ANDERSEN.— Maori Music. 691 
a high hill above the settlement. The signal was immediately answered 
from a pa about nine miles down the Waimana Valley, below Tawhana. 
The deep thundering notes of the distant pahw came booming up the 
valley, reverberating through the wooded peaks, finally dying away in a 
thousand echoes among the lofty cliffs.” " 
Sometimes pahu were formed out of living trees which happened to be 
hollow, by cutting a tongue 20ft. or 30 ft. in length out of the standing 
trunk. The lower end was struck a few feet from the ground, and a scale 
of three or four notes obtained by striking the tongue higher or lower. 
Again Captain Mair writes: “ There are several celebrated specimens 
of this kind of pahu, or pato, in the Urewera country, some of which have 
been in use from time immemorial. One very famous one, called Opato, 
stood on a high hill overlooking the Whirinaki Valley at Te Whaiti. In 
1869, when Colonel Whitmore's expedition marched through the Urewera 
country, the friendly Native chiefs who accompanied the force pointed 
and from lin. to 2in. deep. Sometimes it is beautifully carved, or merely 
has notches (whakakaka pattern) cut along the edges. This rod is held in the 
left hand, and one end placed between the teeth, flat side down. It is 
Struck with the small rod, made from the same wood, held in the fingers 
of the right hand. The striking, or tapping, is done in time to the words 
of the song, and the movements of the lips, as with the jews'-harp, cause 
different sounds or notes to be emitted by the longer rod. (Hamilton, 
) 
a number of skilled performers, standing in a row," he writes, ** their 
swaying bodies and little tapping mallets keeping the most perfect unisons. 
Now rising shrill, or dying away in the mournful cadence of some love- 
song, the effect is remarkably melodious and pleasing." 
: ite (Ancient History of the Maori, vol. 2, p. 130) gives yet another 
slightly differing description of the pakwru and the manner in which th 
rod was held. He says it was made from matai, was about 18 in. long and 
lin. in diameter, slightly flat in the centre, and tapering a little at each 
end; the ends were carved, the middle left smooth. It was suspended 
