The Maori was an Artist

 in Work and Play

ART for art’s sake is a saying that no Maori would have understood. Art for him was an integral part of his life. It was intimately related to his economic activities, to his religion, to his social life. It was part of his life rather than an embroidery to his life, something to be enjoyed by those with education or leisure. Thus in the build­ing of his meeting house he joined the arts of carving and design and painting to his skill as a carpenter, and produced a building that served his purpose in a beautiful way. In the weaving of his cloaks he joined the skill of the craftswoman to her love of colour and design, and the result was a garment that was warm, serviceable, and beautiful.

His attitude to the arts of pleasure was much the same. In his story-telling and oratory, in his chanting and dancing, he delighted in playing with the intricate forms of his language or with the rhythmical movements of his body. Of musical instruments he had but few: no stringed instruments, but two kinds of flute, two kinds of trumpet and wooden gongs. For rhythmical expression therefore he relied on his chanting and on his dancing. His name for a dance of any kind was haka (though white people today think of the haka as a men’s war dance). Men and women were accustomed to dance various kinds of haka for all social occasions — at times of welcome or of mourning or in times of war. In some cases the arms alone were moved to the rhythm of the chanted words, in other cases the poi balls were swung with graceful movement, and on still other occasions legs, arms, body, face, eyes, and tongue were all given frenzied movement in the wild rhythm of the war dance.

Many Maori games were played for exercise. Wrestling, sham-fighting, tree-climbing, swimming, surfing and other water sports were all played at for the exercise and pleasure that they gave. Other games required mental alertness or depended on memory power. Others still, such as cat’s cradles, stressed both manual dexterity and agility. Maori children, like children all over the world, played their own little children’s games: kite-flying and stilt-walking were favourites, and so were playing with tops and hoops and jumping and skipping.

Athletic exercises were of course played out-of-doors. And on fine summer evenings the village meeting ground presented a lively and colourful scene as the young people wrestled or vied with each other at competitive games of other types— all sunlight and shadow and glistening brown skin. Or when the evenings became dark early, small pit fires were lighted in the large common dwelling houses and there the people assembled; the old to talk of politics and village gossip; the young to amuse themselves with riddles and guessing games, jackstones, or a game curiously like draughts. And then when sleep stole softly and slowly through the house, drowsy heads fell back on soft beds of fern and matting, forgetful of the hours until the rising sun roused the village to another day of work.