NO FLAUTIST.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 188, 9 August 1924, Page 11

NO FLAUTIST.

TUTANEKAI AN IMPOSTOR. COULD NOT PLAT A NOTE. j TIKI WAS THE ORPHEUS. 'Tutanckai could not play the flute! I for sour apples.' 1 ■■What: ,, ; j "That's a fact; hs didn't know a note I lof music, and the man who really played I 1 the famous serenade was Tiki, a noted. i pel son in the folk lore of the Ngati- j ; nliakau* , . Throughout Rotorua, -where ! the Xgatiwhakaufi live, the story is very ! well known: it figures in all the folk • lure of the district, and one of the "arved ! houses is named after Tiki." i ; ..... ; I So was auother beautiful legend' ! gone "phut"; one of the few Maori ■ legends that have taken the imagination; ! of the pakehas who have not yet had the ' I country long enough to have any legends 'of their own. Everybody knew the story Jof Hinemoa and Tutanekai. The thing was so well authenticated. We had all I seen the pretty little pool where the ! : bashful Hinemoa hid herself after swim- ,; j :nin<r over the lake from distant Owhata, i j lured by Tutanekai's soulful playing on ! ', the koauau, the bone flute whose dulcet j tones were fatal to maidens* who hesiI tated. and quite a lot of Rotorua people I had the identical Tutanekai and Hinemoa jin their whakapapa. or genealogical i ! trees, i J .And it wns all so exactly like the 1 ['harming Grecian story of another ! amatory pwim—onlv the Hellespont was' ! crossed by the man. not the maid —that I J every tourist hugged the legend to his j Imjsoih and promply wrote homo about j it. Tutanekui and Hinemoa must be the ' two most quoted lovers south of the Line. And remember, that it was the flute that did the trick for Ilinemoa. True, she had seen and admired the handsome j young chief from sacred Mokoia Island ■ when they met at the fair on the mainland, but it was uot until her ears wpre ravished by the strains of the flute floating over the still wafe's of Boto- : rua at even when the shadow of tall Kgongotaha fell over the scene that j she surrendered. It was the yearning. I haunting, fluting that, made Hinemoa ' j throw discretion fand her flax mat) to I the winds, take a header off Owhata I and swim bashf'lly (but unerringly) ' over to Tutanekai's home on dark Mokoia. The rest of the story is familiar to all. "Ha!' , eaid Tutanckai ; pere as he looked in next morning '• I through the window of his son's whare, ; j "four feet where there should be only ■ two!' . And they lived happily ever niter. Now a Ion? comes Mr. George Graham, i the well-known authority on Maori • lore, and says that every Maori in iKotrrua knows that Tutanekai "could : not play the flute for sour apples"'— , or whatever the Maori equivalent mny be! It seems that this Tiki was a I 1 noted flautist by the steaming shores •I of Lake P.otorua, and he was <i great I lriend of Tutanckai, the inspirer of I gentle feeliSgs in the bosoms of lovely 1 1 young ladies on the mainland. One j night they were discussiug matters up .J on the watcli tower on Mokoia. ani , no doubt Tutanekai, like all true lovers, , was boring Tiki terribly with his story , 1 about a lovely creature named Hinemoa who lived over at Owhata, the headland there just across the water. J The Maori maiden heart was wonder- , 1 fully susceptib'e to the strain? of the , flute, if played hy an artist, and one \ can quite understand Tiki, "fed up"' with , his friend's taJk about the charminj 1 young thing- across the water, savin* ,J in desperation, "What about a tune, on ! the old bone flute. Tuny?." J "The very thing." , no "doubt Tutanejkai would make answer, for even in I Maori, as in English, "all's fair in love , I and war." , J Then the wonderful Tiki, who was J really an Orpheus done in bronze, raised , (the old bone flute to his lips and, looki ing towards the dark headland of . j Owhata, played as ho never played j before. Everybody knows the sequel, and if you have not heard the story ask the man at the tourist bureau or the man that hires out the boats. And what became of Tiki' Did Hinemoa ever find out that it was not her beau ideal after all that blew his foul into the little bone flute and lured her heart over the lake? Legend says she did, and that in soite of the. deception they lived happily; and to judge from the number of people that claim them as ancestors they must Have had lots and lots of children. We will assume that the subject of music, generally and flutes in particular was tacitly avoided, - unless Tutanekai became particularly provoking. At any rate, it says much for Tutanekai that according to history, or legend, or tradition, or -wherever the story lives. Tiki was an honoured re- ! tniner in the family, and was well looked after for the rest of his days.