MAORI ORATORY

Golden Bay Argus, Volume VI, Issue 72, 14 October 1897, Page 2

MAORI ORATORY

The native oratorsof New Zealand agiee with Demosthenes that “ action ” is the first, the second,and the third characteristic of eloquence. A short time after Bishop -Selwyn settled in New Zealand it became necessary' to remove the episcopal residence and college from Waimate to Auckland. The native Christians of the former place opposed the removal, and one market-day there was a great deal of speech-making on the subject in fiont of the Bishop’s house. A powerful Maori orator opened the debate, his audience being seated on either side of the path leading to the residence. Dressed in a handsome native mat,and holding a spear in his hand, the orator began by trotting up and down the path. He commenced each sentence with a run through a given space, and ended it just as he finished his run back. Growing warmer and warmer, he rushed backward and forward, leaped from the ground, slapped his thigh, shouted and waved his spear. A stranger, ignorant of the language, would have thought that the orator wa3 breathing out death and destruction; but he was simply urging the Bishop to stay at Waitnate. Two missionaries who had been long in the land replied to the Maori orator. One, a stout, old-fashioned English clergyman, with a broadbrimmed hat and spectacles, adopted the Maori action so far as to march up and down the path with a spear in his hand. His “ action ’’ elicited shouts of applause. His brother, taking a spear, marked out a large space on the gravel walk, divided it iuto three parts, and then asked whether it was not fair that the Bishop should live in the middle of the diocise, instead of at one end. Convinced by the marked-out space, the people exclaimed : It is just.”