Oriwa Haddon Is Taking A Rare Collection Of Records With Him

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 34, 3 February 1939, Page 3

Oriwa Haddon Is Taking A Rare Collection Of Records With Him

USEFUL publicity should accrue to New Zeeland from an overseas tour which is being made in the near future by Oriwa Haddon, 2ZB’s Maori announcer, who has secured a year’s leave of absence from the NCBS, and intends lecturing and giving radio talks throughout America under the auspices of the Chatauqua Association and Lyceum Bureaux. A presentation was made to him at a farewell function held at 2ZB recently, and he sails for Australia and the U.S. in the near future.

RIWA TAHUPOTIKI HADDON, to give him his full raame, is a son of the late Rev. Tahupotiki Haddon, distinguished Maori scholar and missionary. . From his early childhood he has interested himself in tribal lore and traditions, and in the history of early tribal. wars, particularly those in which his famous granduncle, T itokowaru, played a leading part. ‘Oriwa’s first overseas . lecture tour was made when he was only

19 years of age. Then, too, it was the Chatauqua organisation which sponsored him. Other celebrities who were touring for the Chatauquas at the time were explcrer Amundsen and evangelist Billy Sunday. The Chatauquas, who do a considerable amount of charitable work in the U.S., guarantee an artist or lecturer a certain fee, ail money received above and over that fee going to charity. Oriwa’s second tour of the U.S. was made in 1920, this time with a Maori concert party. It was the first time that anything of the kind had been seen in America, and the tour was a big success. Hakas by the party were incorporated into a Burton Holmes . tfavelogue, and the party itself atdied a spectacuiar, live drop scene when the travelogue was screened at Graumann’s Theatre, Los Angeles.

MPHIS time Oriwa is touring alone, but he has a large collection of recordings of old Maori chants and songs which he is taking with him. It is becoming increasingly difficult, he admits, to find Maori Singers who have not become almost completely Europeanised, or Maori music" which has not been spoiled by the same influence. He himself, however, Oriwa claims, was able to secure a unique series of recordings, owing first to his long. association with and understanding of the Maori race, and second to the fact that he and his brother, James Haddon, took a recording outfit right into Maori meeting houses. In this way the Haddons were able to persuade elder men and women to render chants and songs which the younger Maoris do not know. In a similar way, Oriwa’s knowledge of Maori custom has enabled him to collect an almost unique fund of folk lore, history and tradition, some of which he hopes eventually to incorporate into a book. All this has been passed on to him in the true "lip-to-ear" method of the old Maori historians. Am Artist RIWA HADDON is also an artist of no mean ability. His work for the "New Zealand Artists’ Annual" was’ highly praised by Mr. Punch. and reproductions of three of his paintings appear in a Centennial booklet issued by the Government Tourist and Publicity Department. Oriwa is undertaking his coming tour with the full approval and co-operation of the controller, Mr. C. G. Scrimgeour (owing to whose enthusiasm, incidentaily, station 2ZB has built up one of the finest collections of Maori recordings in New Zealand.) Reason Criwa gives for embarking on his trip: "If Aunt Daisy can do it, why can’t a Maori boy?"