"KOMATE! KOMATE!"

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2588, 9 October 1915, Page 6

"KOMATE! KOMATE!"

MAORI HAKA AT GABA TEPE,

An. officer of the' Now. Zealand Contingent, writing in'tlio London; .James, ■ says':—"The many-coloured British force •at Giillipoli lias, now. been, strengthened :bv arrival of th© Maori.Coutuigont,. direct descendants of ,most chivalrous and warlike ancestors,. ■to wliom . • the ■poakaTi'oa, or 'long pig,' as'a human joint was termed, was a much-esteemed delicacy. ; Nowadays the Maori, instead of fattening his'slaves on Mana. Island,; spends liis. time,/if he is, ambitious,; in getting his, M.AI degree or m Easing liis accountancy' examinations. These men who landed at Gaba Tepe .are the first Polynesian troops to ; he oversea to fight for.the Mother Country, and if .the spirit of their ancestors swl. lives they will,do -it welh ' :

ves they will,.uu\ ' In the afternoon the. Maoris- started o dig themselves in, and they macls Jieii"' bivouacs • in..'air old watercourse,-on, ,he left flank'. "• -Neiir the beach two iwarthy young-privates, working with., a ,vill, dug into : a : Turkish grim reminder of tli© first days of th© ,-fl taclc. It was their initial'experience of the realities of war, and they went hurriedly and dug elsewhere. Then the pakolia general came along and addressed them; and afterwards ocourred a scene that has 110 counterpart in the , weird and varied annals of T-ho DardanellesThe Maoris, privates and officers, lined up. With protruding tongues and a rytlimical slapping of bands.oil thighs and chests, with a ,deep concerted. a a —ah," ending abruptly, they began the Maori haka—the wardance. Shrill, and high the leader intoned the solo parts, and the chorus, crashed .out-; ■ As the dancers became : more animated/the beat of their feet echoed 'through the gullies of Galliupli. The leader now declaimed fiercely', now bis voice sank to an eerie whisper, still perfectly audible, he crouched low to the Jroimd so the men behind him posed.- Suddenly, after a, concerted ..crash' of voices, the chant ended with a' sibilant hiss, a stamp or tlie rirflit foot,' and the detonation, of palms slipping the hard .ground. A hundred' yards away in the . Turkish trenches perplexed Moslems listened to this bloodcurdling serenade, and one ; 6f them in explanation produced his copy of the "Tanin." Ominous nods and head-shakings Mowed its reading;, 'For the first :time in history the had to endure attack by" And the leader of the haka a fullblooded Maori, wrote M.A., after his name, a.nd spoke better English than many a white man.