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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 7, Issue 2 (June 1, 1932)

Tapu'd the Fish

Tapu'd the Fish.

The old Maori law of tapu still operates, but the pakeha usually does not hear of it page 40 unless it affects his own concerns in some way or another. That is the case just now at Chatham Island, where the fish-freezing factory at Kaingaroa has temporarily been closed down because the Maoris will not go out to catch fish. They have voluntarily deprived themselves not only of a staple item of food but of a large part of their earnings, because of their racial law of quarantine and hygiene. Last year a launch crew of eleven men perished in a gale when out fishing off Kaingaroa. As the bodies were not recovered, the Maori view is that the fish fed on them, and so all sea food is unclean until a certain period has passed, in this case two years. The Maori is in this respect far more scrupulous than the pakeha is about his food and the respect to the dead.

When the steamer Wairarapa was wrecked at the Great Barrier Island in 1894, with the loss of 126 lives, the small Maori tribe living on the island, a few miles from the scene of the wreck, tapu'd the fish in their waters for a long period. This, of course, was a serious deprivation of food for a coast-living community, but it was regarded by the people as necessary.

Relaying Operations On The N.Z.R. (Photos. A. R. Sayer.) Permanent way men in action on the tracks at Pokeno and Ngongotaha, North Island.

Relaying Operations On The N.Z.R.
(Photos. A. R. Sayer.) Permanent way men in action on the tracks at Pokeno and Ngongotaha, North Island.