Show A utah missionary among the A maori aari nuhaka H B new zealand oct 30 1915 mr benfer price utah deir dear de ar friend mr benfer it has been nearly six months since I 1 left the city of price during those p months I 1 have been very inheres ted in the wonders of nature and the makeup make up of this part of the world and for two months I 1 have been laboring among the maori race and as I 1 have learned some of their customs I 1 will endeavor to write down some of them it is not known how long n alint baa as elapsed since the maori landed on the coast of new zealand but nearly every old maori can tell you that they were separated epa rated into groups some of which lived a thousand or more miles apart and between which no communication has taken place in some cases for over four centar centuries es so I 1 find that their cu custori nd even beliefs vary as does the language also what says their proverb eh ectra ira i to mea he kotaki nana I 1 I 1 itaki te itoko ha hangs nga I 1 te ao it was not one man alone who witnessed the making of the world and thus they account for discrepancies between tribal history and cua cus torn tom the maoris are a handsome and well developed race m u s a u I 1 a r fleshy with fine figures good arms and well shaped legs but with the feet flat and broad the men are as tall as the average american but many chiefs owing to better nour ashment thin the common people are far above the middle height among a hundred laoris maoris at least tet are six feet high or over and these by no means weedy but of corresponding bulk and weight the women are shorter than tho the men but I 1 in n youth are elegant and graceful many of them have small and beautifully shaped bands hands especially those whose birth removed them from the necessity of heavy and constant work they differ very much in complexion some being as fair as americans some as dark as negroes but t they hey are all shades of olive red brown an and d yellowish brown A good comparison for the polynesian Pol skin has been ma made de in the color of coffee with ith plenty of cream but even in the darkest complexion there is never any trace of that blue black shade which 19 often seen in the fijian and other Malane of course other circumstances such as the exposure to the sun etc effected the color of the skin and some tribes are uniformly darker than others your friend J MILTON OLSEN nuhaka 11 B new zealand concluded next week |