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Fretful Sleepers and Other Essays

[XIII]

For an expression of an authentic Maori outlook we must look to Maori writers. The quarterly Te Ao Hou has recently published a number of such stories, and this opens the possibility of Maoris being attracted to fiction as a form of expression.

One of these stories, 'For All the Saints' by J. C. Sturm (1955), is written in English and is a sympathetic character-study in the European page 67 tradition, of a hospital cook who is a bit odd and is finally committed. Of two that won prizes in 1956, one by Hirone Wikiriwhi is written first in Maori and is a warm account in the traditional style, with references to traditions and old poetry, of the royal visit to Waitangi, Turangawaewae and Rotorua.64 The other by Mason Durie is in English and is a moral tale warning Maori students against loafing when there's swot to be done.65 By European standards it is a tract rather than a story, but we must remember that a Maori writer at the present time probably feels that he must serve and help his people with his pen and that the standards we apply to the short story might seem to him to be dilettante and unfruitful. It is perhaps indicative of the current attitudes of older educated Maoris that prizes should have been awarded to moralistic stories. Another prizewinner, in 1957, by S. M. Mead66 tries to deal with the problem of young Maoris who come to the city and take to crime: instead of arresting a lad running from a burglary, a constable, too good to be probable, lets him off, helps to put him on the right path and for that occasion fulfils the role of kaumatua.

Far more promising (by European literary standards) are those stories that express the Maori attitudes to life which have escaped the Pakeha writer. They are written in English. In two autobiographical stories, Rora Paki reminisces on experiences which would be unfamiliar to the Pakeha67: being brought up by two grandparents, two aunts and an uncle; the atmosphere of loving comradeship in a hapu; children feeling free to wander from home to home since all the old women were grannies one way or another; a girl marrying a cousin not because either of them wanted to but because the parents of both wanted it, and settling down, nevertheless, to a happy married life; trying to keep the house big enough for a family that increased almost every year. Four stories by Rowley Habib are moving and evocative, written in the European tradition of the short story: of a young boy's hope that when he is as old as his brother he too will be as attractive to the girls;68 of a fatal accident at a sawmill;69 of citified relations who are prepared to sell their dead brother's farm over the heads of his children;70 and one of the burial of a boy's father.71 The stories are not only very good in their own right; they express experiences whose full meaning is otherwise inaccessible to the Pakeha. One cannot imagine in a Pakeha community the bereft boy finding comfort away from his mother:

Then Willy Hagg began to shovel the earth back into the grave and as the first lot hit the coffin, it echoed hollowly and loudly, and their mother lurched forward with a small cry, her eyes wide and frightening. The two women held her and she almost fell. And Pane spoke to her sharply.

At the sight of his mother Kurram felt a sudden horrible shock run through him. And in desperate bewilderment he turned about looking page 68 for somewhere to go. Then he felt someone quite close beside him and he looked up. His cousin Paul stood over him and he said to the boy,

'Never mind Cur you hold on to me.'

He put his arms around the boy and the boy put his face against his cousin's shirt and began to cry. Paul stood for a while letting the boy cry then he began to squeeze his shoulders and say,

'Never mind, Cur. It's all over now. Don't cry now.'

Again there is, running through this passage, a sense of belonging:

By the apple trees a group of women were busying themselves with their shawls. Two of them were lifting their babies onto their backs, and they bounced them around a little to settle them more comfortably in the blankets. Down by the Hepis' fence the priest was talking with old Doc and Tita. He was gesturing slowly with his hands and now and then he would look off across the paddock at the sun. Every one was talking about the beautiful day, everything except the burial.

A Pakeha writer describing the same situation might have been arrested by aspects of the scene unfamiliar to him and have sought a metaphor for the women with the babies in their shawls, an image that would make them memorable and fix them, like a tourist's camera, for all time, and in such a way that no deeper meaning could be penetrated.

At the present time a Maori writer is more likely to prefer English as his medium, yet he is likely to come up against the problem of reaching an audience: conscious of speaking for his people, he may find that he is speaking to only a few of them. This is a problem that the Maori writer will have to deal with himself.

At the same time, if Pakehas want to appreciate the authentic expression of Maori values, they must make an effort of understanding in relation to Maori culture, so that the Maori writer can write for a Pakeha audience as well as a Maori audience without having to adopt a different set of values. And when this effort has been made, and the Maori writer is sure of a wide and sympathetic audience, then we may expect some writing that may well have qualities that Pakeha writing lacks.

64 Wikiriwhi, Hirone Te M., 'He Korero Hararei' ('A Holiday Story'), Te Ao Hou, 4, nos. 2-3, 1956.

65 Durie, Mason, T Failed the Test of Life', Te Ao Hou, 4, no. 2, 1956.

66 Mead, S.M., 'Constable McFarland', Te Ao Hou, 5, no. 2, 1957.

67 Paki, Rora, 'Ka Pu Te Ruha Ka Hao Te Rangatahi' ('The Old Net is Cast Aside, A New Net Goes Afishing'), Te Ao Hou, 4, No. 3, 1956 - the story is in English; 'A Home is Made', Te Ao Hou, 5, no. 3, 1957.

68 'Love in the Mill', Te Ao Hou, 5, no. 3, 1957.

69 'Death in the Mill', Te Ao Hou, 4, no. 3, 1956.

70 'The Visitors', Te Ao Hou, 5, no. 4, 1957.

71 'The Burial', Te Ao Hou, 5, no. 2, 1957.