Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/436

 "Here, here!" said she, clapping her hands, "these chairs are for the pakeha."

Another Maori man brought in a native woman, and straightway the landlady was upon him.

"You must n't bring her through here," she protested. "You know it is n't allowed."

"All right," grunted the man, and then he passed through despite the order.

At this hotel noisy Maoris were drinking every day, and one of them fought a white man. The Maori is a convivial spirit, and nowhere more so than in a bar. Maoris are always willing to "shout," but after they have treated, some will say, "I shouted for you, now you shout for me."

"Where can I hear Maori singing?" I asked Mokomoko, pilot for a steamship company.

"If you want to get a Maori to sing," he advised, "give him a beer."

Of all these thirsty natives the most frequent visitor to Opotiki's "pubs" was Tamaikoha, an aged ex-cannibal. With pipe in mouth, this wrinkled Polynesian shuffled into the commercial room of the hotel one Sunday. Halting at the door, he looked appealingly at the inmates and passed a forefinger across his throat. Did he mean to convey by pantomime that he intended to commit suicide? No; he was thirsty! and the bar was closed.

"That man is more than ninety years old," said an Opotiki merchant present, "and he has eaten pakeha."