil eye." Even in my time I have seen a Maori man giving evidence in the Magistrate's Court so "fixed" by the eye of a "prophet" in the clock that not a word could be got out of him. But it is not only in regard to the occult arts of life that the Maori is fast giving way. Before the advent of the Europeans, the Maoris lived on what the forests, the rivers and lakes, as well as the seas provided. To ensure a living they had to be efficient, resourceful, patient and adventurous—and consulting their gods at all times, they fared well, though the intervals between feast and famine might at times be unduly long. In fishing, the work was always more a matter of play, whether on sea or river, and even fifty years ago it was a stirring sight to witness the lower reaches of the Wairoa river crowded on sunny mornings with canoes, many of them not much over six feet long, manned by one paddler, dashing up and down on the tide trailing the seducing paua-shell bait or a bit of scarlet flannel. The swish of page 78the kahawai as he broke the placid water in springing at his prey was music to the ear of the true fishermen, and it was no wonder they uttered joyous whoops, as "the children of Tangaroa" were transferred from their native element to the tiny dugouts. But all this art is gone; the canoes have all been chopped up for firewood, rotted away on the banks or drifted to sea; the Pakeha has destroyed all the totaras, so that even if this pastime was to be restored it would be a futile effort. In the past, too, the Maoris drew a great deal of their sustenance by means of eel-weirs in rivers and lakes and much ritual and ceremony was indulged in. They still get eels, of course, but the glamour is gone. The sea also was a profitable harvest field, and it called for skill and adventure as well as powerful tohungas and intricate ceremonies. It was in the forests that the greatest amount of skill was called for, and a well-practised bird-catcher was a hero in the pa. When Wairoa was covered with dense bush—and by this latter word I do not mean a stubbly undergrowth but trees one hundred feet high or more and ten or twelve feet in circumference—then, indeed, the forest was the Maori's larder. In earliest days he only had to go a few yards to reach the pastures, and that is why so many places in Wairoa are named "Kairakau." As the work of destruction went on, supplemented by the match and the axe, the Maoris have had to go further afield or be denied a harvest, and during the last fifty years it is only in the Urewera country that a harvest could be reaped. One of the greatest bird-catchers in the Waikaremoana page 79area was an old man called Noa, and he was a pastmaster in the art of enticing birds within reach of his spear. He had trained a parrot to bring his fellows from the bush to the spot where old Noa lay in ambush, when they were entrapped by the snares and brought to earth with the spears. The rat-traps were very ingenious; some consisted of nooses hanging from supplejacks, called karao, and when duly sprung, the kiore was heaved off Ms feet a strangled animal. High up in the Whinau trees the pigeons became very fat and lazy, and descending to the lower branches out of the heat they dozed there, and below was old Noa, on the watch. Cautiously, he peered upwards, advancing his forty-foot spear till it got within striking distance of the unsuspecting bird. Then a sudden plunge judged to a nicety—and down came the bird on the point of the spear, then another and another till the wants of the hunter were satisfied. There were many other methods employed—enough to till a book, but I must hasten back to my caption, "Vanished Arts"—gone are those days, with the hunters of the past; gone the art of weaving, and dyeing; and nearly gone, too, is the art of making clothing, so much an art once that the Maori became the wonder of the world. Gone, too, are the skilled disciples of Rua, the god of carving, and the art that once flourished on this coast is gone also, for too much of what we do see is so mixed up with European materials, worked with European tools, that it is no longer Maori art in the true sense of the word. If there is to be a renaissance of art in Maoriland it will not come from this East Coast but from the North.