' Life among the Maoris'
Father P. J. Lagan , of the Mill
Hill Fathers
Father Lagan has for the past sixteen years been working as one of the Mill Hill fathers among the Maoris of New Zealand. In his talk he pays the highest tribute to this fine race ; he will describe his and their own life in the North Island of New Zealand today, and also say something of the Maoris' little-known origin and mythology.
These people are the descendants of the ' Vikings of the Pacific ' who, in thirty or forty canoes, sailed from Hawaiki for two thousand miles to the modern New Zealand, and settled there six hundred years ago. But they hold that their original home wasinlrihia; yet where, in the mist-laden past, Irihia was, no one knows. Today the 80,000 Maoris nearly all live in the North Island of New Zealand, where Father Lagan works among them in the Bay of Plenty district.