Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/145

Rh and exhibiting that Maori symbol of defiance—an extended tongue.

Much more interesting than Rotorua, in some particulars, is the native village of Ohinemutu, adjoining the State town, just beyond the old fort-hill of Pukeroa. Despite its misfortune in losing a part of itself in an earthquake many years ago—a disaster impressed on its visitors by its leaning church tower—Ohinemutu is progressive; huts it has, but they are patterned after the pakeha's houses, and in keeping therewith many of them support a big galvanized iron or tin chimney on the outside. To me chimneys seemed out of place in this pa, until I was told that they are for use in cold weather, and for those families who have no convenient cooking-hole.

A cooking-hole! Ohinemutu has, of a truth, little need of chimneys since it is an outdoor kitchen. It prepares its meals in fireless cookers—in hot pools and steam holes. Enter its gates, and you shall see meat, fish, and vegetables nicely cooked without cost. In this village nobody growls about burnt food, and fuel bills are light.

Ohinemutu is no embattled pa surrounded by ditches and stout fences and defended by carnivorous warriors, as of old. It is true that on a few gables and other conspicuous elevations unfriendly eyes glared at me, tongues lolled a menace, and grinning teeth seemed eager to close on me; but they were lifeless carvings. Ohinemutu's gates, or rather the open spaces and passageways that take their places, are never closed.