It is most strange how one may put an obstacle in one’s own path, and of all obstacles a psychological self-created one is the most stubborn. Once I was committed to the system of education which began at the Waiomatatini School in 1881 there seemed to be no disposition to look back. More; there was an impatience with all that the Maori village life implied. My father’s tentative efforts to interest me in the contents of that life met with no response. His words came in at one ear and went out at the other without leaving an abiding impression on the mind or memory. The shutters were always put up against the Maori world beyond the narrow circle of one’s closest relatives. It is no wonder that my father, wise in diagnosing the root of the trouble, summarily suspended the course of Pakeha education and opened the shutters which my mind had created for its own frustration.
So during 1887 and 1888 I was freed to revel in the life of Ngati Porou as it then was. I learnt many things, but one only concerns this essay. I learnt to love the songs which my people sang to suit any and every occasion of their social life, a very full and complete life until it was constrained to retire before the encroachment of the Pakeha way of life and his money economy.
I resumed the Pakeha scheme of education in 1889 to press on with it until 1897. But it was with the clear vision of acquiring thereby the material and mental equipment wherewith to adapt Maori life to the rapidly changing circumstances and to salvage as much as possible of its worth-while elements.
What may seem to be an overlong personal note is deliberately given here to preface the investigation into Maori poetry that follows. It explains the case of thousands of Maoris, old and young, who entered the schools of this country and passed out, with their minds closed to the culture, which is their inheritance and which lies wounded, slighted and neglected at their very door. More and more the economic circumstances of the day demand mastery of Pakeha knowledge; more reading of books, more writing of notes, more dependence on the eye, less on the ear to transmit information to the mind. And so the ear of the Maori has become less and less receptive to the notes of his native music, less discerning of its scale of quarter tones and more inclined, if that were possible, to be satisfied with the songs and the music, which the races of the world, except his own, serve out to him ad nauseam.
There are no wise elders to suspend their excursions into the field of Pakeha education, none at least with the power to enforce such a course. But here and there are Maoris, men and women, who have passed through the Pakeha whare wānanga and felt shame at their ignorance of their native culture. They would learn it, if they could, if it were available for study as the culture of the Pakeha has been ordered for them to learn. For such the journey back to the social life of the Maori race is not so far, or so difficult. And it may be learnt and loved without any compulsion to live it. It is possible to compromise with it as many of us did sixty years ago, to select those elements in it which should be as satisfying and elevating as the art, the crafts, the music and the literature of the Pakeha while living according to the material standards of the Pakeha and joining with him in the work of the country. It is possible to be bicultural just as bilingualism is a feature of the Maori life of today.
(1949; 1972)
From Kiwi Culture to Counter-Culture
This period marks a transition from a conservative, if knowing and slyly satirical, view of New Zealand society to a more openly radical stance towards establishment values. Literature is enlisted in the cause of political action, whether that action be international or local. And the challenge to national puritanism of earlier writers becomes an expression of sexual liberation, both as a matter of private celebration and as a public cause.
Hand in hand with these modernising energies we find the beginnings of literary experimentation. There is still the realism of the past, where society and its activities are faithfully rendered. There is a dour provincialism evident, often framed with an aura of gothic violence. The New Zealand voice, especially the voice of the outsider, is still central, but who is a New Zealander and how that identity might be defined are questions that are shifting and unstable. There is also increasingly a sense that new ideas, fresh challenges to the status quo, will need new forms of literary expression. The gothic, the surreal and the use of magic realism infiltrate prose writing, and the engagement of young poets with contemporary American poetry is evident.
One form of transgressive critique is satire, a constant strand in local writing since the nineteenth century, here employed by popular culture forms against, or in concert with, the ‘Man Alone’ modes of high-culture literature. Masculinity is still the bedrock of literary expression but the beginnings of an unease can be sensed as the implicitly conservative stereotype is exaggerated or undercut or displayed as wounding and debilitating. Following on from the 1950s, women writers engage, still tentatively, with the literary mainstream.
Places of publication enlarge. For Māori, the Maori Affairs Department publication Te Ao Hou, begun in 1952 as ‘a marae on paper’, has a number of energetic editors in the 1960s who increase the journal’s literary content. There are few Māori writers of note who do not publish there and their developing voice serves as a counter to the cheerful racism of popular forms. And little magazines, often situated in universities and subsidised by Students’ Associations, proliferate, reflective of a lively culture of public readings and performances.
Vernaculars
Peter Cape, ‘Down the Hall on a Saturday Night’
I got a new brown sports-coat,
I got a new pair of grey strides,
I got a real Kiwi haircut,
A bit off the top, an’ short back and sides.
Soon as I’ve tied up me guri,
Soon as I’ve swept out the yard,
Soon as I’ve hosed down me gumboots,
I’ll be living it high and hitting it hard.
I’m gonna climb onto me tractor,
Gonna belt ’er out of the gate,
’Cause there’s a hop on down at the hall, and
She starts sharp somewhere ’bout half past eight.
Look at the sheilas cutting the supper
Look at the kids sliding over the floor
An’ look at the great big bunch of jokers
Hanging ’round the door.
We’ve got the teacher to bash the pianna,
And Joe from the store on the drums.
We’re as slick as the Orange in Auckland
For whooping things up and making them hum.
I had a schottische with the tart from the butchers
I had a waltz with the constable’s wife
Had a beer from the keg on the cream-truck
And the cop had one too, you can bet your life.
Yeah, it’s great being out with the jokers
When the jokers are sparking and bright,
And it’s great giving cheek to the sheilas
Down the hall on Saturday night.
(1958)
Maurice Gee, from The Big Season
This question was less on his mind as he prepared for the dance that night. He enjoyed choosing clothes to wear and when he was ready he went to Jocelyn’s old room to look at himself in the full-length mirror. Very neat, very handsome: he decided the girls might really go for him tonight—there was no doubt that when he took the trouble he could turn himself into a real Hollywood type. He grinned, and approved of the white line his teeth made in his brown face. The words of a song ran through his mind: I like me, I like me, I’m wild about myself. He said: ‘Well, might as well be honest, boy.’ He felt the confidence of his good looks and neatness. Good to have brown thick hair that needed no oil, hair that got untidy only in a dashing, carefree way. Good to have a face that tanned easily and blue straight eyes that could get hard and tough if they needed to. Good to be able to grin in a way people called frank and boyish. (His mother had told him that.) And good to know what clothes to wear: terylene shirt, rust-coloured tie, belted Mitchbilt trousers wi
th a knife-edge crease, and the green United blazer with the white monogram—statement of faith. Nothing missing. He was ready for the dance.
He went back to his own room to get his wallet. While he was there his mother came in.
‘You’re sure you won’t change your mind, Rob? Everyone’d be glad to see you.’
He gave her a good-humoured smile. ‘You never give up, do you?’
She took encouragement from this and said briskly: ‘Come on, son. Forget your old dance. You can go dancing any time. Come out with your parents for a change.’
He sat down on the edge of the bed and studied her patiently.
‘If you’d said earlier there was a party on—’
‘Rob, just this once. Just for me. Arthur won’t mind.’
He began to get impatient. Her voice was still brisk but he felt movements of tenderness under the level she had set for her asking. Tonight she was too proud to plead openly, but not too proud to plead. She was using him, working inside his knowledge of her. It angered him and made him feel ashamed. It was as if some part of his body he should be able to control had taken its own way for the moment.
But he let her go on trying to persuade him. In this oblique way she was demonstrating her love. The loving mother was the essential part of her picture of herself. But she made her capacity for love an excuse for demanding it. Now that Jocelyn was married and gone from the town most of the demands fell on Rob. In responding to them he sometimes felt himself in danger. Playing the good affectionate son was risky. When the time came for him to leave home he would have to fight the feeling that he was deserting—he would have to be able to hurt her. Sometimes he listened with fear as she talked: every fond word she gave him showed her belief that they were knotted together for the rest of their lives. But it was not true. He belonged to himself. And he knew that when he wanted to go he would go—he would be able to face whatever pain he had to cause her. She had only a few small rights in his life.
He stood up from the bed.
‘Look, Mum, it’s no use talking about it. I’m going to the dance and I can’t get out of it. I don’t want to get out of it. You know it’s no good asking me to evenings like this one tonight. I’m out of place with all those middle-aged people. They just sit around and talk and I’ve got nothing to say. It’s all right for Donny. He’s engaged. He’s like that already. But it makes me feel like a kid again.’
He left the bedroom and went down the hall to the lounge. His father was there, reading the Star. ‘Coming with us, son?’ he asked.
‘I’m going to the dance.’
Rob turned round and started from the room—but not quickly enough: as he went through the door he heard Ray say: ‘Well, don’t drink too much. Remember ….’ He went back to his bedroom. His mother was sitting on the bed. She smiled at him. He went into Jocelyn’s room. The mirror showed him brown hair, blue eyes, tanned face, the terylene shirt, rust-coloured tie, green blazer, Mitchbilt trousers. He looked until he thought he heard her leave. Then he went back.
She was standing by the door.
‘So you won’t come, son?’
He went into the lounge. His father looked up from the paper, his eyes questioning.
Rob went into the kitchen. He drank a glass of water. He looked at his watch. Half past eight. Where was Arthur? He leaned on the sink-bench and stared out into the dark.
A small sharp horn beeped three times.
Rob went through the lounge, met his mother in the hall, called good night, and ran out of the house.
Though he did not expect to find the woman in the green skirt at the dance he followed Arthur across to the hall with some excitement. She just might have come and if not he would get into the race for Joan Armstrong. Joan was built on the heavy side, but in the right mood she let things end the right way. It had been like that a few months ago, three Saturday nights in a row.
They went up the steps and paid their two-and-sixes. Inside it was as he had expected. The woman was not there, only Joan and all the others: the girls engaged or going steady; the permanent wallflowers, freckled or fat or just plain plain (what could be done for them? why did they come?); the fourteens and fifteens, in pastel-shaded frocks, with handkerchiefs strung through their bangles and little damp purses clasped in their hands—they of course were taboo, though a couple had shown they were keen. The boys were at the door, in green United or black Railway blazers. They were talking and eyeing the girls. Some were working to the front for a quick start when the next dance was announced. Wilf Maiden, the MC, was whispering to the bandleader. After a moment he came down and scattered chalk powder on the floor. A few boys heckled him, and he said anxiously: ‘No rowdiness, lads.’ He went to the stage and announced a foxtrot.
Joan Armstrong was up before Rob could get to her, dancing with a young labourer from the Dairy Factory, who always had a faint smell of sour milk about him. As they went past the door his mouth was moving steadily, close to her ear. Rob grinned. Conversation was all right with a slow foxtrot but it didn’t go with a dance this quick. Next time Joan came round he smiled at her. Her answer was a cool twist of her lips.
Arthur was dancing with Beryl Hendrick, a pretty brown-haired girl who worked at the post office. He liked her, but she had a boy friend who came down from Auckland every second weekend. Arthur danced well. He spun behind the boys at the door on every round.
Rob went out to the lobby and talked with John Golding in the ticket office, filling in time until the dance was over. He would try for Joan later.
John Golding wanted to talk about football. He had little stacks of coins in front of him and he arranged these into an attacking and a defending backline: by shooting up a stack of shillings he showed how to use the full-back to give an overlap. ‘It’s all in the timing. Nobody has to beat anybody. Even an average backline can work that one.’
Rob agreed and kept nodding his head. He wasn’t interested in this. The heat in the hall had convinced him he was thirsty. He wanted to go round to the factory for a drink and then get after Joan. He waited for the music to finish. But the band was fresh and eager to play; the dance went on. He tapped his foot impatiently, and thought of going round by himself. There was sure to be someone to drink with there. Then he realised he had never gone by himself but always with Arthur. This appeared to him as a discovery. It had not occurred to him there were things they always did together. He saw that really they had been together all their lives. His earliest memories were of the great battles and expeditions of boyhood—tin-canoe convoys running the river through a hail of stones and airgun slugs, window-smashing at the Catholic school, the boarding-house spying raids—and Arthur had been with him in all of these. And in everything that had happened since—football, pig-shooting, first visits to the pub, those ten weeks in camp, Private Andrews, Private White, slogging at Tihoi, with Ngaruahoe smoking far away—down to this afternoon’s practice.
He thought about it as John Golding’s voice droned on and the band played ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’.
‘… without a good, solid, hard-rucking pack ….’
‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.’ Arthur spinning with Beryl, working hard, but knowing he had no chance.
‘… if you could only get a pack like Railway’s ….’
‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.’ The tune sighed to a close and ‘Honeybun’ started, brisk and loud.
‘… that, with your backline ….’
‘Honeybun’, brisk and loud, getting itself out of the way quickly.
Soon Arthur would come. They would go for a drink; in their fourth year of drinking together behind the factory.
People came in and he made way for them at the ticket office. He sat down on a form with his head resting on the wall between two hanging sports coats.
The music stopped. Arthur came out, looking pleased with himself. ‘I think I’ve got a chance, boy.’
Rob had stood up, started for the door. He stopped. ‘What you mean? With Beryl?’ He knew
that was what Arthur meant. And in that case he wouldn’t drink.
Arthur was nodding. He began to talk, softly and quickly. ‘I knew it’d happen in the end. I knew it couldn’t last. I was just dancing with her for kicks. I was kidding her along a bit and I said, “How’s the boy friend?” and she said: “Oh, him.” You know the sort of voice. And, boy, I caught on. I caught on quick. So if I work it right there’s no telling. At least she knows I’m keen. I’ve got a start on these other bloody sharks, anyway.’
‘Got the next dance?’
‘Too bloody right. And if I play it right, boy ….’ Arthur let his voice die but his eyes, shining up away from Rob’s face, carried the story on faster than words could have done.
Rob felt that the night was over. He wanted to grab Arthur and push him outside, show him all he would be losing. But then he calmed himself. This was only a beginning. A hundred things could go wrong. Or Arthur could be fooling himself. He had fooled himself before.
‘Look, Arthur, play it slow, see. Don’t go trying to go too fast. Christ, the girls you’ve lost that way. Just act natural. Tonight, if you take her home, don’t go trying to start anything. Make it nice and slow and polite. A nice polite woo. Just friendly, you know.’
Arthur grinned. ‘You let me handle it my way.’ He went back into the hall.
Rob stood where he was, wondering what to do next.
The Auckland University Press Anthology of New Zealand Literature Page 70