MAORI WAR DANCE

Taranaki Daily News, 27 September 1915, Page 5

MAORI WAR DANCE

| ON THE SHORES OP GALUPOIju London, August 13. An officer of the New Zealand fafe & t the Dardanelles describe* lot | fae Times an extraordinary liaort w IS-f" took place on the thorn o? "The Maoris, privates and officers, lined up. With protruding tongues and a rythmical slapping of hands on thigh* and chests, with a deep concerted 'a— a-"-, ah, ending ahruptly, they began the Maori haka—the war dance. Shrill and nigh the leader intoned the solo parts and the chorus crashed out. is the danoerg became more animated the beat I t oed through the gullies of Galhpoh. The leader now declaimed fiercely, now his voice sanlt tq an eerie whisper, still perfectly audible, and a« he crouched low to the ground so the men behind hipi posed. Suddenlr. attar a concerted crash of voices, the chant ended with a sibilant hiss, a stamp of the nght foot, and the detonation of palms slapping the ground. "A hundred yards away in the Turkish trenches _ perplexed Moslems listened to this blood-curdling serenade, and Una « J? e ® in ex P' ana tion produced hit copy of the Tamn. Ominous nods and htoU shakings followed its reading':, Tor the first lime in history. the Straits have had to endure attack by cannibals' •And the leader of-the haka, a full, blooded Maori, wrote M.A., LL.D., after his name, and spoke better English than many a white man," "