TRADITIONAL POI-BALLS are being made to-day Mrs Rangimahora Reihana, president of the Rakau-Turanga Branch of M.W.W.L., Foxton, has given Te Ao Hou a demonstration of a real traditional way of making poi-balls. Nowadays these are often made of cellophane and tissue-paper, which of course is easier, but the traditional way need not be very difficult and time-consuming and we hope that some groups will try out the method Mrs Reihana has shown us. Incidentally, we are told that this traditional way of making poi has not been recorded fully in any of the textbooks, so that we are able to offer here some quite new facts about Maori material culture. The demonstration was made with the help of the Otaki League Branch, of the same district (Raukawa). This branch made helpers available, girls to demonstrate the poi dance, and, perhaps, most important allowed the use of the beautiful Raukawa meeting house as a background for our photographs. We are therefore indebted for this story to the Raukawa tribe as a whole. What is the poi dance? It is, by common consent, the most graceful of dances. There is evidence that in the old days it was sometimes performed by boys and men, but it was always Photography by Charles Hale mainly a woman's dance performed to delight an audience by its grace, rhythm, gesture and dexterity. It is not unnatural that many people have thought the poi dance is derived from a ceremonial love dance. Eisdon Best has denied it, saying there is no proof for it. Sir Apirana Ngata has said that the ostensible object of the poi from the first was to give graceful welcome to strangers, but that gradually another object grew up, namely to attract the fighting men from other tribes and so keep the ranks of the ‘taua’ up to their full strength (see Te Ao Hou, Royal Tour Number). Today, ‘poi’ is again mainly looked upon as part of the ceremonial welcome, but in popular tradition naturally the idea persists that so beautiful a dance must express love. Mrs Teihana (right) and Mrs Reihana (next to her) teaching young Otaki women.