Along the Maori Shore.

Curious things you see in modern Ohinemutu, the headquarters village of the Arawa tribe. In the village square, a few yards from the tribal flagstaff, with its ancient warlock of a carved and tattooed figure at its foot, there is a pakeha-Maori edition of an electric light pole. This pole is carved in native fashion, and at its top is a little whata, or storehouse, like a pigeon cote. This is in imitation of the ancient tohunga's tree-top storehouse for sacred relics and offerings. The whata pole carries insulators and electric globe, and sometimes one will see the light burning all day long, as is often the way in the Rotorua streets. It is one of the customs of the country, for power is cheap. The Okere Falls are always on tap. Ohinemutu is a jumble of new and old. Next page 27 door to a weatherboard cottage there is an age-stained little dwelling with barge-boards made from the sides of some ancient canoe, and the front gable is topped by a fierce old gargoyle of a tekoteko, a carved mask of totara, tattooed and painted by some long-gone Arawa artist, its features time-battered and lichen-crusted—an antique and wizardly thing. More carving as one passes along the Ruapeka Bay and the dazzling white pumice sands; a boiling spring, fenced in on two sides, for the public safety, with short palings, and a brace of carved, grimacing figures, red painted; they might be the Maori genii loci guarding the tapu scalding well. By the side of this terrific ngawha is a big-lettered notice, “Keep Out.” A trifle superfluous! A little way above this splashing cauldron there is a picture-like Maori carved house, all of the olden time except for its glass windows.

Of carving here and in Whakarewarewa there is a great deal to be seen, for this is the home of the most expert of all the native wood workers. The pretty church of St. Faith, in the hot spring village, is a joint product of pakeha architecture and Maori artcraft. So, too, is the little Catholic Church; its fine interior decoration is of an earlier date.