Kite Flying.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 18, 30 October 1912, Page 60

Kite Flying.

AN ANCIENT MAORI CUSTOM. At a meeting of the Auckland Institute last week, the Rev. Arehdeaeon Walsh delivered a most interesting lecture on the manu-aute or Maori kite. Previous to their contact with Europeans, the lecturer explained, the Maoris were a strenuous people in work, in war, and in sport. Games and exercises of one kind and another were indulged in vigorously all the year round. The Maoris (the lecturer remarked drily) had not then reached that stage of civilisation when a few specialists in sport would take part while hundreds looked on, as in a Spanish bull-fight or a colonial football match. Kite-flying was an ancient and popular amusement. Captain Cook recorded nothing concerning it, but this was not remarkable when it was remembered that the primitive Maori was obsessed with only one idea at a time, and when Cook arrived they were so taken up with the ship and the strange people, with the wonderful firearms and the priceless goods, that kiteflying was not indulged in. For the same reason other early explorers had not had an opportunity to observe this pastime. According to Polynesian mythology, Maui himself was a kite-flyer, and it was even recorded that his kite was made of aute—hence the generic term, manu-aute, “the bird made of aute.” Probably aute was introduced into New Zealand by early Maoris, but, being difficult of cultivation, it was allowed to

die out when cotton fabrics became available for wearing apparel, and commoner materials were used for the body and wings of the kite, although ante was frequently used for the head. The fine model in the Auckland Museum (it was exhibited by the lecturer last night) was made for Sir George Grey by the East Coast natives. In shape it was. roughly, a hawk with outstretched wings measuring ten to twelve feet from tip to tip. It was made of raupo neatly stitched on a light frame of manuka; the body and wings were coloured red and black in strips, while the head was covered with ante and was decorated with hawke’s feathers. Two other specimens, much smaller, and triangular in shape, were also shown. So far as could be ascertained (Archdeacon Walsh said), Maori kites had no tails, as we understand the term to mean long tails or streamers. It was customary, in order to make the kites fly, to chant kitecharms. which were couched in very poetical language, but were of such great antiquity that it was difficult adequately to interpret them. Colenso, in his writings, had expressed surprise to see old men flying kites and spinning tops, but why (the lecturer suggested) kite-flying was less manly than bowling or golf would bo difficult to conceive, especially if the kite-flyer made his own machine. Archdeacon Walsh made reference to descriptions of kites by various writers, according to whom it would appear that the manu-aute, strictly so-called, was of quite an ordinary type. Some of those described required from 1-50 to 200 yards of string, and larger ones from 300 t’o 400 yards of string, but the gigantic manu-kahu (the hawk) took 70 men to control it, and required 1,200 yards of string. The lecturer quoted a graphic description by Te Rangi of such an important event as the flying of this last-named kite, which, with its horned head, was quite a dangerous machine as it swooped about. Kites, however, were not always play things. They often had a religious significance, and were used by the tohungas to assist in their divinations. They were also used to indicate land suitable for settlement, and sometimes as a means of communication between one district and another.- The Maori kite was now a thing of the past, and probably no living Maori had ever seen a real one. Sir- George Grey' had had to get bis specimen specially' made. There was no room in modern life for its use. Archdeacon Walsh exhibited during his lecture sketches of other types of kites from different parts of the Pacific, and explained that kite-flying in the Melanesian, or black race islands, was used in connection with fishing. Kite-flying had been known to both black and brown races in the Pacific for centuries, though in Britain it had been known for only two centuries. It xva.s an ancient game in the East, and possibly in this fact might yet be discovered some link between the Polynesians and the people of those countries.