OVERSEAS LEAGUE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21298, 27 September 1932, Page 3

OVERSEAS LEAGUE

MAORI MUSIC AND LORE At the Overseas League clubrooms on Saturday afternoon a delightful entertainment was provided by the Musical Circle under Madame Aileen Johns, convener, who presided. Mrs. Harold King was in charge of the programme, the subject of which was Maori folk lore and music. This she opened with a Maori welcome, the long-drawn, oft-repeated Haere-mai. This was followed by an address on Maori legends, with their related . songs and chants. The music, said Mrs. King, was noticeably related to the sounds of nature, the rhythm of the waves of the sea and the singing of the wind in the trees. The speaker's talk was illustrated by her own songs and items rendered by a band of pupils from St. Stephen's Maori Girls' School, the first of which was the beautiful Whaka Poi, or canoe song. This was followed by the Long Poi, and later by the Short Poi, musical choruses, punctuated by the rhythmic beat of the poi balls. A legend of Maungawhau, or Mount Eden, told of the elopement of a young chief of the Awhitu tribe with the Maungawhau chief's daughter, the musically named Puhihuia. Mrs. King sang a song of her own composition based on this story. This was followed by "The Lament of Tangiwai," after which Mrs. King sang the Kotiro Poi, to conclude with Alfred Hill's haka, the Song of the Locust, a Maori impression of the broken beat of the cicada's song. Mrs. McKinney acted as accompanist. In presenting Mrs. King with a Victorian posy at the conclusion of her entertainment, Madame. Johns emphasised the value of tho artistic heritage which the Maori had given to New Zealand and the importance of such work as that done hv Mrs. King in making known their poetic and musical legends.