A MAORI WAR DANCE.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXIX, Issue 11126, 11 February 1886, Page 2

A MAORI WAR DANCE.

♦-- ■ - The following graphic description of a Maori war dance witnessed at Boto* niahana, from the facile pen of Mr Geo. Augustus Sala, will be interesting, to many of our readers:— . „ What my ears seemed to hear was as follows ; — " . , - "Hoticot, hotieob, hotieot, te taira! ; . Hoticot, hoticot, hoticot, te taira ! Taiy a ! Taiya ! hoticot ! . taira I " and so on ad libitum. And each repetition of "taira"— or what, seemed to be " taira " —brought about an excess of frenzy in the dusky Monads. Shrieking till they gasped for breath/ "Taira," 'yelling, panting, groaning, j»nd foaming at the mouth. "Taira! taira! hoticot te taira ! " The stout matron, who might have besn the mother of six, was a sight to see, splendid! \ but terrific. Now I fancied that I saw Clytemneatra, her arms purple to the elbows with her husband's gore ; now the British-:^ar* rior Queen, " bleeding from the Boman rods," and rousing the IceHi- to yeiP geance ; now Helen McGregor ratß&jT" at the Lowlanders. But anon theredai a change. " Hoticot te tairs," "Tispna troop of frantic bacchantes that" I '-,/* seem to be gazing— bacchantes, 'tJj^t'.'iV, dishevelled locks hanging .over. theSr.i shoulders; bacchantes exultant,dranken^; and fiercely wanton. And then I Have*"" a vision of the Almi and Qhawazie pfEejypt ; and then, upon my word, I am ': i for the moment persuaded that 'the howling dervishes of Oonstantinopl^^ must have sisters, and that it is-to* Wairoa that they have all come. «' " Hoticot te taira," the cry is shrilly;echoed in the distance.. Outside 'vtfie>i " wharepuni " they tell me the smiall f , Maori boys attd girls are getting; up* a* " haka " on their owu account • Wjthitfi^ another transformation ha 3 taken place,.;. With astonishing adroitness the frfait* rank opens, the women, retreat to^Ea! back ground, and the men coi3tte;;to3lie- . front. They interest me nowC.VTJaly are pioturesque, they are horrible, Never mind their . squalid JjJuPopTeaa ; garb, their flanuel jerseys ind-slbpv pants ; or, failing these sort 6/ garments ' their ludicrous "arrangement of shirt tails." .. , . .1 c I tell you that it is upon their facerthat you should look. Gleaming black eyes, splendid teeth, white and glistening, shock heads of black hair in yrhich '" serpents seem to be recoiling them- . selves; the sweat beading on their' bronzed faces/ I tell you. that it . is their bared arms that you should mark, ; the muscles glorioualy developed ;; the hands now slowly -raised above th^ ; head as in- adoration; now flang)^^ sport; now prone, now'jsppine asih *' entreaty, in deprecation, in. remonn strar-ce; but now, extended, and, - with bouey forefingers , pointing to you -yes, to jquraelf, i " The eyes-:? flash defiance at you, the < teetbf %re gnashed ia rage, the.lips : brea&e'orirßfS v^> on you, tin "pakeba " What fight -f have you to an inch of their lands? Why did your missionarieß" -bonier to worry the Maori ? He had;his priest^ ! ' his idols, bi' ancestors, bis superstitions, and tapu. Ton huve -given him pigs, ';'■{ and potatoes, and steamers, it ib true; but where are his war canoes ? V'JLnd/in the matter of food, what more suodu- ' lent could there be than a carefully baked enemy" P They were -the i sons \ and grandsons of oannibals wbo W^^f yelling and pointing, stamping writhing, and trying to oast themselves,-- ; so you thought, into . a paroxysm^ofbloodthirsty madness. And then, with ' wondrous celerity, the soeue changed; tha men retreated ; the women -were once more in the front rank,- clamour- * ing and shrieking. Now Miriam bid* ; ding the loud timbrel to sound ; noTr ■ making the shrillest and most disconi*»W forting of utterances ; now the doomed daughters of Bamous wailing over their interminable toil ; now singing in softer -- : strains, as might have sung the harlots, of the aea wh n they sought to lurt . - Ulysses to his destruction ; and all this * inexplicable tumultuous Mntdr>majre t these Silu'aliona, iv a tongue whollyincomprehensible to you, accompanied; by indescribable contortions and posturv' ings and gesticulations; now. tigerish,;., now fond, now timid, now bold, yet always graceful. But oh 1 the bathoß. Oh ! the pity of it. Throngh the aisle between the "pakebas" and the dusky Monads walkei a tall Maori with a short p : pe s in hiaf shirt sleeves and - "slop pants," and a oabbage-tree hat on his head, and bearing a zinc slop- > pail full of baer' The ranks were at onoe broken ; the performers, male- and female, sank on their hauuohes, while the Maori oupbearer went slowly from group to group, gravely administering refreshment from his bucket. Thl dancers were most moderate in their potations. Few took more than a third of the glassful of beer proffered them, while others were content with the merest sip. Nay, I was afterwards told that the younger • c hak* " dancers, both male and female, often decline to drinjr r any fermented liquor at all, and refresh/ : themselves from a bucket .of diluted <i raspberry vinegar spsoially provided for" then.