The Maori Pig Market by Andrew Barton Paterson
"The Maori Pig Market" is a short comic ballad by Australian bush poet Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, narrated by an unnamed traveler recounting a scene he witnessed in a village in New Zealand. Written in Paterson's characteristic light verse style, the poem uses a repeating end-line refrain built around the word "gloaming" (twilight), giving it a sing-song, mock-elegiac rhythm despite its comic subject matter. The narrator describes arriving at dusk in a "tranquil and old" New Zealand village and stumbling upon a lively local market where pigs are being sold. He notes that the Maori sellers, dressed in "picturesque rig," are weighing their swine because buyers pay by weight — the heavier the pig, the higher the price, establishing the practical stakes of the scene. The comic turn arrives with a dignified Maori chieftain, described with mock-gravity as "mighty" and "sedate." As his pig squeals and struggles on the scale, the chieftain surreptitiously leans his own weight onto the animal to inflate its apparent heft and thereby cheat the buyer out of a fair price. Paterson frames this bit of petty market fraud with gentle irony, treating the chieftain's small deception as an act worthy of both amusement and mild moral disapproval ("I grieve to relate"). The scheme does not go unnoticed. The buyer, a stout Irishman identified as O'Grady, catches the chieftain in the act. Without hesitation, O'Grady responds with immediate physical retaliation, striking the chieftain with the butt of his whip and knocking him down beside his own pig. The abruptness of this reversal — from quiet deception to sudden violence — is played for comic effect rather than genuine menace, consistent with the poem's larky tone. O'Grady's blow ignites a general brawl. The orderly market dissolves into chaos as Maori and Irish combatants set upon one another, trading blows amid competing war-cries — "Pakeha!" from the Maori side and "Batherashin!" (a comic Irish exclamation) from the other. The narrator, prudently declining to linger for the outcome, flees the scene as the fighting escalates, closing the poem on the same note of wry detachment with which it began. Thematically, the poem is a piece of colonial-era comic anecdote verse, poking fun at two ethnic stereotypes of Paterson's time — the wily, dignity-conscious Maori chieftain and the pugnacious, quick-tempered Irishman — while using the pig market as a vehicle for a small morality tale about cheating and its swift comeuppance. The narrator functions purely as an observer-reporter, adding no moral commentary beyond his single aside of mock regret, and the poem's brevity and refrain-driven structure mark it as a piece meant for recitation or oral performance, in keeping with the ballad tradition Paterson worked in throughout his career (as in "The Man from Snowy River" and "Waltzing Matilda"). Sources: - [The Maori Pig Market by A B Banjo Paterson - All Poetry](https://allpoetry.com/The-Maori-Pig-Market) - [The Maori Pig Market - Banjo Paterson](https://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/banjo-paterson-2/the-maori-pig-market)
By Andrew Barton Paterson · First published 1940 · Genre: Narrative Poetry, Ballad Poetry, Humorous Poetry · 290 words
First lines
In distant New Zealand, whose tresses of gold / The billows are ceaselessly combing, / Away in a village all tranquil and old / I came on a market where porkers were sold -- / A market for pigs in the gloaming.
And Maoris in plenty in picturesque rig / The lands of their forefathers roaming, / Were weighing their swine, whether little or big, / For purchasers paid by the weight of the pig / The weight of the pig in the gloaming.
And one mighty chieftain, I grieve to relate, / The while that his porker was foaming / And squealing like fifty -- that Maori sedate, / He leant on the pig just to add to its weight / He leant on the pig in the gloaming.
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The Maori Pig Market is listed on Textopian as a poem by Andrew Barton Paterson, dated 1940 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Andrew Barton Paterson
- Date: 1940 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Narrative Poetry, Ballad Poetry, Humorous Poetry, Satirical Poetry, Light Verse
- Length: 290 words
- Structure: 1 section, 6 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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Genres
- Narrative Poetry — Recounts a complete story with characters, setting, and plot progression from beginning to resolution.
- Ballad Poetry — Employs the traditional ballad form of narrative verse with regular rhyme scheme and storytelling structure.
- Humorous Poetry — Characterized by a light, comedic tone throughout, designed primarily to entertain and amuse the reader.
- Satirical Poetry — Satirizes cultural stereotypes and mocks the behavior of both Maori and Irish characters through exaggeration.
Tags
narrative-poem · colonial-era · new-zealand · maori-culture · animals · market-setting · humor · satire · irish-character · cultural-encounter · deception · rural-setting