PRIMITIVE MAN IN POLYNESIA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 5665, 12 August 1905, Page 13

PRIMITIVE MAN IN POLYNESIA.

POLYNESIAN ART—DANCE. MUSIC. NO. XVII. (BY PROFESSOR .1. MACMILLAN BROWN.) [All Rights Re.sep.vei>.] DANCE AND MUSIC ARE SIAMESE TWINS IN EARLY TIMES. In static art, the art of carving and design, we found a marvellous development in the south, and especially in New Zealand, dim probably to the crossing of numerous culture'- in \ hat ultima thule of the Southern Pacific. to the wider area, ami to tba luxuriance of the um-ber-supplying forests. The same deep contra.-t between the Polynesians and the Maoris is not tv be found in their dynamic or mobile art, least of all .in the most cleinenlarv. the art of dancing and that of music. For hero small advances made bv the crossing of races do not accumulate so easily; they cannot be retained &■/ well in material form, for excellence in Urns© arts i* more individual And yet dancing and music are amongst primitive people far less individual, far morn a matter of mass combination, than in civilian I .ion. I'or rhythm is their essence and binds them close together like body and soul. Mu.dc is rarely divorced from dancing lu the early stag*6 of culture, and seldom advances beyond mere rhythm into melody and harmony To a modern European car it Founds not much more than rhvthmic noise, a mere marking of time for concerted movements of the limbs, monotonous and unattractive. if heard without its origin and inspiration, the dance.

POLYNKSI AN DANCING SHOWS SIGN’S OF ITS RELIGIOUS ORIGIN.

And tbo dnnen is in its ong : n pantomimlf. It rt meant in nil its earlier stages to imitate tho action in which success is do* ire cl, and ha? a religious atmosphere and guidance. Dancing in niod’-m Bn rope hn« brim divorced from religion, nml. having long lost its picturesque cr irr.itat: vr- purpose, has passed into tbo conventional stage, in which a now movement nr step has no aim cxcent variety and perhaps grace. Polynesian dancing had advanced far on the rood to conventionalism. It had slier] much of its pantomimic purpose, and st« religious meaning, and in this it reveals the collision, of two or more cultures. In a region marked by so much thnt is so highly primitive, nothing but tho clash of different religious sysfams could explain its divorce from rite? and ceremonies and its appearance as an almost pivdv secular art. intended to amuse and delight an ns-embly of spectators. ITnd it not been secularised, the women could not have taken part in it. amongst a people who looked on all religion as an affair of men, and that it was once wholly religious is shown hy its character. It is not like European dancing, a harmony of "twinkling feet.” It is wholly .occupied in posturing,, waving the arms and bending the body, as if before a shrine. It is the upperparr of the bodv that is chiefly engaged. "Where the feet' come in. it is only to effect the occasional advances or retreats, as if to and from the altar, or in the resounding thud of the war-dance. The Polynesian dance is oftenert stationary. Tho old religion.* significance wo* still retained in the funeral dance of the Maoris, and perhaps in their triumphal dance and their war-dance, and here and there throughout the island it appears, as in Nnkuhiva of the Marquesas group, during the religious festivals held to celebrate the maturity of the breadfruit; the men alone take part in the dancing, and dance naked. In short, whatever dances were nvmopolised by the men we may be sure still kept something of the old religious atmosphere about them.

War amongst tho Maorrg wn# the-most sacred of all employments; the fighting men were tapn, and could not cook food or carry cooked food, and the war-party had to he consecrated and deconsecrated by the priest, with most elaborate rites. The war-dance, often indulged in just before battle in order to rouse daring to frenzy and to shake the hearts of the enemy, had something religious about it, and was confined, to the men. It was a New Zealand development, and with its wild goblincsqno movements of body, limbs, and facial features, and its terrific energy and music, formed a piquant contrast to the soft, posturing, licentious dances that prevailed all through Polynesia. One has to go to Melanesia and Papuasia for analogies; and these are not to be compared, in spite of their hideous masks. The Maoris turned their faces into close imitations of their demonlike carved images. But tho thrust-out tongue tho wild rolling eyes standing out of the head, the fierce grimaces, and the quivering hands and fingers, with the accompaniment of the deep-drawn cries and the stamp of the feet, had all the advantages of living movement to add to the terrifying effect. It is difficult to efface tho deep impression that its massive energy and furioiw, almost epileptic, passion makes on the mind, when produced by hundreds. It surpassed in fury anything that kava or any other drug or fermented liquor could have given to tho harmonious movements of a mass of warriors. And in tho olden days it had the grimmest of religious purposes. Now it has degenerated into an exhibition and a spectacle. But it shows better than any others the pantomimic origin of all dance. Every act, every movement, every grimace was intended to give a realistic picture of tho battle the warriors wore about to enter, as well as to stir to overwhelming frenzy their religious zeal. And most of the other dances in which men alone engaged were more or lews realistic imitations of this war-pantomime. Even in the island the dances of men reveal shadowy reminiscences of war. It is lo this is doubtless due the predominance of the upper part of the body, and especially of the arms and hands, in their dances. If the,*© had originated in bunting or nomadism, or even agriculture, we should have had more us© of the legs in them. But there ie one curious use of tho legs in dancing that is not easily explained without some knowledge of the animals used in agriculture. It is the backward kick that forms the pice© de resistance in the amusements of the two farthest separated branches of the Polynesian race, the Malagasies and the Easter Islanders; otherwise they merely posture and use their arms; but tho men in dancing have grown inert expert in imitating the savage kick of the four-footed animal.

the twinkling quiver of the hands and fingers, was not acquired in a few generations. Til E DA NCR EVOLVED ORA TOE Y IX NEW ZEALAND AND TILE HISTRIONIC ALT IN ROLYM-d!A. It ivuti doubtless the religious atmosphere in the worship of Tn ihul k 'pi the .Maori war-dauce so tree tram , innovation till recent times; it was in me hands of moil, and their influence extends to other dances, oven the lascivious and obscene, preventing them from degenerating into mere spectacular potnuring of women. Hence it was that the liauco helped to evolve oratory, a purely masculine art iu all but tlie mod advanced civilisations. 'The fugleman in tbebakas must be an orator, if he is nrt a poet; for he has to invent rhythmic speeches ot a highly figurative style to interval the choruses. All the imaginative power of the chiefs and priests in New Zealand developed in this direction, and srpyecho*; became as essential to everv meeting ot Maoris as thev are to every typo of assembly in England. The tohunga.s ami chiefs grew adepts in moulding and rousing tiie feedings of thoir audiences. And, though they revelled in figures of speech till the oriental arabesque overlaid the ordinal aim and meaning, as important an essential of the orator was the dramatic gesture and action. Ho paced hither and thither, at firnt with slow dignity; but, when lie had roused, himself and his hcarom io the requisite pitch, ho jxwturod, and grimaced, and acted as wildly as ho would in a wartlancc. Hut the art ever lemained an extemporaneous one; its products wore for the occas on, and not meant to bo handed down by tradition, like the Rougn and incantations. Thus it wart not a branch of literature, but retained the traces of its origin in the dance. It was mimetic and masculine, and hence to Homo extent religious. The literary side of dancing took quite a different course in Folyuesia, and especially iu eastern Polynesia, Samoa end Tonga, though they admitted wmnon to the exercise of the art, and developed the lascivious side of it more than New Zealand did, show their greater affinity to the latter in keeping it simpler and more oxtemjiora In the Last of the island region it wa? the dramatic element of rhe dance that was developed. Hut it was 'Only in the Ilervey Group and Ihe Tahitian that it was developed into a histrionic art. Cook saw again and again the performances of Hie A rooks, those aristocratic actors of Tahiti, who sailed from island to island, and entertained the people with their dramatic dances, whilst themselves indulging in the most licentious excesses. He once saw sixty canoe s sotting out full of those histrionic celibates about to make a tour of the islands. One play ho saw represented a successful robberv, another an accouchement, a third the habits and acts of himsxdf and his countrymen. Wo hoar of their libertinism arid policy of infanticide from all early visitors. ‘Such a -Angular and deliberate was doubtless due (o the havoc that the luxurious idleness of thnso Eastern Polynesians and the enervating climate worked nnon their moral fibre. It would have been well-nigh impossible* in the hard-won subsistence and iho bracing air of Xew Zealand. The strenuous character of the Maori dances, as of the Maori life, obstructed the evolution of tho drama, -histrionic, though the Maoris,wo re in this art and its offspring oratory.

THE ELEMENTARY CHARACTER OF THE MUSIC HAMPERED THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DANG-

Bufc what barred tho way of development of this art and those that sprang from it was the elementary character of their music. There was not only no harmony and no possibility of melody, in spite of early travellers speaking occassionally of their singing in parts, but tho range of notee was limited to tho pentatonic, like that of the Chinese and all barbaric or half-developed civilisations. Iu an appendix to Grey’s “Polynesian, Mythology" a London musician, a Mr Janies Davies, puts some of tho music he heard from a Maori into notation that reveals its inherent monotony. Only here and there is there any departure from the customary range of two or three notes, and then only in a descent at the close. It is true he shows that there are half and quarter notes increasing the variety within the monotonous range, but lie confesses that ho might be wrong; the differences seemed too subtle for the European ear. Cook found th© Tahitians rejected the harmonics of his instrumentalists, whilst delighted with tho bagpipes and the drum; tho simple notes and short range ot these instruments were most like their own music.

THE DRUM AND PERCUSSIVE INSTRUMENTS WERE THEIR FAVOURITE AIDS TO SINGING, AND AGAIN REVEAL THE PRIMITIVE CHARACTER OF THEIR CULTURE.

Tho Polynesians were in fact limited by their highly primitive musical instruments, which probably only imitated the music they heard in Nature, The first natural sound to attract the human ear was doubtless thunder and, similar loud and abrupt repercussions. lienee the most widely-spread and earliest of all instruments is the drum or gong. In this the Maoris have retained the most elementary form, that of a suspended wooden slab, and it takes a very subordinate place in their culture compared with its place in the islands. There it rises into great importance, not only in the music and the dance, but in religious ceremony; it becomes a highly ceremonial instrument, like a chief's axe or baton. In New Zealand it wae used only in ■war and siege. The sentry kept thumping it during the night to show that bo was on the watch. The simplicity both of its structure and of its use, and its absence from religious ceremonies, seem to show that it was aboriginal. That it originated partly in manitirae pursuits is apparent in the canoe shape often given to it.

Another percussive instrument was the paknru, as elementary in its construction and in the music it produced as the gong. It consisted of an inch thick stick held by the teeth and the left hand, and a striker held in the right. The variation in the notes arose from the movements of the lips. It was evidently meant, like the guitar, for grenades and other amatory music. The idea of a musical instrument of percussive elements was far more elaborated in tho islands. The ihara of Tahiti was much like those of all the rest; it is described by Ellis as a single joint of a large bamboo with a long slit in it laid on the ground and beaten with sticks; its sounds were harsh and discordant, and it was never used in worship, but only for amusement, whilst the palm or drums were used in tho temples as well as in war and in dancing and dramatic performances. The Tongans and bnmoans elaborated the idea. The latter arranged bamboos like a panpipe in ft mat bag and beat upon them; they also struck bamboos closed at one ord, and of different lengths, at intervals on the ground in order to produce a gradation of notes. The Toucans developed this method still more, ns described by Cookin the account of his third voyage. But the Maoris preferred as the accompaniment of their great dances the primeval means of percussion supplied by their own bodies. Their favourites were striking the bosom with one hand, whilst the other was made to twinkle and quiver aloft, and to bring the halo sole down with thunderous effect on the ground. Tho islanders had theirs, too. In the East ther struck the bent left arm with the right hand: in Samoa they clapped their hands; and in Tonga the women snapped or cracked their finger* like castanets. But the jimit of notes in all th r s pel'cnsaive music primeval in its narrowness, in New Zealand most primeval of all. thfhi flutes were extremely PRIMITIVE, AND THE NOSE FLUTE IV .AS EXCEPTIONAL AND OBSTRUCTED MUSICAL DEVELOPMENT. It ia the same when we turn to the only other type of musical instrument

| that Polynesia had. the wind or blowling instrument. There is the extreme of simplicity and lack of variety of ef- | feet; and New Zealand has it in its greatest bareness. There are the life, the Ihigeoiet or date, and the trumpet o* I vai ijiis k.nds. Of thco-e the liulc was the instrument most capable of development in lhe lange of uuUx». but licit? a : unique custom burred liao way. It was ‘ played, not with the mouth, but with one or ihe nostrils, the left in Tahiti, tho right in Now Zealand. Now in order t> give range both hands were needed as slops fur the holer*. But the need of one hand to stop one of the nostrils precluded this. The result was that the largest number ox holes in a Polynesian lluto was live, and as a rule one of iheoe was belnv for the thumb. How could the scale be other than pentatonic at its utmost range, where the chief musical instrument was ooniin.M.l to live holes or notes? And in New Zealand there iviw more often Ilian not onlv one hole in the centre, and the variety of note was obtained by the greater or ictss extent of this that wrus covered.

The route of this inefficient device for bringing tho breath to bear on a mutdetubc was Java, Borneo, Celebes; for tho no-e-iluie is found in all three islands. Had this not pointed so definitely to South Ada ns its source, one would have been inclined to assign the origin of the use of the no-sc-ilulo to soir*> climate, like the Northern or Sub-Arctic, where tho bitterness of winter compelled the habitual closing of the mouth. That is came into Polynesia with a very ancient migration from Indonesia wc may be umo; for it did not find iU way to Madagascar, although the peculiar stringed instruments of Malaysia went thither, it was not in-ed in ixdigisus, but in amatory music, throughout the islands, a sign that it did not belong to the last conquerors, but to the aboriginals; and, though in the islands bamboo woe preferred for tt. in New Zealand, in tho absence of that universal provider of Indonesia, bone, and especially the legbone of an enemy, was used for it in preference to wood or other material.

THE TRUMPET IS CEREMONIAL. When wo turn to tho trumpet wo are outside of comsn >» life, and within tho precincts of worship. All through the islands it was used in the temples and by tho pjjesls, like the drums, though also a war instrument. In New Zealand it was the instrument of tho chief and tho warrior; it wus used to warn of an enemy's approach, and lo announce the virit “of a ch;ef. In the islands the trumpet was generally a large mures shell, with a bamhuo inserted near tho apox! The Maoris aUo used the. Triton shell, with a wooden mouthpiece, as a trumpet; but they preferred tho long wooden trumpet with a wide end to lit to the mouth; usually there was a reed or tonsil inside near this to vibrate; sometimes there was a hoi© in the middle to be covered or uncovered in order to vary tho note. There was a bout trumpet used in tb© South Island, that has been compared to a trombone; and from Taranaki has come a calabxehtnunpet with two or three holes. The roria or Jew’s harp wa.-! simply a slip of bark Held between the lips and made to vibrate. The panpipes reported onco or twice from Now Zealand, and frequently from Tonga, was a rude affair in which tho reeds, varying from five to involve, were not arranged to make a regular seal© of notes.

THE ABSENCE OF STRINGED INSTRUMENTS IS ACCOUNTED FOR BY THE ABSENCE OF TIIE BOW.

The only report of a stringed instrument is that by Fentherrnan in his "Social History of the Races of Mankind” of a monochord, called uteto, amongst the Nukahivas of Eastern Polynesia; it ooivsits of a bow strung with catgut, and is played by holding one end between the teeth and scraping the siring with a small stick. But it is so unique that we may say that there are practically no stringed instruments In Polynesia. And this is the more strikingthat they exist all over Indonesia, and all tho cultivated and most of the uncultivated races of Asia have them. The usual form in Malaysia is the some as the valiha or Malagasy violin, made by raising the fibrous cords of the outer cuticle of a piece of bamboo on small wooden bridges. Wherever the bow is used there is tho germ of the stringed instrument in its twanging. Yet throughout America, where the bow is universal, ther© are no stringed, instruments reported except from ancient Mexico. The Mongoloids of Asia, who use the bow, prefer the music of the strings. The abrtence of the bow from Poljmrsia except as a ceremonial instrument or child’s toy sufficiently accounts for the limitation of the instrumental music to percussion ftn( j blowing. But it is a singular thing that, though bamboo was introduced into it, it did not adopt with its immigrants from Indonesia the bamboo violin or gnitar. Doubtless tho rejection of tho Indonesian bow accounts for tho strange phenomenon.

Thus it is that the various arts Intordevolop or interobstruct each other. War and religion have almost evcryth : ng io do with the beginnings of both dancing and music, and the two in early times are closelv allied. Later art secularises itself, and tries to flirg off the bonds of war, and become the servant of everyday life and everyday pleasure. Then women are admitted into the ranks of tho performers in those mobile or dynamic arts. In New Zealand men kept stronger hold on them than in the islands, partly because of the intense development of war. And yet they were more secularised than in tho islands except for warlike purposes. This was doubtless due to the absorption of so many aboriginal tribes, who had music and dancing of their own, and yet had no karakia or share in the religion of the conquerors. Thus may we account for the primitivercas of both the arts in Polynesia, and their extreme primitiveness in New Zealand. The absence of the bow takes us back to palaeolithic times; its absence limited music to the notes of the primitive drum and flute; and the unique phenomenon of a flute blown from one of the nostrils limits the notes to five. The picture is piquantly primeval, especially against tho background of the groat development of tho histrionic art in the islands and of oratory in New Zealand.