MAORI POEMS AND PROVERBS

Otago Witness, Issue 2649, 21 December 1904, Page 18 (Supplement)

MAORI POEMS AND PROVERBS

To give any adequate idea of the style and rhythm of Maori poetry has been a task beset with almost insurmountable difficulties to even the finest Maori scholars. The Eev. Dr Maunsell explains this difficulty so clearly that I cannot do better than quote his own words : "The construction of Maori poetry was not only abrupt and elliptical to an excess not allowed in English poetry, but it also carries

its license so far as to disregard rules of grammar which are strictly observed in prose ; alters words so as to make them sound more poetically ; deals more arbitrarily with the length, of syllables, and sometimes 1 even inverts^ their order or adds other syllables. ... It must also be remembered that by far the largest measure of the difficulty (of lucid translation) lies in the peculiar local circumstances, and from r.ie remote and vague allusions so wrought into the piece, that even one tribe will often be unable to understand the songof another — especially if it be one of any antiquity."

Such difficulties as these were surely enough to daunfc the most enthusiastic students, and yet the spirit of Maori poetry was so true in its essence, so instinct with the verysoul of the race, that obstacles served only to* render more keen the determination to succeed. Thus we have preserved for us a largo nt-mber of songs, sonnets, and chants, distinctive of tVis deeply interesting people. Of the quality of Maori poetry, and its place in tli3: national life, Mr Colcnso, one of our most reliable native authorities, thus speaks: "The people frequently beguiled the monotonous drudgery of some of their heavier work, performed together in company, by songs with suitable choruses. Such songs were soing when dragging or paddling theircanoes, or digging in thear estiva tionsi. Their war songs and defiances contain horrible curves, and breathe a spirit of" ferocity ; while their loveson os are full of the tenderest feeling expressed sometimes 1 m singularly touching and beautiful language. Their sentimental songs, expressive of abandonment, loneliness, and" despair, contain much pathos, and, sung as they always were in a minor key, were often veryaffecting. The whole of their poetry, though abounding inpoetical images and similes, is destitute of rhyme and metre, a deficiency their poets got over by lengthening and shortening vowels and words, proving that (he Maoris, like ourselves, conceive of poetry as somethingfar higher than mere versification."

The following fragment is taken from Sir George Grey's translation of an ancient lament — the song of a great chief mourning the death of his children, all summoned to the hereafter, before Mm. THE LAMENT OF IKA-HERE-MUTTJ. " Here I sit, while my throbbing heart Mourns for my loved children. Here, like Tane's offspring Drooping yonder in the inland forest, T bend like the fronds of the tree fern Over my lost children. Where art thou, O my son ! Thou whom thy people were wont to greet With the welcome cry, 'Draw near ! Draw near !' Thou art gone, alas ! Borne by the strong ebbing tide (That bears all men away). Oh, my friends ! here I sit alone Upon the plot where my flock gathered — • A slippery plot.* swept so clean That nothing now remains to greet mine eyes.

I cannot bear to gaze upon the sun Now shining down upon me (Its bright light mocks the darkness of my soul); I cannot bear to gaze on Taranaki's snowy peak, Nor to feel the warm inland breeze blow upon my cheek, For they only serve to wake* the memory of my loss."

The innate beauty of these lines needs no comment — though to those unfamiliar with Maori lore one may point out the exquisite sympathy of the lines comparing the drooping fronds of the tree fern, bending earthwards, to the attitude of the heart-broken father bending over his dead chil-

dren, according to the Maori custom, with bowed head and extended arms. Tane, it will be remembered, is the God of Forests, and the creator and father of all vegetation. Yet another example of Maori poetry, from a translation given, I think, by Mr Colenso, may be quoted in this :