Page:Reminiscences of Earliest Canterbury 1915.pdf/15

 Maoris to accept bank notes. Eventually they became reconciled to them when they found that by presenting them at the Bank they got gold in exchange. The next diffi­culty was with reference to cheques. The only cheques they would recognise were those written by my father, and subsequently by members of his family, a circumstance which gave rise to complica­tions, as they brought whatever cheques were tendered them to us, asking our cheques in exchange. When the cheques they brought were from unknown or doubtful drawers, it seemed impossible to explain to them that we could not take them. This difficulty continued until toward the end of the “sixties.”

When I was a small boy I was much interested in the customs of the Maoris. I remember, for example, their method of killing a pig. Having caught him, they tied his feet and his mouth, and left him secured by a rope on the beach until the advancing tide covered and drowned him. The object of this was to save the blood which they, especially the women, regarded as a delicacy. When the tide receded the pig was first allowed to dry, and then the