Captain Cook's Boyhood

This is the first of three articles specially written for the bi-centenary of Captain 
Cook's first voyage to New Zealand. Cook has a specially important place in our 
history. His rediscovery of these
islands led to the colonisation of New Zealand.
In 1968 and 1969 many countries, including Great Britain, Australia, Canada, America, 
and New Zealand, will be celebrating Cook's greatness as a discoverer and navigator.
Further information on Cook will be found in a series of articles in the Part 4 
journal, and in the bulletin, Cook's First Voyage to New Zealand.

James Cook, like most other babies of his time, was born in his parents' home on 27 
October 1728. His 
father was a farm labourer who had moved south from the village of Ednam near the 
River
Tweed in Scotland, some years before, to work in the north of Yorkshire in England. 
Here he married 
Grace Pace of Stainton in the village church of St Peter and St Paul on 10 October 
1725.
The Cooks' first home was in the parish of Ormesby nearby, where their first child, 
John, was born. 
Soon after this, however, they moved to the village of Marton in the Cleveland Hills 
to work for Mr
Mewburn, a farmer. It was here that James was born. They lived in a small two-roomed 
farm cottage 
made of stone, with a thatched roof and a chimney at each end of the building. The 
windows
were few and very small for glass was very expensive in those days.
 
English farmyard in the eighteenth century A wood engraving by Thomas Bewick

When he was a week old his parents took him to the Marton Church nearby to be 
christened. In the church register it is still possible to read these words: "1728, 
Nobr. 3 James ye Son of James Cook day labourer baptized."
James grew up at Marton with his brothers and sisters, and went to school in the 
village, where he 
was taught to read by Dame Mary Walker, the schoolmistress. But when he was eight 
years old
his father obtained a better position as foreman to Mr Thomas Scottowe on his farm in 
the parish of 
Great Ayton, about five miles away. It was here that young James grew up, helping with 
the
farm work. He learned to work hard in a harsh climate and to live cheerfully on quite 
simple food, 
which was all that his father could afford.
In winter the snow would sometimes lie on the ground for weeks and cold sea fogs would 
creep up the 
valleys to cover the countryside for days on end. To stay alive each family had to cut 
large stocks of firewood, as well as preserve enough food to carry them over the 
winter months.
We can imagine that James Cook's father prepared for winter in much the same way as he 
remembered his father doing in Scotland. At the beginning of the winter he would lay 
in a barrel of oatmeal. He would kill, salt and store in barrels a fat bullock and 
several pigs, and he would preserve as many vegetables as possible. Young 
James would learn to help with these tasks and, no doubt, he was able to add to the 
larder by shooting pigeons, 
snaring rabbits or catching fish as he roamed the hills and woods of the district. The 
animals, too, would need 
attention. Some would have to be brought into barns for shelter, and all would have to 
be fed with hay or root crops during the winter months.

Captain Cook's school, Great Ayton, which is now a museum. The schoolroom is on the 
first floor.

There was not much money for education, but young James lost no chance to learn. His 
keenness must 
have
impressed Mr Scottowe, who paid for him to attend the day school in the village. Here, 
James Cook and 
about twenty
other children were taught by a Mr Pullen. The Postgate School still stands in High 
Street, Great Ayton, although it has since been rebuilt.
Not much is known about James Cook's school days. He was taught reading, writing, 
arithmetic and the 
Church Catechism, and he was said to be remarkable at figures. He also began to show a 
sturdy independent 
spirit which
was remembered by his fellow pupils. They told the Rev. George Young, who published a 
biography of 
Cook in 1817,
that whenever the class met to discuss an outing Cook would put forward his own plan, 
and he would 
cling to it, even
if the others preferred some other plan. During his school days, and for some time 
afterwards, he continued to help
his father with the farm work. For a short time he was a stable boy.
By the end of 1744 the number of children in the Cook family had risen to eight, and 
James, who was 
now seventeen
years old, had to find a job.
By this time he had grown into a sturdy lad some six feet tall, with an active, 
independent and 
enquiring mind. He
was keen to gain a wider view of life. His father, therefore, arranged for him to 
become an assistant 
to Mr William
Sanderson, a draper and general dealer at Staithes, a small fishing town on the 
Yorkshire coast, 
about twelve miles
from home.
At Staithes James Cook first saw the sea. No doubt he often went down to the wharves 
to watch the fishing fleet of sturdy Yorkshire cobles  arrive home with their catch.

Whitby harbour, about 1800. The ship in the foreground is built in the same solid way 
as was the Endeavour.

Many of his companions would be fisher lads and he is sure to have accompanied them on 
short excursions to sea in his spare time.
During the next eighteen months he made two important discoveries. First, 
he realised that he had little interest in
shopkeeping and, secondly, he found he was fascinated by the sea. In July 1746, 
therefore, with permission from his parents, he persuaded Mr Sanderson to take him to 
Whitby, a flourishing port and ship-building centre about ten miles to the south-west, 
at the mouth of the River Esk. Here he was introduced to Mr John Walker, a Quaker 
ship-owner and master mariner, to whom he was apprenticed for the next three years.

1. Fishing boats with flat bottoms and square stems

As James Cook looked down on the town of Whitby, he must have seen a busy 
scene. For Whitby was growing
faster then than at any other time in its history. Its 5,000 inhabitants 
were crowded along both sides of the harbour in
oak-timbered and rough stone houses, but many new brick houses were also 
beginning to appear. Its growing wealth
came from the coal which was being mined in large quantities nearby. At 
this time, nearly one hundred years before
steam trains and railways, coal had to be transported by coastal ships from northern 
England to London and the south.
Quite large ships were now being built at Whitby, and many new 
ship-building yards were springing up along both
banks of the river.
Most of the vessels were built especially for the coal trade. They were 
about 400 tons and, because they did not need
much depth of water to sail in, they could be used in the shallow river 
mouths and harbours along the east coast of
England. They were built solidly to stand against the fierce gales of the North Sea, 
but, if it was necessary to
examine or repair them, they could be hauled up on to a beach. At this 
time, Whitby owned about 180 ships of over
80 tons, and to work on them young men flocked into town from the 
surrounding countryside.
It was in this booming port that James Cook was to make his home for the 
next nine years. He was eighteen when, in
July 1747, he sailed out of Whitby for the first time as one of ten 
servants, or apprentices, on the Freelove. His first
captain was John Jefferson.
The Freelove was a coal ship of 341 tons, built at Great Yarmouth. Cook 
made two voyages in her, each lasting two months, before she was laid up in Whitby for 
the winter. Here he stayed, as was the custom, in 
his master's house in Grape Lane. Mr John Walker seems to have taken a liking to his 
industrious young apprentice 
and helped him in his study of mathematics and navigation. James Cook soon became a 
close friend of the family, 
and he was a special favourite of Mary Prowd, the housekeeper. She provided him with 
candles so that he could 
study in the attic during the long winter evenings.
At this time a new Walker ship was being built at Whitby, and it is possible that John 
Walker would 
often take James
Cook with him when he walked down to the yards to watch the shipwrights at work.
After one more voyage in the Freelove, Cook returned to Whitby on 22 April 1748 to 
find that the new 
ship had been
launched. For the next two months he helped to rig it and get it ready for sea. Then, 
on 14 June, he 
sailed on the
maiden voyage of this new ship, named the Three Brothers, again under Captain 
Jefferson. John Walker 
sailed with
them as far as London, where the ship was fitted out with stalls for the transport of 
forty horses.
Two longer voyages of four to six months each in the transport service to Norway 
completed Cook's apprenticeship, and he returned to Whitby on 20 April 1749. He sailed 
again on the same day, after he was promoted to seaman "before the mast" (ordinary 
seaman).
The exact details of James Cook's movements during his boyhood in Whitby are known 
only because of 
the sailors'insurance books, called "The Muster Rolls", which have been kept in Whitby 
since 1675, and are still 
kept in the Museum there. They have details of each voyage of every ship entering or 
leaving the port, as well as the names and jobs of each of the men serving in her.

The Earl of Pembroke being built at Whitby. Its name was later changed to Endeavour.

James Cook had now spent three years at sea. He was twenty-one years old and his 
boyhood days were 
past. He
had learned to handle a sailing-ship in the shifting sandbanks and tide rips of the 
East Coast and in 
the rough and
changeable weather of the North Sea. By patiently working at mathematics he found that 
he had a gift 
for navigation;
and by watching Whitby ships being built and sailing in them he learnt all there was 
to know about them. At the same time he got to know 
all about the
seamen who sailed them. This knowledge was to be very useful to him in the years to 
come.
As we read the stories of Cook's three great voyages, we feel grateful to those who 
saw his worth 
when he was still a
boy, and generously helped to set him on the road to success. But more important than 
this were the 
qualities that
came from his mother and father, and which were developed by the hard life spent on 
the farm with a large family of brothers and sisters. The qualities were intelligence, 
industry, patience, independence and persistence. As he was also healthy and strong, 
James Cook was well prepared by his early life to meet the tough struggle that lay 
ahead of
him.
by A. C. and N. C. BEGG

ABOVE: John Walker's house in Grape Lane, Whitby, where Cook lived as an apprentice.
LEFT: The attic where Cook is supposed to have studied. The people shown here are 
characters from a Cook Bi-centenary play. They are dressed in clothes of Cook's time.
The Photographs for this article are reproduced by
courtesy of Tindale's, Whitby, Yorkshire.

Life's A Circus
A story of Circus Children
Photographs and story by HELEN BUTTFIELD

My father says that when I was born the first thing I did was turn a 
back-flip and do a double somersault straight into his arms. Well, that's his story. 
And he's got about a hundred more, but then he's a clown, and it's his job to make 
people laugh.
But it is true, in a way. I started tumbling and somersaulting and 
standing on my hands almost before I learned to walk. But what I really like is 
flying. Up on the trapeze. Or wire walking, balancing and juggling way up in the top 
of the tent, or riding a bicycle. Maybe even blindfolded. But I'm dreaming a little. 
Still, I like anything that gets me off the ground, even if it's just playing around 
on a rope or climbing trees with the other circus children.
When I think of how other children live-the "flatties" we call them - I 
say, "Never. I'll never leave the circus." We've
been all over Australia and New Zealand, and some of us have even been to Europe, 
touring for a season with our parents' acts.
Mostly I just like always being on the move. Every week, sometimes even 
every day, we're in a different place. New sights, new people, but always the same 
wonderful sawdust smells, and the sounds, the roaring, the blaring, marvellous sounds 
of - Circus!
Sometimes it's still dark when we come to a new tober or ground. It's always early in 
the morning. Tent hands, performers and children – we all help setting up the big top. 
Even Marty, whose Dad clowns too, helps with painting some of the aerialists' tackle. 
Marty is only five, but to hear him talk you'd think he's fifty. He'll look up at you 
and say, "I just fixed the truck." Then, wisely, "It was the air brakes."
The tent is the centre of our world. It weighs a ton and half and it's heavy work 
hauling it out flat to be laced together before pulling it up on the big king poles. 
Around the tent go all the caravans we live in, and the animal wagons, cookhouse and 
stables. Inside go the poles and planks that make up the seats, and most important of 
all – the ring. It takes piles of sawdust to cover it, but Marty's sister Tammy 
doesn't help much. She's only eight.
Of all the circus animals, I like the elephants best. They're full of 
mischief though. They stand there quietly chained to their stakes, swaying happily, 
but, if they wanted to, they could pull those stakes out with one tug. And they're 
clever. Johora, the big one, once unfastened her chain with her trunk, walked off in 
the night and ate a whole bag of chaff. But she couldn't fasten it up again, so when 
Tom came out in the morning there she was standing innocently by her stake
- her chain lying on the ground next to her big front foot.
Jeffrey is the elephant trainer's son, but all he wants is to be a clown. He's always 
watching the acrobats and jugglers and hanging around the clowns asking questions.
"What makes a clown Mr Zacchini?"
"An empty stomach, Jeffrey, an empty stomach. You cannot be a clown just by tumbling 
and juggling and telling jokes, though that is part of it. You must know many, many 
things. What it is to be sad, to be hungry, to be lonely.
You must study, study, read a great deal, listen and look. It takes a long time to be 
a clown."
"But how do I start? How did you start, Mr Zacchini?"
"I learned from my father. We were fourteen-brothers and sisters. He 
would take us outside his tent and say, 'Now, you want to be clowns? Well, you must do 
something. Anything you like.' And one of us would begin to jump around, jump, jump. 
And that was his way. Another was always walking with his hands in his pockets, 
dreaming at the sky.
And so he trained each of us the way we grew."
"I'm going to be a clown, Mr Zacchini."
"In time, Jeffrey, Many years, then perhaps you will be a great clown."
But there are other things to learn besides clowning. We all go to school even though 
it's in a caravan, and our teacher, Judy, is one of the performers. We do lessons from 
the Correspondence School in New South Wales. Tammy enjoys it because she's smart. For 
Jan sitting
beside her, studying for School Certificate, it's harder. She's the bareback rider, 
but she also does an aerial act and the Cossack dance too.
When school's out we all rush over to the side show. Tammy likes to show off on the 
Merry-Go-Round. She's copying part of the Cossack
riding act which is pretty tough. The riders lean out of their saddles while the 
horses are galloping around the ring and pick up handkerchiefs off the ground. Dick, 
the head rider, even passes under the horse's belly and comes up on the other side - 
with a sword held between his teeth!
Judy is a clown in the pony act, holding the hoops the ponies jump through. She's a 
Cossack rider 
too, but she doesn't do any of the trick
riding any more. At sixteen she was Australia's youngest champion buck jump rider but 
she hurt her 
leg in an accident which put her out of
competition riding; so she joined the circus to teach us. Michael, who's scratching 
Oatley's head, is 
the Cossack rider's son. He and his
father are training Oatley to be an "educated" pony. That means she'll go into the 
ring and stand on 
her hind legs and dance around. Then
Michael will ask her to do some simple sums, and tell him how many months in a year 
and Oatley will 
tap out the right number in the
sawdust with her hoof. It looks very clever, as if Oatley really can do arithmetic, 
but it's all 
really done by small signals from Michael, clicking
his fingernails together. The audience can't hear, but Oatley can.
Dick says you need four things to train a horse-patience, patience, patience-and 
carrots.
Sunday is the best day of all. There's no show and we can spend all day in the tent, 
practising. You have to practise
all the time to be really a first-class performer. Tammy and the other 
younger children start with tumbling:
somersaults, handstands, handsprings, on the ground and on the trampoline, 
like Tammy. Jan helps the youngsters
with tumbling and practises her act on the web, a single rope suspended 
from the top of the tent. She does a kind of
upside-down aerial ballet, while the "flatties" watch. Enviously I bet. 
Well, I know which side of the ring I'd rather be on - the sawdust side. I wouldn't 
swop my life in the circus for anything!

Gulls

Gulls are among the commonest of birds all over the world. They certainly are in New 
Zealand, where we have three
different kinds which are nowadays very numerous. Gulls, by the way, should not 
properly be called "sea-gulls", for they are just as common over the land as on the 
coast, many gulls in fact never see the sea at all. 
Very few gulls,and none of the New Zealand ones, live on the sea, and they seldom go 
out of sight of land, even when 
following a
ship.
One of the main reasons why gulls are so common is that, unlike most native birds, 
they are not put 
off by any
changes that man makes to the country. They are strong, well-built birds, able to live 
on many 
different kinds of food.
They are equally at home in the air, on the water and on land. Their wings are long 
enough to make 
them skilful flyers
and gliders, and their feet are webbed.
They swim skilfully on the water, but they cannot swim underwater. They will feed in 
water only on what they can
reach from the surface. You must have watched gulls scrapping over food on a beach, in 
a town park or 
at a rubbish tip, and will agree that, although their feet are webbed, they are very 
agile on land. Of 
course, if a gull wants
to perch, it must use something flat, and cannot perch on wires, twigs and so on, as 
can true land 
birds.
Gulls will feed on almost anything eatable that they can swallow. Their beaks can open 
very wide and 
they will
sometimes force down food that would seem impossible to swallow. Fish and flesh are 
what they like 
most but they
will eat insects, worms, shellfish, small animals dead or alive, eggs and, if they 
have to, seeds and 
grain. They can
be seen dabbling their feet, to bring up small animal life, in the wet sand and mud of 
beaches and 
river estuaries, in
puddles on farmland and in parks.
Most gulls are keen scavengers and, because of this, they have increased enormously in 
New Zealand, 
as in other
parts of the world. You will see great flocks of gulls wherever man has a rubbish tip, 
a freezing 
works, a port or a
fishing fleet. Gulls are very important in clearing up man's wastes, for in New 
Zealand we do not 
have the special scavenging mammals and birds of other countries. Gulls and hawks are 
our only important scavengers.
To try this out, make a list of all the places in your district where you have seen 
gulls feeding. 
How many of them are places where they have been scavenging rather than feeding 
naturally? What would have happened to 
this food if
there had been no gulls? As a small project, find out what are the scavenging animals 
of several 
countries in different
parts of the world.
Not only do gulls feed together but they also roost and breed together. They will 
usually roost for 
the night in an open
place where they can see all round and have early warning of any approaching danger. 
One perfect 
roosting place,
from a gull's point of view, is an airport, especially if it is close to an important 
gull feeding area as is, for example, Mangere Airport near Auckland. 
Flocks of gulls can,
however, be quite dangerous when flying up in front of jet aircraft. You may have read 
of the 
different kinds of
experiments that have been made to keep gulls away from airports. What would you do if 
you were in 
charge of an
airport ?
Gulls breed together in fairly open places, such as rocky islands and headlands, sand 
dunes and 
shingle river beds.
A gull colony may number from several hundred to several thousand birds. The nests are 
built on the 
ground, of
grasses and sticks, and the birds rely on their own numbers and the noise they make 
when disturbed to 
keep away
intruding animals. The chicks, like those of all ground-nesting birds (can you name 
other examples?) 
are born with
well-developed legs so that they can run and hide very soon after birth or, if the 
colony is near water, take to the water and swim strongly. They are born, too, with 
their bodies 
covered with thick
down, on which are markings that make them hard to see.
For some years now, many hundreds of gull chicks in New Zealand have been marked by 
having a metal 
band fixed
round one of their legs. If you come across a dead gull, it is worth looking to see if 
it has a band 
on its leg. Each band
has its own number and the address to send it to. From the hundreds of these bands, 
found and sent in 
over the
years, scientists build up the knowledge of such things as how long gulls can live, 
where they go, 
how and at what age most of them die, when and where they breed. Sometimes the chicks 
in very large colonies are also given
coloured bands, a different colour for each year. You may see some of these if you can 
often get close to gulls in a park or on a beach.
The Black-backed Gull
Of our three gulls, this is the easiest to tell. It is far bigger than the other two. 
As its name 
suggests, it is white with
black on the back and the top of its wings. Other details you may notice are that its 
legs are 
greenish-yellow and its
beak is yellow, with a red patch at the tip. This patch is a guide mark which the 
chicks aim at when 
they want to get
food from their parents' beak.
You may not realise that it takes some three or four years for the Black-backed Gull 
to get this 
black-and-white plumage and be old enough to breed. A young bird during its first year 
of life looks almost 
completely brown, with a
certain amount of white mottling. Its beak is blackish and the legs grey. It is not 
surprising that 
people often think this
is a different kind of gull. During its next few years, the gull shows all sorts of 
stages between 
fully brown and pure black-and-white.

Red-billed gulls
Black-backed gull on its nest
Young Black-backed gull

A visit to the nearest place where you can see a lot of Black-backs 
will soon show
you their variety.
The Black-back is found throughout New Zealand; in fact it is found in most parts of 
the Southern 
Hemisphere,
including the islands south of New Zealand, parts of
Antarctica, South America, South Africa, but not Australia. It is our 
main scavenging gull and its largest numbers are
therefore to be found near cities and ports. Although they are usually 
commonest in coastal areas, they are present
in most inland areas too. They have a bad reputation with many 
sheep-farmers, because of the habit some birds get
at lambing time. Some of them not only clear up the dead lambs, but also peck the eyes 
of live lambs and even
ewes. Farmers are allowed to kill these gulls. But normally all gulls are protected by 
law.
The Red-billed and Black-billed Gulls
These two gulls are the small silver-white ones you will have seen often, but which 
are at first very hard to tell one
from the other.
In the North Island, the Red-billed Gull is the one you will usually see. 
It is found mostly on and near the coast and is
quite a keen scavenger. In the South Island, the Red-billed Gull is 
seldom seen away from the coast, and the
common kind inland is the Black-billed Gull. The Red-bill usually breeds 
on rocky islets, headlands and cliffs and at
river mouths throughout the country, while the Black-bill breeds mainly 
inland on the shingle river beds of the South
Island. The only North Island place where the Black-bill breeds regularly 
is Rotorua. During the winter, many of the
South Island Black-bills, especially the young birds, move to the coast 
and often northwards, so that they are often to
be seen in such areas as the Wellington west coast, Hawke's Bay and the 
Firth of Thames. The Red-bill is also found
in eastern Australia, where it is called the Silver Gull, but the 
Black-bill is found only in New Zealand.

Black-billed gull by its nest
Red-billed gull by its nest

You would expect, from their names, that these birds can easily be told by the colour 
of their 
beaks; but this is not so. When they are nesting, their beaks are indeed clearly red 
or black, but the
colours fade somewhat when they are not breeding. Also, the beak colour of young gulls 
can be very 
confusing. Young Red-bills have brownish-black beaks and legs, and young Black-bills 
have
pinkish-brown beaks and legs, which later become quite red for a time. You can tell 
young birds by the 
brown mottling they have on their backs and wings.
If you see them together, the Black-bill is a slimmer bird than the Red-bill, with the 
grey of its 
back and wings much lighter. Its beak is long and thin compared with the short, chunky 
beak of the
Red-bill. When the two kinds are not together, however, the only safe guide is to look 
carefully at 
the pattern of black-and-white on the top of the wing-tips. The drawing shows the 
difference.

Black-bill
Red-bill

You will probably find that there is only one kind in your district, unless you live 
on the coast, 
especially in the South Island, where a lot of mixing takes place in the winter. See 
what you can find
out about them: where and on what they feed, where they roost, where their nearest 
breeding place is; 
at what times of year they are commonest; whether any of them have leg-bands? If you
know of a breeding place, do not go closer than the edge of the colony, as any bad 
disturbance of them can do a lot of harm.
 by BARRIE HEATHER photographs by M. F. SOPER

How Captain Cook Defeated Scurvy

Your body can store Vitamin C for about three months. If you do not replace it by eating fresh fruit or vegetables, you will get 
scurvy. Many sailors used to get this disease, and it was not
defeated until James Cook showed that he could keep his crew healthy during his long voyages 
around the world.
Not only sailors got this disease. Cities that were attacked by armies for a long time were full of 
people with scurvy. Soldiers also got it. There is a story describing scurvy in 1250 as it attacked
the soldiers of the Crusades. At that time it was also found in the Scandinavian countries. It was 
not easy to get any fresh food there, because of the long hard winters. However, it was usually
known as "sea scurvy". From the fourteenth century until the end of the eighteenth century, scurvy 
killed more seamen than wars and shipwrecks together. Now and then, some sailors found out
the secret of curing the disease with fresh fruit or vegetables, but it was always forgotten again.
Jacques Cartier, who was exploring the coast of Newfoundland in 1535, gave a horrifying description 
of the disease: "Scurvy began to spread among us in the strangest way that can be imagined.
Some men lost all their strength and could not stand on their feet. Then their legs swelled up and their muscles shrank and turned 
black as coal. Other men were even worse off. Their skins broke out into purple spots, that spread up their ankles, knees, thighs, 
shoulders, arms and necks. Their mouths became stinking, and their gums so rotten that all the flesh fell out."

An Elizabethan galleon

The disease spread rapidly until all except ten of the crew were sick. "Then," wrote Cartier, "God 
had mercy on us, and showed us how to cure our sickness."
Cartier learned from a native that the leaves of a certain tree cured the disease. After he had given 
his crew this fresh food, they got well so quickly that it is no wonder that he thought that God
must have helped him.
The secret was then forgotten, and it was not found again until later in the century. In 1593 Sir 
Richard Hawkins learned that orange juice prevented scurvy. He made this discovery during a long
voyage to plunder the SpanishAmerican city of Valparaiso in Chile. Another Englishman, Sir James Lancaster, also knew the 
secret. He used the tropical fruit of the West Indies during a voyage in 1600. Both these men served under Sir Francis 
Drake. They had fought the Spanish Armada, and were now prowling the seas in search of treasure and loot.
As bigger ships were built and voyages became longer,
scurvy became a bigger threat to seamen. It is hard for us to realise the size of the problem. For 
instance in 1740 Lord Anson sailed with six ships around the world. Three quarters of his men,
about 1,200 altogether, died of the disease before his fleet limped back into port. Six years later 
the disease wiped out all the officers and men of a French fleet which was working along the east coast of Canada.
At this time it was known that scurvy would always appear after the ships had been at sea for three 
months. It would then spread through the crews until everyone had it. On a voyage between
London and Cape Town even the finest ships and the strongest crews could be crippled by the disease. 
So, if it had not been for scurvy, many parts of the world might have been explored much
earlier. For five hundred years, scurvy held up and even prevented overseas exploration and travel.
However, after Anson's fleet had returned to England, more and more people made up their minds that 
scurvy must be defeated. The most important was a Scotsman, James Lind. He was a
doctor in the Navy, and he had made a special study of the health of seamen. His book on scurvy was 
published in 1754. He looked back into history, especially at seamen like Hawkins and
Lancaster. They had all pointed out the importance of fresh fruit and vegetables. To prove they were 
right, Lind had done an experiment in 1747 on 12 sailors who had scurvy. He treated them with orange juice and quickly cured 
them.

 James Lind (1716-1794)

It was Captain Cook who had the courage to accept his ideas, and put them into practice during his great voyages of exploration. 
He proved that men could go on the longest sea journeys,
providing that they had the right foods. But having the right foods was not enough. It was just as 
important to make sure that everybody on board ate them. Cook knew very well that scurvy was
their greatest threat, and he was determined to do everything he could to avoid it.
He gave much thought to giving his men a balanced diet, and he chose the foods for each voyage very 
carefully. He always included foods that he thought helped to prevent scurvy, for example, salted cabbage, portable soup, 
marmalade of carrots. Salted cabbage was just cabbage, cut up, salted, 
and put into casks. Portable soup was soup powder. It could be added to oatmeal or stews. Marmalade of carrots was the juice of 
carrots thickened until it was like honey or treacle. Cook doubted that carrots were any use in preventing scurvy – and he was 
correct. Carrots contain very little Vitamin C. However, the main part of the seamen's meals was still salt meat and ship's 
biscuits.

Above: Extract from the journal of one of Cook's officers, Zachary Hicks, 30 November 1769
Below: Wild celery, from a drawing by Sidney Parkinson, one of the artists on Cook's first voyage.

Wherever Cook went, he remembered that fresh vegetables were needed. He 
sent his men in search for wild celery or scurvy grass whenever his ship reached land. Imagine the faces that the sailors pulled 
when they sat down to portable broth in which was chopped scurvy grass, or to salted pork and wild celery! But the crew were 
not the only ones who had to eat the foods that Cook thought they needed. The officers, 
too, had to eat them, and Cook set an
example by eating them himself.
Whenever he could, he planted vegetable seeds for the use of seamen who 
would follow him. 

Scurvy grass

In Dusky Sound he even cleared some land so that he could plant some of the precious seeds he 
had brought all the way from England.
But the winds and rain of Fiordland were too much for these tender plants, 
and they did not survive.
If fresh vegetables are important, then so are fresh meat and fresh fish. 
Cook found that this was true when he was
sailing along the Australian coast. He had been without fresh food for a 
long time and Tupaia and seven sailors had
got scurvy. Cook put the sailors ashore and fed them with the green heart 
of cabbage palms and fresh fish. They got
well quickly, though no more quickly than did Tupaia who ate only fresh 
fish. Fresh fish was plentiful in most of his
Pacific harbours and was a most valuable addition to the diet of the seamen.
Captain Cook carried farm animals on his later voyages. This was because he 
wanted his crew to have a supply of
fresh meat. When he set free pigs, sheep and goats at Queen Charlotte 
Sound, he was thinking of those who would
follow him, and who would need fresh meat. It was amazing that the farm 
animals remained alive on these long
voyages. How did they stand the tropical heat of the Equator, as well as 
the intense cold of the polar seas? Perhaps
Cook's early life as a farm hand had taught him how to feed and take care 
of animals in all weathers.
Captain Cook protected the health of his men in other ways. He saw that the 
whole ship was cleaned out regularly
with vinegar and gunpowder, and he made his men air their bedding, and wash 
and dry their clothes. He also made
sure that everyone got at least eight hours sleep each day.
Captain Cook was very pleased with his success in keeping his men healthy. 
When the Resolution reached Cape
Town, after the voyage from London, all Cook's men were in excellent 
health. Two Dutch vessels arrived in Cape Town from Europe at about the same time. One had lost 41 men from scurvy, and the 
other no less than 
151 of the crew. Here was proof that Cook's methods were the right ones.
Cook was given the Copley Gold Medal for his work in keeping his sailors healthy, and he valued this above all else. He believed 
that his defeat of scurvy was more important to the world than his many discoveries.
by A. C. AND N. C. BEGG

Cook's Copley Gold Medal

A Lesson in Catching Eels

James Stack's father was one of the early New Zealand missionaries, and James was born in 1835 at a 
mission station in the Waikato district. Later the family moved to East Cape, where James
was the only white boy among scores of Maori children. He was eight when he had his first lesson in 
eeling.
He writes: "In the summer months the Maoris were always poking about the banks of the river, near our 
home at Waiapu, looking for eels. One day I asked a Maori boy to let me into the secrets of eel-fishing. He said he would do so.
"It was a very hot day. On reaching the river, he told me to take off every stitch of clothing, and 
then to go feeling along the bank under the water until I found an opening into which I could push
the whole length of my arm. If the hole was smooth, I was to pull out my arm, and plug up the mouth 
of the opening.
"Then I was to search higher up for the other outlet of the eels' hiding place, which was generally a 
few feet away. When that was found, I was to push one arm up into the hole, while my free arm
was to be used to break away the soil, so that I could push farther and farther in.
"I carefully watched the Maori boy do all this. As soon as he felt an eel, he slipped his finger and 
thumb along the body till they reached the gills. Then he quickly nipped his fingers together, pulled
the eel out, and threw it up on the bank, where he killed it by beating the head with a stone or 
heavy piece of wood.
"I now began working along the bank, and I was very much excited when I felt my first eel, which was 
almost two feet six inches long. I tried hard to hold it, but it kept slipping through my hands.
 "As I raised it out of the water, I nearly lost it altogether.
'Grip it with your teeth!' cried the Maori. I did as he said,
and, though the tail smacked me about the face, I ran with
my  prize till I reached a dry, shingle-bank, where I dropped it and killed it.
"By that time I found that my mouth was full of nasty slime from off the creature's body, and though 
I washed my mouth again and again, I could not get rid of the horrid taste for a long time. After that I left my Maori friend to 
catch the eels when I found them."
Adapted from EARLY MAORILAND ADVENTURES OF J. W. STACK
illustrated by CONRAD FRIEBOE

Show's On
A Story of Circus Children

When we're standing outside waiting to go on-my brother Jimmy and I, joking 
and laughing with our father, Joe the
Clown - well, that's the best moment of all! That's when me really begin to 
feel the excitement of being circus. The
music starts up, the trumpets and drums, the people are all inside 
waiting-and it's us they're waiting for. To come
running in, leaping and tumbling over each other-it's better than anything 
else in the world!
The first time you go into the ring-that's the hardest. But soon you get to 
like it so much that even Johora the elephant
couldn't drag you out before your turn is over. My family are circus people and it's the same with the other children.
In a small family circus like ours everyone works in the ring. Not just 
one, but two or three acts, and other jobs, like
selling programmes or popcorn.
One of the easiest acts for children to start in is the acrobats. When Dad 
was young his father used to do a juggling
act with him and his brothers. Grandad would lie down, put his feet up, and 
they would jump up on to his feet and he'd
juggle them just as if they were rubber balls while they turned somersaults 
in mid-air. What an act! Now he just clowns. And so do I. But next year I'm going to start training to be the "flying clown" in the 
aerial act. The flyers have
the most exciting part of all, and the clown's trick is one of the hardest. 
You have to be able to do something perfectly
before you can pretend not to and not get hurt.
Most of us in the first turn are ready early, but not Gary. When he puts 
on his make-up he suddenly stops being
Tammy's father: the clown-white around his mouth, two black strokes for a 
moustache, two more make eyebrows;
then his flaming wig, baggy trousers and oversize shoes - and he becomes a 
red-headed Charlie Chaplin. Tammy, holding the mirror, makes fun of him too. But she looks just as funny reflected in a hand 
mirror when she's making up
in the costume caravan with Jan, the bareback rider.
There's always a rush at the last minute, especially when it's the first 
show at a new pitch. But when the ringmaster
calls out "La-dies and gen-tel-men!" there are Gary and Joe, lumbering 
into the ring for the opener.


Dad is terrific in the ring - and so is Gary. They do a real stupid-clown 
act, arguing with the ringmaster, hitting each
other with gigantic boxing gloves, tripping each other up and telling 
silly jokes. Then they fight with flaming swords
and end up exploding firecrackers behind each other's backs. It all looks 
pretty easy, but it takes a lot of practice,
knowing how to fall and seeming to be awkward.
Gary's been clowning since he was five. He used to do a mock strongman 
act with his father, who would lift papier mache weights with a lot of puffing and groaning. At the end of the act, 
while his father was taking a bow and smiling,
Gary would scamper over, pick up all the weights
and run out of the ring. One night he tripped and everyone laughed twice 
as hard. But he was angry and wouldn't go back in for days.
You soon learn that the more you trip and do stupid things the harder people 
laugh. And what a feeling! You run into the
ring, leaping and smiling, and then, crash, you deliberately catch your 
foot and over you go, wobbling and tripping
yourself, seeming always to be losing your balance. But actually you're 
doing a lot of controlled flip-flops and
somersaults and pirouettes. And the laughter! You feel marvellous. You 
get up looking so stupid that everyone howls -
but you keep the same sad, miserable face. The more they laugh, the 
dumber you look, but all the time
you're bubbling up inside because you know you're good!
Marty is the same age his father was when he began in the ring. He's a serious one. Marty doesn't do much in his mother's whip-
cracking act, but Jimmy and I do. We go in as clowns and hold a strip of paper between our 
teeth while Lorraine whisks it out with one
lash of her
stock whip - about two inches from the end of my nose.
Gary isn't clowning either as
he balances on his giant globes, juggling balls, and rolling the globe up a 
ramp to a platform ten feet off the ground.
Then slowly he inches it down backwards.
But people are only half the circus. When the riders come cantering into the ring on their horses, the "flatties" really sit 
up and look. That Queenie, the white mare, is one of the best. She's not
elegant, or a show-off like the Liberty horses, but she's smart and solid as a rock. You could set off firecrackers in the 
ring and she wouldn't flick an ear. She just keeps up that steady pace round
and round the ring with her big broad back coated with resin to give your feet a better grip. Adele rides her, and juggles 
three Indian clubs at full speed.
Because she's only fourteen, Jan has to wear the mechanic, a harness attached to a rope that goes up through a pulley and 
down to the ringmaster. If Jan slips and starts to fall he pulls on the rope
and breaks her fall before she hits the sawdust. One night she did slip. She wasn't hurt, but Queenie, feeling her weight go 
off thought, "Hello, my turn must be up!" and started to trot out of the ring.
Before Queenie would go on, the ringmaster had to ride her round again to the point in the act where Jan had fallen. When 
they learn something, they don't like to change without your telling them!
Dick, the Cossack rider, comes in next and vaults on and off his horse, yelling like a wild man. He turns somersaults and 
then circles completely under the horse's belly while at full gallop - all the
time holding a sabre between his teeth.
Jan and the other girls come in then and do a Cossack dance, and then stand by the ring fence and beat tambourines while Dick 
finishes the act with some more acrobatics. It's a pretty
spectacular.
When Nikki goes up into the top of the tent with Jonass and does splits and pirouettes, hanging from 
a bar held
between his teeth, the audience sits like a tentful of statues and stares. She's really beautiful, 
and Jonass - he's
about the strongest man in the circus. The night the tigers escaped from the zoo in Wellington, 
Jonass came rushing
out of his caravan in his pyjamas dragging a net and yelling, "Let me get them, Mr Ashton, I can do it." He was afraid they'd be 
shot, and they were, in the end.
Tammy gets a bit scared, though, for Nikki when she's up there, and is glad when they come down again. Then she runs forward 
with Gail to give them their cloaks, and they all run out to great applause.
It's the flying trapeze act that gets the most applause though, and finishes up the show. The part I wait for is when Chris runs out 
of the audience in his baggy trousers, shouting, "Me too, I want to fly too!" and clambers up the rope ladder. He pretends to fall 
off and staggers around up on the perch, then when he finally swings out he misses the catcher - on purpose of course - and 
tumbles into the net.
Hitting the net can be the most dangerous part of all, because if you don't hit just rightt you can break your neck.
Perhaps even little Marty, swinging on the tent ropes down below - perhaps some day he'll even give up his trucks and motors 
and learn to fly too.
Photographs and story by HELEN BUTTFIELD

Captain Cook and the Maoris

View of Poverty Bay, showing Young Nick's Head, Engraving from Sydney Parkinson's A 
Voyage to the South Seas

The Maoris of Cook's time were different from their
Polynesian ancestors. They had kept much of their
language and a few of the myths of their ancestors, but
they had had to make many changes in their lives so that
they could live in a new land that was very different
from the old. There were, for example, differences in climate. The north was sub-
tropical, while the far south
stretched down towards Antarctica.
But their most urgent task was to collect enough food to keep themselves alive. The 
first settlers 
had no root foods or
vegetables, so they had to live the life of hunters. Fish was plentiful in the waters 
around the 
coast, while the giant
moa still roamed in large numbers, particularly in the South Island. The natives 
slaughtered them by 
the thousands.
A great new wave of Polynesians arrived in New Zealand about 1350 A.D., bringing 
kumaras, yams, taro, 
and gourds.
These foods, which had to be cultivated, brought a new way of life to the Maoris. They 
now had to prepare the ground, and then look after the crops until harvest time. 
Villages grew up around the fields as 
the hunters settled
down and lived more as farmers. Now they had to think of defending their land and 
their crops from 
neighbouring
villagers. They built pas, or fortified villages, and they trained their young men to 
be warriors.
The root crops grew well in the warmer climate of the North Island, especially around 
Poverty Bay and 
the Bay of
Plenty. The Maori population in these parts increased greatly. But much of the South 
Island was too 
cold for growing
kumara, yam and taro. So, the Maoris there were still mainly hunters. They wandered in 
bands from the sea, through river valleys to the mountains, following seasonal food 
supplies, till they were driven back to the coast by the winter.
They lived a simple life, spending much of their time collecting food. Most of them 
did not have kumara fields to defend, so they did not spend nearly as much time 
fighting as did the northern Maoris.
After the visit of Captain Cook, life changed again for the Maoris. The Europeans that 
followed him 
gave muskets and
gunpowder to the warlike, settled communities of the north. They used them to defend 
their land and 
to conquer their
neighbours. They now waged wars that were far more destructive than any in the past. 
But to the nomad 
hunters of
the South Island, Cook's visit brought changes that were mainly good: he gave them the 
potato and the 
pig. They
could now stop their wandering and settle down in villages. At first they needed all 
that they produced for themselves, but later they were able to produce enough to trade 
with the sealers and whalers.
The settlements which sprang up in the south around the potato fields began to grow in 
the same way 
as those in the
north. Some fortified pas were built to protect the land, and young men were trained 
especially for fighting. Cook and his scientists took accurate notes 
of the Maoris
they saw during the voyages of the Endeavour and the Resolution. They are especially 
important, 
because the Maoris
they saw had not yet had their lives changed by meeting Europeans.
It was on 8 October 1769 that Cook first saw the Maoris. The day after land had been 
sighted, the Endeavour was lying off a bay. Cook writes: "We saw several canoes across 
the bay, which very soon made for the 
shore. They did
not seem to take the slightest notice of the ship. We also saw some houses, which 
looked small but 
neat. Near one
of them and sitting on the beach, a large number of people had collected together. We 
thought they 
were the same
as those we had seen in the canoes. On a small peninsula, at the north-east point of 
the bay, we 
could plainly see a
pretty high and regular stockade around the whole top of a hill . . ."
We do not know what other thoughts Cook had in his mind. Did he think of the brutal 
murder of Tasman's men, and did he remember Tasman's description of the ferocity of 
the Maoris? Abel Tasman had thought the 
Maoris on the Three Kings Islands were giants. But Cook had got on very well with the 
Polynesians in Tahiti, and the scene in front of him now was so peaceful that he may 
have felt hopeful about his visit. Besides, he had with him a 
native of Tahiti,
whose name was Tupaia. He would be able to tell the Maoris that they came as friends,
Cook may have had hopes that the Maoris would receive him in a friendly manner, but he 
could not be 
sure unless he
paid them a visit. So, with his usual courage, he went ashore at a place near the 
mouth of a river, where Gisborne now stands.

Maoris jeering, poking out their tongues and waving their weapons, as they challenge 
Cook's men to fight.

The warlike Maoris soon made it plain that they hated strangers trying to enter their 
territory 
without their permission.
After Captain Cook and his scientists had moved a little way up the beach, a group of 
warriors tried 
to seize Cook's
boat. They retreated only after one of them had been shot. The next day, Captain Cook 
tried again. 
This time Tupaia
spoke to them. The Maoris understood him, but they were just as fierce as before. 
Again the guns were 
fired, and the
Maoris retreated with their wounded.
Captain Cook was made sad by these incidents; so he took the Endeavour along the coast 
to look for friendlier people. At first he was not successful, for when he came across 
two canoes he tried to turn them away from the shore. He wanted to persuade the Maoris 
to come on board the Endeavour. One of the canoes escaped, 
but they
managed to block the other one. But, instead of diving overboard and swimming to 
safety, the Maoris 
gave fight. It
was a sorry business: four Maoris were killed and three were captured.
A few days later there was another fight with some Maori canoes, which gave the name 
to Cape 
Kidnappers. Several
canoes came alongside and began to trade. After a while they began to steal things, 
and then they 
grabbed Tupaia's servant, Tayeto, and made off with him in their canoe. One of the 
Maoris was shot, and, in the fight that followed, 
Tayeto jumped overboard and began to swim to the ship. At once the biggest canoe 
turned round to 
recapture him. It
took a shot from the Endeavour's cannon, as well as a lot of musket fire to chase it 
off. Poor Tayeto was pulled aboard unhurt, but very upset. Captain Cook was extremely 
sorry about these incidents, and he kept trying to make friends with the Maoris.
In the end, his own bravery must have helped him to win the admiration of this warrior 
race. As one 
of his men wrote:
"He would land unarmed, and lay aside his weapons and sit down when they threatened 
him with theirs, 
throwing
them beads, knives and other little presents. Then little by little he would get close 
to them, 
showing them such
patience that he at last won their friendship . . ."
Gradually the Maoris began to accept the newcomers, so that Cook and his men could 
move among them 
and feel safe. 

View of a stone arch in Tolaga Bay, from A Voyage to New Zealand. The Maori in the 
centre is carrying a long spear for killing birds.

The explorers examined and wrote descriptions of the gardens, the villages, the houses 
and the fortified pas, the flax clothing, the weapons, tools and implements, the 
carvings and the canoes. They enjoyed watching the poi dances and the hakas. One old 
man showed them how to fight with the patu - a club that in the hands of a skilful
warrior could take the head off an enemy. Most of all, Cook saw the Maoris as a proud 
and brave people who could not put up with an insult, and who would fight to the end 
for their land.
The Maori canoes, especially the war canoes, filled the explorers with surprise and 
admiration. Some were longer than the Endeavour, and most of them were very much 
faster. Their owners were expert sailors, who used the sea as their trade routes. News 
of Cook's visit, often spread ahead of the voyagers. As Cook sailed around the North 
Island he was visited again and again by fleets of canoes – some friendly and some 
hostile.
The South Island Maoris were first seen in Queen Charlotte Sound, which Cook named 
after the wife of George III. Cook at once noticed that these people had no cultivated 
land, and that they lived on fish and fern roots. Even so, there was enough food for 
them in the sounds. They lived in villages with pas on hill-tops, which could be 
defended. Though they met Captain Cook as if they expected trouble, they soon became 
friendly when they realised that he came in peace.
During his voyage round the South Island, Cook did not see many Maoris or signs of 
their villages. He had to wait three years before he met the southern Maori. This 
happened during the second voyage, when he called at Dusky Sound in March 1773. There 
he met a family of southern Maoris and wrote many notes in how they lived. He found 
that they were different in many ways from the northern Maoris. You will read in the 
School Journal, Part 4, 
Number 2, how Cook made friends with them.
When they were sure they could trust Cook, they sailed in their little 
double canoe across the sound to camp near the Resolution.

Some drawings made by Cook's men. LEFT. Patu (Maori club). UPPER RIGHT. Maori nose 
flute. LOWER RIGHT. Two views of another patu: from the top, and from the side. This 
weapon, which was taken to England, is now in the Dominion Museum, Wellington. See 
below.
Wooden patu. Dominion Museum.
Inside a pa, near Queen Charlotte Sound. After a painting by John Webber, artist on 
the third voyage
Cook's men are met by Maoris, as they come ashore from the Resolution and Discovery, 
in Queen Charlotte Sound. A painting by Webber

During the following days, Cook and the scientists made a study of these 
people and their ways. They were
wanderers, moving from place to place in search of food. They were friendly 
and generous. The explorers described
their fishing equipment, canoes, weapons and clothes. William Hodges, the 
artist, painted their portraits. The
scientist, George Forster, even wrote down their words for the birds he 
painted, just as they sounded to him. Because
of his careful notes we can faintly hear the voice of the southern Maori. 
His words and his speech were different in
many ways from the northern language, which is the Maori that is spoken 
today.
Then, about a fortnight before the Resolution sailed from Dusky Sound, the 
friendly family disappeared. Cook was
surprised and disappointed, because he could see no reason why they should 
have gone. It was all very mysterious.
We now think that they may have been killed by Maoris from a neighbouring 
bay. Human bones, that may have been
theirs, were recently found in a cave nearby.
We cannot praise too highly Captain Cook's descriptions of the Maori race. 
They give a picture that is not only clear
and fascinating, but also of great value to people who are interested in 
studying Maori life. We should remember that
there are many details of Maori life that would have been lost if Cook had 
not described them.
Captain Cook admired the Maoris as a race. What did the Maoris think of 
him? The answer is plain in the words of the Maoris who met him, especially those of 
Te Horeta, who was a little boy when he saw Captain Cook.
Years later he described this meeting. "There was one supreme man in that ship. We 
knew that he was the lord of
the whole by his perfect gentlemanly and noble bearing. But this man did not utter 
many words: all that he did was to
handle our mats and hold our clubs and spears, and touch the hair of our heads. He was 
a very good man, and came
to us - the children - and patted our cheeks and gently touched our heads."
by A. C. and N. C. BEGG The extracts have been simplified.

Maori warrior drawn by Parkinson, wearing his finest cloak and holding a tewhatewha, 
which is a kind of long-handled axe, usually made of wood. Notice his beard

Ruatahuna

Long ago the Tuhoe people were given the name, "Children of the Mist". When you look 
at the Huiarau range, you can see why. The rugged mountains rise in ridge on ridge of 
misty, bluish haze. The forest that
covers them looks so dense, you wonder if the sun can ever get through to warm the 
earth. Does anyone live inside those bush-clad mountain walls? Where are the roads? If 
there are roads, what is it like
to wind up and up through the mist into the fog that never seems to lift, and then 
climb down again?
The wooded country looks as if it has not changed in a thousand years. It still seems 
to belong to the old New
Zealand of the Maori times, long before the white man came. The fairhaired Turehu, the 
fairy folk of the Urewera legends, could still be lost in there.
That is what the country looks like from the outside. What is it like 
inside? Let us go to Ruatahuna and see.
The settlement is just half-way between Rotorua and Wairoa. The road you 
take twists and turns and climbs up, up
into the mountains. It scares you to look down and see how high up you are. 
It's like being on top of the world. Not a
house in sight, not one. There are only the signposts to tell you that 
other people pass this way. The sunlight gleams
through the tree-tops on to the road, but the bush belongs to darkness. It 
is like night inside. Then you pass a sign
that says "Timber mill", and meet a logging truck coming the other way - people at 
last!
Inside the bush men are working. Bulldozers crash through the undergrowth. 
Chain saws whirr and whine and another giant rimu falls.
No place for the fairy folk here! But away from the men and the machines, the 
bellbirds and tuis 
still sing, the kaka
screeches and the native pigeons call. And in some places still you may hear the cry 
of the kiwi.
"Ki-wi! Kiwi!" the brown bird without wings calls deep in its forest home.
You continue the journey, climbing down now. And down there is the valley - Ruatahuna 
at last!
What a different scene! Sheep dot the hillsides. A steep-banked stream winds through 
sloping 
farmlands. Clusters of
houses scattered here and there mark the sites of ancient Maori pas. There is no 
township, just a 
store and, a little
further on, the Post Office and the school.
Down there an old Maori farmer herds a straggling mob of sheep to the woolshed. His 
dogs follow 
after. A small boy
and a big horse bring up the rear.
Ruatahuna is mostly sheep country. The Maori farmers
own the land together, and they all share in the work. Right now is shearing time, and 
everyone takes 
a hand - men,women, even children.
In the woolshed the shearers send the fleeces flying. Maybe this shearer does not need 
his tin hat 
there, but he likes
to wear it just the same. They all laugh and joke as they work. Everyone has a job to 
do, even Mum. 
Fleece is
money. Not even the smallest pieces are wasted.
The woolshed is used for more than shearing. Dances are held there, and parties. The 
people come from 
all the pas
around to have a good time together. The young ones dance and the old watch and talk. 
You would not 
know the old
woolshed then, with all the coloured streamers and lights, and everyone dressed up in 
best clothes. 
The guitars play
and everyone sings.
In the big cities everyone is in a hurry, but here there is no hurry, just quiet, easy 
days - time to 
see your friends, time to talk to the storekeeper and the postmistress, time to work, 
to play, and to pray.
The Ruatahuna people belong to the Ringatu religion, one of the two Maori religions. 
They pray in the 
great meeting house at Mataatua, one of the pas in the valley. Every night their holy 
bell calls
them to evening prayer in the meeting house, and once a month Ringatu people from the 
whole district 
come together for a night and a morning of prayer and reading the bible.
The meeting house is a very famous place. It is the biggest in New Zealand, and its 
name is Te Whai-a-te-Motu. The Ruatahuna people built it for the founder of the 
Ringatu religion, Te Kooti. The
greatest carvers of the day worked on it to make it a place of wonder and beauty.
The many wonderful carvings tell the story of the ancestors of the
Urewera people. Wise men can read these carvings as you can read a book. You might say 
that the Maori 
meeting house is a history book. Alongside the fierce, carved figures, and the ancient
weapons of war that hang on the walls, you will see photographs of respected men and 
women of the 
tribe; so the story reaches down to our own times.
Here, at Te Whai-a-te-Motu, the great huis are held. These are Maori gatherings where 
visitors are 
feasted and housed, and speeches made. Sometimes the hui is for a tangi, when someone 
has
died. The tangi lasts three days, and people come from long distances to pay their 
respects to the 
dead in the old Maori way.
At other times it might be a wedding that brings them all to a hui, or a big meeting 
of the Ringatu 
church. Whatever the reason for the gathering, you can be sure that there is a warm 
and wonderful
welcome for everyone, Maori and Pakeha.
Food is cooked in the Maori earth ovens. Mountains of potatoes and kumaras, whole 
roasted pigs and 
sheep. Visitors sleep in the meeting house, if there are too many for the smaller 
sleeping
house. Beds are laid out on the floor, and every bed is provided with clean bedding 
and a 
fancy-worked pillow case.
The children have a great time at the huis. They watch the tribal welcomes and listen 
to the long 
speeches on the marae - the sacred ground in front of the meeting house, where all the 
talking is
done. There they learn the ways of their people and the pride of being Maori. The 
meeting house and 
the marae will always be home to them.
The boys in the picture are pretending to be old-time Maori warriors with sticks for 
taiaha, the old 
Maori fighting club. The other children look on, enjoying the game.
When the others run off to play some other game, like chasing a ball, or cowboys, the 
little girl curls up on the porch and goes to sleep under the watching green eyes of 
the Maori ancestors, as easily
as she would do at home.
 It is a good life for the children of Ruatahuna. They have all the land they want to 
run about in - no crowded city streets for them. There are plenty of eels in the 
Ruatahuna stream, and if school is not as close as yours there
 is the school bus to take them there. The bus driver is
 their friend. He stops at all the pas to pick up his young
 passengers - and maybe Mum or Grannie wanting a lift
to the store.
 The school is called Huiarau Maori School. Sometimes,
 when the children first start school, they cannot speak English. But they soon learn. 
They do not forget to speak
their own Maori though; they have two languages.
 The children of Huiarau Maori school have the same
 lessons as other schools. They do mathematics and spelling,
and learn about the different countries. They learn about
 their Maori heritage, too - the Maori way of life that has
been handed down to them from the past.
 They learn the old Maori chants and the newer Maori
action songs. The boys and girls in the picture love their
Maori music lesson. The joy of what they are doing shines
in their faces. To them singing comes as easily as talking
does to us. They are never shy about standing up and
singing for visitors, for music is so much a part of their lives.
The boys are pretty good at the haka, too. Pull the right faces and give good Maori 
yells. It is good fun, but it is a way of learning their history, too.
Yet the children at Huiarau Maori School are not really so different from other 
children. In the playground they play the same games as other New Zealand children. 
The girls are champions at basketball, and you can be sure that the boys play great 
rugby.
This young player in the picture is not going to let go of the ball, not if he can 
help it. "Just try and catch me," the look on his face says.
Who knows? Maybe we're looking at a future All Black here – perhaps another Hereini or 
Nepia. Wa-a-ah! As the Ruatahuna boys say. That would be something!
By AMELIA BATISTICH
Photographs by HELEN BUTTFIELD

The Harrier

Few people have a good word to say about the harrier, and in a few parts of the 
country there is a 
price on its head, because it takes ducklings and birds. Many farmers dislike it, 
because it kills
young lambs.
The harrier is a specially interesting bird to study, partly because it is so 
unpopular. Why is it 
still quite common, when so many people treat it as an enemy? You cannot go far in the 
country
without seeing a hawk, as it is usually called. You will see it gliding in wide 
circles, its wings 
forming an open "V". Where so many lovely native birds have completely disappeared, 
the kahu, as
the Maori called it, remains.

A young harrier with feathers beginning to grow

People think of the hawk as a coward, but perhaps its wariness is one of the main 
reasons why it still lives. There is in New Zealand another kind of hawk, a real 
falcon, though smaller than the
harrier. The Maori called it the karehareha. It will snatch up a pullet from outside 
the farmer's 
back door, and it will swoop fiercely at anyone going near its nest.
I was once the proud owner of a big cowboy hat, with a real snake-skin band. It is 
probably still mouldering away in a deep gully near Waitomo Caves. I did not know 
there was a falcon's nest anywhere near me, until my hat suddenly went sailing away 
down into the gully. It had been whisked off my head by the swift silent swoop of a 
falcon. The harrier's nature is very different from this.
It will desert its nest more readily than most other birds.
Even their young sometimes have most unpleasant habits. There is a saying, "Little 
birds in their nests agree", but some little harriers have not heard it yet. If their 
parents do not bring home enough food, the bigger ones sometimes kill and eat the 
smaller ones. This may be the reason why the mother bird usually manages to raise a 
family of only two.
I used to wonder why harriers are still plentiful in areas where many are shot. I 
think the reason must be this: more food is left for any pair that escapes, so that 
they are able to raise a fine, healthy family of four or five, instead of only one or 
two.
Once when I was driving through South Canterbury, I saw a harrier, that was much 
bolder than harriers usually are.
When our car came along she was busy tearing up the body of a hare that some motorcar 
had killed 
during the night.
As we slowed to a stop, only about a yard from her, she drew herself up to her full 
height, clattered 
her sharp, hooked
beak, and, glared at us defiantly out of her fierce, yellow eyes, looking as fearless 
as an eagle. We could tell that she was an old bird from the colour of her underside, 
which was a very light grey, about the colour 
of wood-ashes.
After each yearly moult the harrier's plumage is lighter in colour. Such old birds are 
usually very 
wary, so I suspect
that she was made brave because she had a hungry family to feed.
The clearing of the forest has given the harrier wider hunting-grounds, for it is a 
bird of the open 
country. Indeed, a
Maori expression for open country was "Land soared over by the kahu".
In spite of all its enemies, it looks as if we shall have the hawk with us for a long 
time yet. We should be thankful for
this, because the kahu does a useful job. It clears up
the bodies of many dead animals, as well as killing young rabbits and rats. For this 
reason it is 
well worth keeping,
even if it costs the farmer a few lambs and ducklings.

Harrier chicks


