MAORI ENTRTANMENT.

Waikato Times, Volume XVI, Issue 1364, 29 March 1881, Page 2

MA ORI ENTRTANMENT.

Another of those unique entertainmtats were given in the Public Hall, Canibfidge on Saturday evening, and brought to.grether £ji audience quite as select as it was^umerous, the Hall being about half " (jHupieH? ' T-'he performance belonged to the medley persuasion, native custom, and European cast being mixed up together in a most bewildering way. The Ball, or whatever else it conld be called was opened and closed by Matite of the le Arawa tribe who assisted -by her ! dusky troop gave the inevitable haka with all the wild vagaries "and .-Ibodily* and facial contortions peculiar to the .case, On- --this ~ occasion* the stjige"'wa'r~Je6r crowded by performers than on the previous one, still the affair was characteristic enough in its w,ay. , The, intermediate , performances were three in number^ No! 1 according to .interpretation — $he pro- ; gramme being couched in the aboriginal tongue — was a representation of that exciting event in the colonial history — the capture of Ned Kelly and the overthrow of his gang, Ned himself was represented by a .gentleman whose get up was in singular l harmony ' between that of the coloured preacher and the midnight, assassin. He moved stealthily abqut the stage muttering something, but whether it was a song or a sermon, we are not entitled to say. At last he, discovered someone to '"operate" upon and after dispatching two or three intruders with his six -chambered revolver, he was himself over-powered and carried off ' captive amidst immense applause from the audience. No. 2 was still more bewildering. The only thing we can compare it to, would be a dramatised version of. the " congor eel." The principal, and indeed 1 the only actor was an undersized Maori, fantastically got up in ti<?hts, with a ring-tail, evidently belonging to a deceased monkey. Thus equipped, he went wriggling about the sta^e, with as slippery a motion, as if he had studied the movements of the above named animal under some distinguished professor of the art. No. 3 consisted of two "dusky brothers," who " favored tha company" with a nigger dance, accompanied by certain modest efforts in the direction of nigger minstrelsy. Altogether, the performance was laughable, and. if, to laugh, is to grow fat, some of the .audience must have left the Hall in full blown corpulency.