Dance and Music are Siamese Twins in Early Times

(1) In static art, the art of carving and design, we found a marvellous development in the south, and especially in New Zealand, due probably to the crossing of numerous cultures in that ultima thule of the Southern Pacific, to the wider area, and to the luxuriance of the timber-supplying forests. The same deep contrast between the Polynesians and the Maoris is not to be found in their dynamic or mobile art, least of all in the most elementarythe art of dancing and that of music. For here small advances made by the crossing of races do not accumulate so easily; they cannot be retained so well in material form, for excellence in these arts is more individual.

(2) And yet dancing and music are amongst primitive people far less individual, far more a matter of mass combination, than in civilisation. For rhythm is their essence, and binds them close together, like body and soul. Music is rarely divorced from dancing in the early stages of culture, and seldom advances beyond mere rhythm into melody and harmony. To a modern European ear it sounds not much more than rhythmic noise, a mere marking of time for concerted movement of the limbs, monotonous and unattractive, if heard without its origin and inspirationthe dance.