.jpg)
The Maori Race
Music
Music.
The Maori has naturally a fine ear for music, far better than can be believed by those who are not themselves highly trained page 63 and who have not investigated the subject carefully. The natives had no music of the kind Europeans generally understand as such, but they (like all other Polynesians) quickly catch up our tunes and notions of harmony, and their deep mellow voices are well worth training.
In regard to their own music it was apparent to anyone that they had one part of the art in perfection, that is the full sense of rhythm and measured time. To watch the synchronous movement and hear the vocal unison of one of their song-dances (haka) was to be persuaded that the regular beat of motion and sound assured the possession of the very spirit of rhythm. There was, however, something more than this. Musicians have sympathetically enquired into the native perception of the value of tones. It appears probable from their researches,6 that Maoris appreciate modulations of sound unappreciable by the duller ear of the ordinary European. The apparently monotonous notes produced both in their songs and by their musical instruments may contain shades of melody that we miss. Few of our instruments, manufactured to express our own scale of notes, would be able to evoke the sounds which are produced by Maori instruments to Maori ears. I am not a musician, and am unable to deal competently with this subject; I can only remark that on the evidence of experts there appears to be or to have been in Maori music some resemblance to the scale found in the music of the Arabs. “Dr. Russell to Burney says that the Arab scale page 64 of twenty four notes was equal to one octave. But Mr Lane adds that ‘the most remarkable peculiarity in the Arab system of music is the division of tones into thirds’ Hence, from the system of thirds of tones I have heard the Egyptian musician urge against the European systems of music that they are deficient in the mumber of sounds.” 7 Mr J. A. Davies, a celebrated musical scholar, has committed to paper some of the airs of New Zealand by the aid of a peculiar notation showing quarter-tones, etc., and says that he was approvingly told by the Maoris that they would soon “make a singer of him.”8 If this be so it is possible that a native boy with a Jew's harp or an old native crooning a song, may be sensitive to melodies which appear to us to be only monotonous repetition of two or three notes. Every Maori song had its air, and if an old native was asked “Do you know the song which commences ‘so and so’”—he would answer “I do not know. What is the air (rangi)? Can you not sing it?”
The great difficulty the Maoris laboured under in the construction of musical instruments was their ignorance of the value or use of metals. Trumpets, flutes, whistles, drums, etc., were their chief producers of pleasant sounds.
The trumpets (putara, putatara, pukaea) were made of wood. They were about four feet to six feet long, and were used for summoning the inhabitants of a village, or for announcing the approach of a chief. They were formed by roughly shaping the outside, page 65 then splitting the wood down the centre, hollowing out the interior, and then binding the pieces together again with close lashings. Little projections (tohe) were left on the inner surface close to the mouth; this was to influence the sound.9 Some trumpets were made of several pieces of wood accurately fitted together and jointed; these were neatly and strongly lashed solid with supple-jack creeper (kareao; Rhipogonum scandens). Others were used as speaking trumpets, through which insults or defiance could be hurled at an enemy. Most of the musical trumpets had a large hole in the centre, the note being modulated with the hand; some had artificial diaphragms or vibrators set about a foot within the larger end. A kind of trumpet made of a calabash pierced with two or three holes, was now and then to be seen among the Taranaki tribes. Shell-trumpets (pu-moana or potipoti) were made from the shell of the Triton australis, the apex being cut off, and a carved wooden mouthpiece fixed on.10 The cord by which it was carried was decorated with tufts of the feathers of the owl-parrot (Stringops).
The drum or gong (pahu) was formed from the wood of the kaiwhiria (Hedycarya dentata), or, if very large, was made of matai (Podocarpus spicata). These gongs were either of canoe shape, or were resonant slabs of timber reaching even to 30 feet in length. They were suspended between two trees, but the war-drum was hung between two posts on the watch-tower (puhara) of a fort, a stage for page 66 the striker being erected beneath it. The drum was struck at intervals during the night by the watchman (kai-mataara), whose songs and drummings served to let an enemy know that the defenders of the pa were on the alert.
Flutes were of different sizes, and were made of bone or whale's tooth or wood. The largest kind of flute (torino or pu-torino), or more properly flageolet, for it was played from one end, was manipulated with the fingers placed over the central hole or over the small hole at the end. It was generally made of two hollowed pieces of hard wood joined perfectly in the centre and tapering to each end. The smaller flute (koauau) was usually made of bone, an enemy's leg-bone for preference, and was often used as a nose-flute, the end being inserted into one nostril while the other was closed with the thumb. The koauau ranged from six inches to eighteen inches in length. Small fifes (rehu) were made from the wing-bones of the albatross or from the hollow stem of the tutu plant (Coriaria ruscifolia). A flute (nguru) or whistle, mostly of use as a war signal, was another variety of the instrument. Whistles about three and a-half inches long, made of hard polished wood, were inlaid with haliotis (paua) shell, and worn suspended from the neck. Most flutes were elaborately carved.11
There were two kinds of musical toy known as pakuru. One of these (also called pakakau) was played with two sticks. The principal stick was about fifteen inches long by one and page 67 a-half inches wide, with one flat and one convex side. Sometimes it was well carved and at others only notched with “parrot nibbles” (whaka-kaka) along its side. One end of this stick was held between the teeth, flat side down, and the other end held in the left hand, while the right hand struck the wood with the other stick in time to an accompanying song. The sticks were generally made of matai or kaiwhiria. The other form of the pakuru was a bar of wood about eighteen inches long held in one hand and struck lightly with a small mallet; both mallet and bar being highly decorated with carving. A slip of supple-jack (pirita) held between the teeth was used as a kind of Jew's harp (roria); the elastic material being sprung with the fingers and the sound governed by the pressure of the lips.