Page:Some Account of New Zealand.pdf/100

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New Zealand.
81

sician, and the instrument he plays upon being conveniently portable, he is never at a loss for the means of entertainment.

The music of their songs is generally well adapted to the theme; many of these are of a pathetic nature, others amatorial, and a great part of them humorous.

Those of a pathetic nature are well suited to the subject. The amorous songs appear not so much to depend upon the strain for communicating the sentiment, as upon gesture and grimace, which, in many instances, are both extravagant and indecent. Their humorous songs afford them much entertainment; the subject being such, and the description of it so ludicrous, as, in many instances, to occasion a total suspension of the performance, by the laughter of the audience.

Many of their songs are accompanied by a beating of the breast, which they perform to time, making the breast a sort of natural drum.

The effect would not be amiss were

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