Māori Oral Tradition: He Kōrero nō te Ao Tawhito 1869408616, 9781869408619

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Māori Oral Tradition

He Kōrero nō te Ao Tawhito Jane McRae

First published 2017 Auckland University Press University of Auckland Private Bag 92019 Auckland 1142 New Zealand www.press.auckland.ac.nz © Jane McRae, 2017 ISBN 978 1 86940 861 9 eISBN 978 177558 907 5 Publication is assisted by

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand This book is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior permission of the publisher. The moral rights of the author have been asserted. Book design by Katrina Duncan Cover design by Johnson Witehira The tiki or human figures on the cover are based on those of the Tairuku Pōtaka pātaka (storehouse), one of the oldest and most significant carved Māori structures. In this design, the original taowaru or spear element is redrawn as a flute that binds the figures together through the waha (mouth), symbolising the passing on of knowledge orally and alluding to the music of waiata (songs). And the pattern, in the connecting, vertical arrangement of the figures, speaks of both kōrero (oral traditions handed down) and the descent lines of whakapapa (genealogies).

Contents

Acknowledgements vii Introduction

1

Chapter 1. Māori Oral Tradition / Kōrero Tuku Iho

11

Chapter 2. Genealogies and Lists / Whakapapa

42

Chapter 3. Proverbs and Historical Sayings / Whakataukī

79

Chapter 4. Narratives and Prose / Kōrero

115

Chapter 5. Songs and Chants / Waiata

152

Conclusion

196

Abbreviations Notes Bibliography Index

203 204 232 245

Acknowledgements

My first acknowledgement is of my lecturers in the Māori Studies Department of the University of Auckland. I am particularly indebted to Bruce Biggs and Pat Hohepa who, in postgraduate courses, taught us about the nature of the language and the cultural riches in the oral tradition and introduced us to its nineteenth-century record in manuscripts. I also remember gratefully fellow students and colleagues of Māori Studies, as well as students in my classes on the oral literature, who over many years have contributed to my understanding and appreciation of the traditional texts. In the 1980s, when studying the language, I worked from time to time at the Department of Māori Affairs in Whāngārei locating records of the tribal traditions of Te Tai Tokerau. In discussing manuscripts with tribal elders and attending meetings on marae, I came to realise that the knowledge captured in the old written record has an enduring relevancy to Māori and has always had an essential part in their oral arts. Those were unforgettable experiences, which have remained with me in my study of the oral literature, and I wish to pay tribute to all the people who at that time shared with me their views and learning. During the research and writing for this book, I was fortunate to have material and scholarly assistance from the Te Ao Tawhito Research Project, which was funded by a Marsden Grant from the Royal Society of New Zealand. I wish to thank Anne Salmond, who led the project, for prompting the manuscripts’ research, discussion about traditions and perceptive remarks on my chapters in progress. In the early stage of the project I had the benefit of Jeny Curnow’s wise thinking about the proposed topic. And I have an especial debt of gratitude to Robert Pouwhare, who shared the reading of many manuscripts, reflected with me on difficulties of meaning and translation, talked over the first draft of the book and gave me advice and encouragement. vii

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The goodwill and interest of many people helped me along the way with observations and suggestions that were informative and useful. And I had the advantage of other colleagues who generously read and commented on my work. For that task, and for their questions, corrections, insights and support, I am very grateful to Gail Dallimore, Ngapare Hopa, Hēni Jacob, Joan Metge, and Christine Tremewan. In the manuscripts’ research, I received, as always, informed and considerate assistance from librarians at the Auckland City Libraries’ Sir George Grey Special Collections, the Auckland Museum Library, Alexander Turnbull Library, and Hocken Library. I am grateful for permission to include in the book quotations from manuscripts in their collections. Those invaluable documents of the tradition have a significant part in this study. The book represents my understanding of the character and style of the oral tradition. It is just one view, with all its limitations, written in the spirit of the enquiry and sharing of knowledge and ideas alluded to in the whakataukī: ‘Kōrerotia i runga i te marae, kia whitia e te rā, kia pūhia e te hau’ (Speak of it on the marae, in the open, that it may be shone on by the sun and blown about by the wind). I also wrote in acknowledgement and admiration of the writers and composers of that literary legacy, recalling with gratitude Māori and Pākehā who at different times have explored it with me, and out of a great respect for the oral tradition and its vital importance to Māori and value to us all. For the book in the hand, I thank Auckland University Press: Sam Elworthy for raising and supporting the idea of it, and all who worked on the production, with thanks in particular to Ginny Sullivan for copyediting and the index, Katrina Duncan for design of the book, and Johnson Witehira for the cover. Heoi anō ko te mihi. E kui mā, e kara mā, e ōku hoamahi, koutou kua whetūrangitia, koutou anō ngā kanohi ora, tēnei te maioha, te mihi o te ngākau, te whakawhetai hoki ki a koutou. Tēnā koutou katoa.

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Introduction

Māori oral tradition is the richly informative, poetic record of ngā kōrero tuku iho or the words that were remembered and handed down by voice over generations. The genres of whakapapa, whakataukī, kōrero and waiata (genealogies, sayings, narratives and prose, songs and chants), which make up the tradition, describe and picture the ancient and historical worlds: the gods, the Polynesian ancestors, their migration from the homeland of Hawaiki and the life of their Māori descendants in Aotearoa. The oral tradition is also a repository of religious and philosophical thinking, customary practice and personal experience. It is long-standing, from te ao tawhito, the old world and oral society, in which there was no writing. But it is also contemporary. Today, in the twenty-first century, when Māori gather on their tribal marae (ceremonial meeting-grounds), the oral legacy can be heard in speeches, songs and prayers, and in the performative, metaphorical and esoteric character of their language. If a ceremony is held in an ornamented meeting-house, its carvings and decorative panels are based on the store of knowledge preserved in the tradition. Even if a meeting-house is unadorned, its name, the name of the nearby dining-hall and ancestral names across the surrounding tribal landscape, together with the histories of what gave rise to them, have their source in ngā kōrero tuku iho. Māori who participate in ceremonies and meetings there, descendants of those who composed and passed on the ancient records, know the lineage of their forebears because of often quoted genealogies, which were also preserved in the oral tradition. 1

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The words handed down from the ancestors are cherished and kept current in various ways and through new media: in cultural rituals; in teaching, either locally by elders or at Māori schools and universities; in the modern composition of songs and stories; and by way of art, print, radio, film and the internet. Māori have preserved their oral traditions since their arrival in Aotearoa and, remarkably, through the vicissitudes of colonisation and near loss of their language. One  means they used during the nineteenth century to ensure the survival of these traditions was by committing them to writing, creating a manuscript store of this once oral heritage. The literature that bears the closest relationship to the oral tradition in its original form are the texts that Māori first wrote down from memory or that were written for them as they dictated; these texts are testament to the singular style, art and beauty of the tradition and to the extraordinarily vivid portrait they give of the people and their society of old. This, largely unpublished, literature in Māori may be found in two places. One is in the private domain, in personal papers and manuscript books that Māori have inherited or continue to write; the other is in public libraries, in manuscripts written and collected by Māori and Pākehā (Europeans) from around the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth century. This writing is the single most valuable material record of Māori oral tradition. There is also a published literature of reproduction, translation and interpretation of traditions. It began with Sir George Grey’s collections of songs, narratives and sayings in the 1850s. For the remainder of the nineteenth century, oral traditions became the subject of discussion and translation in works by collectors and ethnographers, such as Edward Shortland, Richard Taylor, John White, S. Percy Smith and Elsdon Best. From 1892, the Journal of the Polynesian Society, in particular, became a substantial source of knowledge about the tradition. Māori contributed information and writing to all that literature. And the Māori-language newspapers published from the 1840s to the early twentieth century became a printed forum in which they recorded, debated and quoted from their oral heritage. From the twentieth to the twenty-first century, the literature developed in new directions. There were English versions of mythologies and legends, such as are found in A. W. Reed’s many books and Antony Alpers’ Maori Myths and Tribal Legends; and of tribal histories that drew on and quoted from the traditional texts, such as Elsdon Best’s Tuhoe, Leslie G. Kelly’s Tainui 2

Introduction

and D. M. Stafford’s Te Arawa. This period also produced fine scholarly works from the oral repertoire with translation and commentary. Notably there are those about the songs by Āpirana Ngata and Pei Te Hurinui Jones, Margaret Orbell and Mervyn McLean; about tribal members’ own oral histories and traditions such as those by Pei Te Hurinui Jones and Bruce Biggs, Anaru Reedy and Rawiri Te Maire Tau; and with interpretation and comparative example by Agathe Thornton and Christine Tremewan. I am indebted to that and other literature of its kind, but my primary aim has been to describe the oral tradition as a whole, its genres and special character, that is, the compositional style which demonstrates that it derives from an oral society, from te ao tawhito, the old world before the arrival of Europeans. In this description the tradition also reveals itself as a profound source about that world; it gives a very real sense of the geographic and cultural landscape in which people lived, of what they did, and of the knowledge, wit and wisdom of the ancestors. My other aim has been to draw attention both to the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century writing of the traditions from memory and to some of the writers, as a way of acknowledging their assiduous and enterprising recording and their skills as composers. The manuscripts, one source for publications of the kind referred to above, are of enormous value: they are attractive as artefacts, wonderfully informative about the past and a fine legacy of language. They also chart, sometimes in slight and subtle ways and other times strikingly, the changes that writing brought to the structure and content of the oral compositions and to the thinking of those who created and wrote them down. They allow comparison of the old with the new, and show how Māori kept their ancients’ knowledge alive by modern means. In writing this book, I had in mind students of Māori language and oral literature. I hoped that it would draw them to explore the manuscript trove and to discover the riches and poetry of the language and the view of the ancient world conjured up by the oral compositions. For this reason I have been liberal in citing works about the manuscript history and other literature which supports the research that is very often needed in order to understand these concise and poetic compositions. While it can be difficult to be certain about meaning, there are sufficient published and unpublished sources, as well as tribal members and elders, to reward searches in pursuit of it; that work in itself is engrossing and always repays the student in revealing more of the ancestral culture and how it is still manifested today. 3

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As a descriptive introduction, I would like to think that the book might attract general readers with an interest in Māori culture or New Zealand literature. The oral tradition makes for a serious literature but it is also eminently readable; it can be exciting, amusing and often highly colourful, and it constantly engages the emotions. Yet while Māori are either conversant with their own traditions or aware of them as an integral part of their cultural life, a general audience in New Zealand knows little, if anything, about them. When there is talk about Māori literature, it is usually about what Māori have written in English; it is rare to hear talk of the oral literature. Unlike English or French or classical literatures, this oral and literary heritage has not as a matter of course had a place in school and university curricula, yet it is a source of fine, often eloquent and beautiful compositions, and it contains a substantial body of knowledge about Māori culture and the earliest history of Aotearoa and New Zealand. It would be an advantage to all, I think, if its great worth were more widely known and appreciated.

Content The book comprises a general description of Māori oral tradition and, with examples, its primary genres or particular kinds of compositions. In Chapter 1, I summarise the content of the tradition and briefly trace the transition of it to a body of literature. I picture the ancient society and orality in action: the composers and the performance and uses of their compositions. And I introduce the genres and some of the distinguishing qualities and features of the oral compositional style; for this I also draw on the wider and comparative field of oral tradition. The four chapters that follow are devoted to whakapapa, whakataukī, kōrero and waiata. In choosing this order I had two thoughts in mind. Firstly, there is an attractive, and informative, parallel with whaikōrero, the formal speeches that today are heard on marae or at special occasions and meetings. Speakers sometimes choose to begin their orations with a reference to their genealogy (whakapapa), either reciting from it or by oblique reference in a saying (whakataukī), before going on to the body of their speech (kōrero) and concluding with a song (waiata). But it is significant to add that orators will take licence with the order and content 4

Introduction

of the genres to fit the circumstances or to make a point. While there is remarkable conservatism in the oral tradition, its art often arises from a composer’s purposeful straying from or even updating of it. Secondly, the order reflects the form of each genre. Whakapapa are the most concise, being made up of strings of single names, words or very brief phrases. Placing them first also recognises their importance to all the other genres, because in very many cases, prior knowledge of a genealogy or explanatory list may be necessary to understand allusions or cryptic references in a saying, narrative or song: for example, a descent line can advise nobility or a list of boundaries confirm a tribe’s right to a place. Whakataukī are slightly longer compositions, although characteristically terse, which encompass proverbial wisdom, sayings relating to origins and the time in Hawaiki, as well as epithets and quotations from tribal histories of Aotearoa. And in form they anticipate the numerous set phrases which, as is typical of oral traditions, make up the patterned or formulaic language that Māori oral composers used in the longer genres of kōrero – accounts of custom, narrative histories and stories, and of waiata – the songs and chants. There is considerable overlap between the genres, in the information they convey and in the oral composer’s tactic of drawing on quotations from one to enhance another. Singling them out is convenient for describing them but it should be tempered with the thought that the oral compositions are highly interconnected – just as the Māori world-view is of a highly interrelated universe. Māori oral tradition is both ancient and modern; my description of it is retrospective. It looks back to te ao tawhito, the old world or the time of an oral society in Aotearoa (which had its antecedent in Polynesia) and on to the nineteenth century, when oral and literary worlds came together. The manuscript texts originated in and followed models learned in the oral society; and this gives them a certain character, which has implications for their meaning and art. However, there is an evident continuity in the tradition through to the twenty-first century; this I only refer to occasionally, although it would in itself make a very interesting study. The examples of genres in each chapter were recorded in writing and print, and my approach to them is literary in explaining their style, form and meaning. While I stress the need to remember that they were designed to be recited and heard, I do not, other than incidentally, explore 5

mĀori oral tradition

performative aspects, such as music, actions, dance or sounds that may have accompanied them. As the title of the book advises, I have chosen to speak generically about Māori oral tradition when in fact it is made up of tribal traditions, each of which might be studied separately. However, while to a degree personal and individual, the traditions reflect a shared world: for instance, in subject matter, such as in references to gods and cultural heroes, in themes and images, and in style, all use the genres and compositional conventions in like or very similar ways. The oral compositions are concise, yet at the same time very often highly symbolic and dense with meaning, which is why it is said that just one composition – a song or a narrative – would be sufficient subject for a book. An evident reason for this is that in an oral society it was a habit, and useful for the memory, to be spare with words although they could nevertheless communicate a lot. In addition, a single example from any genre is embedded in a very large context – of tribe, history, belief and custom – which bears, often opaquely, on its meaning. My reading is limited to opening the way to meaning by illustrating how the oral style, the content and a knowledge of the old world all contribute to it. The exemplar texts derive from tribal traditions and I am aware that my interpretation of them could be amplified or contested by tribal members. There are some things that one cannot know without belonging to, or having a very close knowledge of, the kin group, or without hearing descendants’ voices on the marae. On the other hand, there is a great deal that anyone reading Māori oral literature can learn and appreciate. Like all great classical literatures, it has much to say about humanity as well as the character of tribe or culture. Finally, the work is, of course, partial. I speak in general of the nature of the oral tradition, introducing some of the features that distinguish it and aim at giving a sense of its breadth and depth. My discussion centres on a typical few of any one genre or sub-genre and by no means represents the complete range. In addition, since Māori composers relied heavily on conventional models, as is usual in an oral tradition, but were also creative with them, ways in which the genres could be composed, recomposed or combined are remarked on but not pursued.

6

Introduction

Exemplar Texts and Manuscripts In choosing sample texts, I looked for those that readily epitomise the oral style and illustrate how these kinds of compositions were thought about and used in the oral society. And I sought examples with language and a context that could be described clearly and succinctly, and which came from a range of tribal areas. Some are excerpts but they are nevertheless comprehensible on their own, although much more could be said about them if they were considered in relation to the larger piece and setting from which they came. Since my focus is on compositional form and giving an impression of the oral tradition in te ao tawhito, I do not explore whether one or other text might be correct or authentic in its content. The reliability or veracity of any of the many versions of the oral compositions might be said to be subjective and circumstantial. To judge from comments in manuscripts and debates in Māori-language newspapers of the nineteenth century (as well as discussion among Māori elders today), there was indeed dispute over valid or dubious renditions, and different opinions as to accuracy might be formed among individuals at any one time. A point to note too about these texts is that it is not possible to speak with conviction about them as original or unchanged. Change was inherent to them in the time of, and after, the oral society; and the impact of the nineteenth-century meeting between orality and literacy is very often apparent. However, although comparison of traditions recorded in writing and print from the 1840s to early 1900s reveals adjustments made to them, as even the few examples in this book confirm, there is also an astonishing persistence in form, content and the oral style. Providing a selection of interesting composers and writers and exemplifying different kinds of manuscript collections (large and small, from Māori and Pākehā, individuals and families) also guided me in my choice of examples, in order to give some measure of this literary record. Most of the exemplars are transcribed from manuscripts of the late 1840s to the early twentieth century, many of which, as I have noted, have been published in one or other version; a few texts are quoted from early, that is, nineteenth-century, publications. The manuscripts are fascinating but they can present problems (as early publications can too). Questions may arise in the reading, for example, as to whether handwriting is that of scribe or composer, transcription of 7

mĀori oral tradition

words and names is accurate, notes written beside a text are reliable. Some answers can readily be found, others require wide-ranging research (and a certain amount of luck); others are inconclusive (sources and individuals may differ as to the names of people, the tribal context and so on); and some things may never be known. I have chosen to accept a source for its interest as a text in the oral style, to use any information that appears with it, and not to explore the accuracy of details to any great extent; instead, I have noted where I was unsure as to a writer or source or the accuracy of some information. As is evident from other literature that is based on the nineteenth-century record, uncertainties are common and opinions may differ, but over time new information accrues to clarify and correct the old. Even if everything cannot be known for sure about a text, if it is otherwise good or interesting, the useful thing, it seems to me, is to quote it and initiate or contribute to a conversation about it so that eventually it will get its due and fullest explanation.

Transcription of Māori In transcribing from manuscripts, for ease of reading and to give reason for my translation, I have used contemporary Māori orthography, including macrons to indicate long vowels. I have added punctuation, capitalisation and paragraphing, which are usually missing from or inconsistent in the manuscripts, and I have separated words run together (for instance, ‘kite’ to ‘ki te’). Any  addition made for clarification of spelling, meaning or grammar (such as adding the ‘i’ comment or agentive marker ‘e’), I have put in square brackets or referred to in an endnote. What I consider to be inadvertent repetition of a letter or word or an evident error in the writing I have enclosed in round brackets ( ). Except for an occasional text that I have noted as edited to explain my translation, quotations in Māori from publications are transcribed verbatim; as a result there is variation in the spelling of the language, especially in regard to the use of macrons and the form of names. For the spelling of names in manuscript quotations and my general text, I have followed Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori’s Guidelines for Māori Language Orthography (2009). I  have marked with macrons the long vowels in place and tribal names and, where known, in personal names 8

Introduction

of the ancients and those of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For establishing vowel length, I referred to published authorities, such as the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (Ngā Tāngata Taumata Rau), common usage, native speaker knowledge or self-evident component words; if unsure, I have left the vowels unmarked. I have chosen italics for printing the Māori in the book, liking the way it draws attention to the language and clearly distinguishes it from the English. I also like the fact that this font reflects the sloping, cursive style of writing by Māori in their manuscripts of traditions.

Translation All translation in the book is mine unless otherwise specified by endnote. For the oral compositions, I chose to stay as close as I thought reasonable to the Māori original, whether prose or poetry, preferring to retain as far as possible the terse, repetitive style and choosing a plain rendition rather than attempting equivalent poetry. I have tried to be sparing with the addition of words (such as ‘and’ or ‘to’) or deleted subjects (such as personal pronouns or names) that make the English more colloquial but are, with good reason, not in the Māori; I have noted some in square brackets to help mark the style or commented on them in the text. At the risk of making reading a little heavy or unusual, I think this approach helps to pinpoint the differences between older oral and recent literary compositions. Moreover, the oral style is artful and informative. For instance, lists and repetitions, which good writers of literature generally eschew, can be aurally impressive and make significant points, and the prevailing brevity of expression in the oral tradition has its own power and suggestiveness, which can be lost if elaborated. In all translations, conundrums arise over meaning and interpretation. In Māori, given the range of meanings of some words, it can be difficult to know which is intended in the context; the same can apply to phrases and sentences. I have noted instances where I think there may be two (or more) possible meanings, either because intended by a composer, informative for meaning or difficult to be sure about in the context. In this regard also, and to encourage the language student to explore debates about accuracy and the variation in meaning that may be found in translations as a result of 9

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different times, understandings or personal preferences, I have given references, as far as I could ascertain them, to other translations of quoted texts. I have glossed words in Māori used within the English text by explanation or in brackets on the first occasion of use in a chapter. There is no exact or easy equivalent in English for some Māori words, and this is a mark of interesting differences in ways of life and thinking. On occasion, if it seems useful, I leave such a word in Māori, but in the main, principally for readability, I use a near-English equivalent, with an endnote that enlarges on the differences in meaning. For example, I generally translate the words ‘karakia’ and ‘atua’ as ‘prayers’ and ‘gods’ because I think these sufficiently bridge a common human understanding of the nature of an especial plea and of a divine or superhuman being. The fact that karakia are of many kinds (for instance, a plea, an invocation, a spell), and use of them was complexly related to how Māori viewed their world and different atua (who were also kin), is not conveyed by simply retaining the Māori word; much more is required for that understanding. This raises the commonplace of loss in translation; it is inevitable that there will be some gaps in conveying meaning. But the more important thing is that translation works; it allows people to speak to and learn from and about each other. In some cases with the oral compositions, because they are of an old and other world, and especially when cryptic or obscure, any translation feels tentative. But as it is sometimes said, ‘Translation is never finished’; it can take a long time and many people to get it right.

10

1. Māori Oral Tradition Kōrero Tuku Iho

The oral tradition comprises what Māori in te ao tawhito (the old world) composed, remembered, told and retold over generations  – and their descendants, from the nineteenth century, wrote down. The genealogies, sayings, prose and narratives, and songs and chants, which they passed on verbally, portrayed their life and created a substantial, many-stranded, body of knowledge. The tradition is historical in describing the storied Polynesian homeland of Hawaiki, the canoe voyages to and arrival in Aotearoa around 1300, the establishment of hapū or kin groups and life in their territories;1 as well as some of the interaction Māori had with Europeans in the nineteenth century. It is also a social record that captures family and village life, daily occupations, and customary practices and rituals. And it has a political aspect in chronicling the ascendancy and decline of chiefs and leaders and the flourishing and demise of tribes. There is also a biographical strand in the recording of the achievements of singular individuals and logging of kin relationships in genealogies, and a personal, or autobiographical, one in the rendering in songs of feelings and experiences. The oral texts also make up a linguistic history of usage and dialect; and they are ‘literary’ in the sense that many are finely composed.2 Taken together in its many forms or genres, the oral tradition offers a remarkable representation of the Māori world. As record of past lives, collective wisdom, lore and practical instruction, it is enormously valuable historically. To borrow Umberto Eco’s words, it is the knowledge of the 11

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past that forms ‘the basis of every civilisation’, the sum of experience and learning acquired over generations.3 As scholars have shown, and examples in this book attest, by studying the oral tradition a lot can be learned about how Māori lived in ancestral times and what they thought and felt.4 But to Māori in those eras their oral traditions were pragmatically and emotionally important: telling their histories, preserving knowledge, and giving explanation, justification and reason for who they were and what they did.5 The continued vitality of this inherited knowledge, which survived the depredations of colonisation and influence of European ways of life and thought, and took in changes over time, testifies to its long-lasting influence on and inestimable value to Māori. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the nineteenth century they took up a new means – writing – of communicating and retaining ngā kōrero tuku iho a ngā tūpuna or the oral traditions handed down by their forebears.

The Origins of a Literature From the 1830s Māori were making good use of the orthography for their language, which missionaries had devised with their help.6 The written form of their oral traditions, evident in manuscripts in public libraries and private hands, was prompted by Europeans (or Pākehā as they came to be known) who, from the 1840s, asked Māori to write down their traditions or recorded them as they dictated. The prolific collector Sir George Grey (Governor of New Zealand from 1845 to 1853 and Premier from 1877 to 1879) described one way this was done: ‘In many cases I told them exactly what I wanted, supplied them with the requisite writing materials, – and some months afterwards received a valuable manuscript which had been dictated to an educated native.’7 Major extant manuscript collections include those of Grey, the Reverend Richard Taylor, Edward Shortland and John White, who all drew from that writing for their nineteenth-century published works on the society and traditions.8 Acquaintances  – the scholarly and the interested – wrote out for them genealogies, sayings, histories, stories and songs, and explanation of custom. Most, if not all, were men;9 many were chiefs and tribal leaders engaged with Pākehā over government and political issues; and some had close contact with missionaries and converted to Christianity – which can be reflected in the content 12

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of their writing and the biblical names they assumed. It is not surprising, therefore, that they used writing, their own or a scribe’s, to good purpose. But it was not only the chiefly or well known who wrote out or recited traditions for interested Pākehā.10 In the 1850s, or maybe even earlier, Māori were writing down their traditions for their own purposes. No doubt pleasure in the newly acquired art of recording prompted some to that. As the nineteenth century advanced, however, they recognised the changes to and potential loss of their habits of memorisation, oral delivery and transmission and so took the initiative to preserve their traditions in writing. In some cases this was the work of a tribal collective or family. An example is the voluminous manuscript legacy of one Ngāti Kahungunu scribe, Hoani Te Whatahoro Jury who, from the late 1850s to 1890s, wrote at the dictation of Wairarapa elders such as Nēpia Pōhūhū, Paratene Te Okawhare and Moihi Te Mātorohanga. Some of their work, which is representative of the oral tradition in its mix of tribal history, explanation of esoteria and customs, and record of genealogies and songs, has been published in S. Percy Smith’s The Lore of the Whare-wānanga and Agathe Thornton’s The Birth of the Universe.11 As speakers or clerks, Māori also contributed to another store of manuscripts. From 1865, minutes of the Native Land Court and its committees recorded (some in English and some in Māori) the oral histories that tribal members recited when they made claim to an official title to their lands; individuals attending the courts also kept their own minutes. Many Māori, however, among them some whose manuscripts are cited in the chapters that follow, wrote down their teachings so they would be known and remembered. Such were the intentions of two Ngāti Porou recorders around the 1890s.12 One wrote at the start of his manuscript: He pukapuka whakapapa tīpuna tēnei me tētahi atu mahara a te tangata, tērā e tuhia ki tēnei pukapuka hai whakamahara ki ngā mea e kūare ana. This a book of genealogies of the ancestors and other recollections by the people, which have been written in this book to inform those who are ignorant of them.

The other concluded, after writing about the early ancestor-explorer Kupe: 13

mĀori oral tradition Ko te mutunga tēnei o te whakahaerenga o ngā kōrero o tēnei tangata, a Kupe, me ana mahi katoa. Kia mārama ai te titiro a ngā kaikōrero i ngā pūtake kōrero, kua oti nei te tuhi ki roto ki tēnei pukapuka, kia kaha anō hoki koe ki te pupuri i roto i tōu ngākau. This is the end of relating the accounts about this man, Kupe, and all his activities. To inform readers looking into the ancestral accounts,13 these have been written in this book, and also to encourage you to keep them in your mind.

Here in the final phrase there is a subtle duality in meaning, in ‘ngākau’ that can also mean ‘heart’; the act of memorising and the traditions themselves were serious and deeply felt matters. When, in 1853, Wiremu Maihi Te Rangikāheke of the Ngāti Rangiwewehi tribal group of Te Arawa, wrote about the ‘retention and transmission’ of Māori knowledge for Sir George Grey, he used the same phrasing. Reflecting on the more recent need by their own peoples of writing to preserve knowledge of the past, he contrasted that with his ancestors’ ability to preserve it over generations ‘by heart’: Ko te rau o te iwi, ko te rau o te motu, tangata Māori Pākehā rānei, kāore i mōhio ai ki te pupuri i ngā kōrero a ngā tūpuna o mua; tōna mōhiotanga peā he mea tuhituhi ki ngā papa pukapuka. Kei Hawaiki, kei Aotea[roa] nei, he mea tuhituhi ki te papa angaanga, o roto o te hinengaro, o te ngākau . . . . Ko te tangata Māori, mau tonu ngā kupu te pupuri i te ngākau, mate atu he whakatupuranga, mau tonu iho.14 Most people, most in the land, whether Māori or Pākehā people, did not know how to retain the traditions from the ancestors of old; their knowledge was of course written on the pages of books. In Hawaiki [and] here in Aotea[roa], it was etched on the head [lit. ‘skull’], within the mind [and] the heart . . . . The Māori people kept the words by heart forever; when one generation passed on, they were kept forever [by the next].

This engagement of heart and mind was echoed by Moihi Te Mātorohanga of Ngāti Kahungunu, who said expressively (as S. Percy Smith translated in like vein) of the pupils in a whare wānanga or school dedicated to higher learning: 14

kŌrero tuku iho Heoi ma ratou he whakarongo, he tamaua take ki te Pu ki te Weu, ki te koronga o te hinengaro i roto i o ratou ngakau. Their business was to listen, and to firmly fix in their hearts, in their very roots and origins, all they are taught, with also the strong desire to retain it.15

Depth of feeling, respect for and even awe of some traditions gave Māori pause for thought about the appropriateness of writing to pass on their ancestors’ treasured words and wisdom. Some were apprehensive that written texts of esoteria regarded as tapu or sacred,16 and usually the preserve of select individuals, could be made public; and others that such lore would be misunderstood, or misused and become harmful.17 Opinion about the new media of pen and print varied greatly from the earliest use of writing. But the historical evidence is that many were eager to use literacy to preserve and communicate their oral heritage. Nineteenth-century Māori also ventured into print with their traditions. Some assisted Pākehā, such as Grey and White, with their books; others sent material for publication in Māori-language newspapers of the 1840s to 1930s, and, from 1892, to the Journal of the Polynesian Society. By the twentieth century, Māori were compiling their own books, in their own language or English, of and about their traditions.18 Perhaps over that time many thought like Rēweti Kōhere of Ngāti Porou who, early in the twentieth century, spoke of one advantage of books as bringing the ancestors to life, adding with approval the statement, ‘Although they have died they still speak’ (‘Koia nei tētahi pai o te pukapuka hei whakaora mai i te hunga kua mate, e tika ai te kōrero, “Ahakoa mate e kōrero ana anō.”’). And his kinsman Āpirana Ngata regarded publication as a means beyond memory and manuscript to preserve ‘the heirlooms and treasures’ of the culture.19 The incorporation of manuscript writings in a published literature was a great step towards preserving the oral tradition, and provided an invaluable corpus for students. The literature, however, should be read with a thought to its time. Certainly in the nineteenth century, collectors altered texts when preparing them for publication. For example, accounts from different tribes were merged to create a singular Māori version, the order of events was changed in a narrative, or references to European or Christian thinking were excised to give the impression of an unadulterated tradition.20 And sensibilities, exemplified in Taylor’s comment about a particular myth that 15

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‘a great deal . . . will not bear repeating’,21 led some to delete, modify or fail to translate sexual or other matters that they found offensive. There is inevitably some change to a manuscript when it is published; every retelling or restatement (oral, written or printed – even facsimile reproduction) comes with an implicit commentary, with the preoccupations of the editor and day. The published literature is, therefore, a step further away from the oral tradition of the old world; the manuscripts are the source closest to it and a primary means of discovering what that world was like.22 Invaluable as the manuscripts are, it pays to be circumspect about them. For example, they raise questions as to how accurate an impression of the traditions and past they give. One has to take into account the possibilities of errors made in hearing and transcribing or misunderstandings about meaning between Māori and Pākehā, and be open to new interpretations and information about them that arise over time. It is impossible to know too if Māori in the nineteenth century wrote down (or recounted) their traditions exactly as they had known them. For they had already been influenced not only by the act of writing and other literature but also by the habits and thinking of the newly arrived people; the practices of orality and literacy had begun to overlap. However, as Bruce Biggs acknowledged, these writers recorded ‘their own culture from first-hand knowledge . . . or the memories of their elders’.23 It is also reasonable to suppose that what they wrote was very close to what they knew and had retained, for three reasons. First, there is notable consistency in the content of the manuscripts from the 1850s to the early twentieth century and across different tribes. Māori cannot all have written similarly by chance. Second, Māori oral tradition (like others) has a distinct compositional style. As a result it is often obvious when a writer strays from that style and manifests the effects of writing or new knowledge. In an otherwise conventional narrative there may be, for instance, an aside to explain a custom to an outsider or an expression – a date or measurement – that had no traditional equivalent in Māori. A representative style, patterned structure and more or less standard content lend support to the reliability of the written transmission of the oral tradition. What cannot be known, however, is whether writers or tellers omitted or altered parts for reasons such as a failure to recall them, concern at divulging personal or sacred material, or consideration that some content might shock the modest missionary, collector or reader. But perhaps that is not of real concern. For what Māori 16

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did write down gives great insight into what was composed and preserved in the oral society and a captivating view of how life was lived in the past. Third, it seems reasonable to suppose that Māori in the nineteenth century, with their great respect for the traditions and their keenness to pass them on to the next generations, would have chosen to record them carefully and accurately – and selectively – for their readers.24 But to step away from the written page, to go back in time and get a sense of the tradition in its original context, it is useful first to picture how Māori lived in Aotearoa – and in an oral society.

Life in the Old World The canoe-voyaging Eastern Polynesian ancestors of the Māori brought with them a language and oral tradition that their descendants made their own in the new land, which they were to name Aotearoa. As is the case with the language, Māori oral tradition carries evidence of its Polynesian heritage,25 but it is also distinct: its defining aspect and subject matter is tribal and this is expressed in the individuality, and dialect, of the records made by members of a kin group. The nature and development of Māori society in the old world have been well described in ethnographies based on archaeological, anthropological and linguistic data, oral traditions and early eye-witness descriptions of Māori life.26 The nineteenth-century manuscript record of the oral tradition alone, however, also illuminates the ancient world. In his pertinently titled monograph, Kimihia te Mea Ngaro (‘Seek that which is lost’), Biggs said of the manuscripts that ‘They remain as a doorway to the “stone world”’ (‘te ao kōhatu’ as Māori call it, or the time before the arrival of Europeans with iron tools), and he exemplified what can yet be discovered by examining the allegorical and metaphorical traditions recorded in them.27 Or, to quote classicist Peter Stothard in regard to recreating ancient worlds, ‘We can know and imagine. We can build upon others’ knowledge and imaginations’, selecting from what there are of old texts as sources.28 It may be a speculative exercise to conjure up the past from ngā kōrero tuku iho but it has its rewards, and it is as much as can be done. Part of the charm of reading what the Māori ancestors themselves passed on lies in visualising their lives and perceiving how they thought and reasoned, what was vital 17

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to them, and what they found interesting and enjoyable. Moreover, the traditions are explanatory and an acknowledgement of Māori and their culture today. For the sketch of the ancient society that follows, I have drawn on what the tradition in its rendition of the oral literature tells, either directly or indirectly, about where and how Māori lived and what occupied, and preoccupied, them.29 Land The Polynesian arrivals explored the new country seeking the essentials for survival and prosperity: lakes, rivers and coastal areas for fishing and as travel routes; land suitable for villages and forts or to clear for cultivations; plants for buildings and clothing; stands of forest for rats, birds and timber for houses and canoes, and so on. This is known from the oral records about taunaha whenua, the practice of founding chiefs claiming and reserving lands and resources for their people by naming them, sometimes by reference to a physical or emotional attribute of their own; in this way they bound their mauri or vital and spiritual essence to the land. At this time, too, chiefly explorers designated or set up their tūāhu or sacred sites – marked, for instance, by poles or stones or mounds – and so they brought their ancestral atua or gods30 into the new territory for protection and as compelling evidence of their authority or mana. During occupation and use of their defined lands, the settlers continued their naming, as they did for new country acquired through exploration, inheritance or conquest. Over time their territories became extensively traced out and described by name, defining the tribal geography and confirming their established life there. Lists of names, such as of land boundaries or food-gathering sites or settlements, could be recited to assert and allocate rights to a region; many such manuscript lists are extant. Very significant names, such as those of sacred places, abundant food sources (a grove of karaka trees for the berries, an eel pond, a fishing-ground), sites of battles or burial grounds were cited, and repeated, in songs, sayings, narratives and lists, and in this way they were kept in mind. In addition, the circumstances that gave rise to certain names formed part of the memorising – and memorialising – of the origin and life of a tribe within its territory. With this verbal evidence of their active and continuous association with the land, kin groups maintained, and proclaimed, their right to it. 18

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Genealogy When first settling their territories, the Māori ancestors apportioned particular areas, likewise traced out by place-names, to family groups with their own leaders. The whānau (families) and hapū (tribal groups) who subsequently spread over the land were descended from a common ancestor or ancestors. These were very close communities, linked and defined by genealogies, knowledge of which specified rights to the named land and also family and kin group affiliations and obligations. Genealogies went as far back as the gods and the ancestors in Hawaiki and then on to the generations in Aotearoa; their length and associations gave them great import and influence. This accounts for the hundreds of pages of descent lines in nineteenth-century manuscripts; in the oral society there was a very practical basis to this memorising. Pervasive elements in the oral compositions are the naming of lands or physical features of them in association with individuals or tribes; a sense of kin was at one with place. For Māori, the lineages of land and people – where and with whom they lived and had a sense of belonging – were sources of individual and tribal identity and pride; they were complexly and intimately tied together. Those two ties are at the heart of the oral genres, which presuppose, if they are to be fully understood, a knowledge of ancestry. Examples of this can be found in the manuscript histories of tribal groups that are liberally interspersed with quotations from genealogies or which give page references to relevant sections of descent in separate record books. Hierarchy and Religion The genealogical basis to the traditions is also evidence that the tribal societies were hierarchical. High status came predominantly through familial lines; however, as oral histories tell, rank could also be acquired through skills and achievements or lost through failure and defeat. The governing leaders of a tribal group or groups were high chiefs (ariki) and chiefs (rangatira). The oral tradition points to the old world as a chiefly society in, for instance, genealogies of senior lines, metaphors for status in sayings and songs, and narratives that centre on the achievements of noble heroes, whose names star in the telling and retelling, while those of others go unremarked. In the social domain, knowledgeable elders (kaumātua) and teachers (pūkōrero) or experts (tohunga) also held places of distinction. In narratives, 19

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for example, they are called on by chiefs for advice or for skills such as tattooing or the adzing of a canoe. Priests (tohunga) were also from the upper echelons of the kin group; they were either of high-born families or held in esteem because of their knowledge of ritual and esoteria. The significance of their roles is evident in narrative histories in which they (sometimes named) are summoned for ritual observances and practices, such as predictions prior to and during battles and, especially, for the recitation of karakia, prayers and different kinds of incantations.31 The abundant manuscript recordings of those testify to a priest’s skill at memorising; and the many kinds – for all manner of occasions, from the ritual (for giving birth or burial) to the personal (such as a plea for a sturdy house or the sun to shine) – and range of writers who recorded them in the nineteenth century indicate that religious thinking, involving constant communication with deities and spirit kin, was integral to the everyday life of people in the old world. At the opposite level in the hierarchy were commoners or ordinary people (tāngata ware): the lowborn, servants, slaves and workers (tūtūā, pononga, taurekareka, tāngata). Some were so placed by descent, others were captured during battles, taken from their people and put to work by their captors, losing touch with the vital genealogical connection to family and land; these kinds of events are logged, occasionally with personal names, in histories, as is the release of the fortunate back to their people. The traditions also tell that it was possible for a captive or slave to gain freedom and approval by excelling in some way or through the benevolence of another. Life in Villages and on the Land The Māori ancestors lived in unfortified villages (kāinga) or forts (pā), in family (husband with one or more wives and children) or extended family groups; they lived together, not alone. A problem, or fear, at the core of a number of songs and stories is that of separation, whether from an individual, family, kin or land. In certain oral narratives, when the scene is set of one person, or just a few, living alone, it anticipates trouble. This is not only because they were vulnerable to attack but also because social isolation, or being ostracised by family or tribe, was a great misfortune. Keeping company, and known company, were lessons learnt from the oral tradition. There are many songs in which the composer grieves over the absence of or distance from kin and land. There are narratives in which 20

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strangers with malign (or even good) intent steal into a group, are not recognised as outsiders and succeed in their strategy; or which describe the misfortune of warriors who mistake their comrades for an enemy and attack their own. The importance – and the endurance – of the village home to the people is also a theme of the narratives. A character starts out living in the village, in the protection of home, leaves and experiences the event which is at the core of the story, then, if all goes well, returns to the village and life carries on. This kind of ending signifies a safe return but also an establishment on the land that is evidence of the right to occupy it for descendants who continue to hear the story. If a sense of community and stability in the old world can be found in some accounts in the traditions, there are yet others that feature the exploits and achievements of individuals: the solitary in quest of a goal or wanderers and exiles whose journeys may lead them to a new life with others or to occupy new territories. In daily life, small family or tribal groups worked together. When greater numbers were needed for specific tasks, messengers were sent to ask relations or allies for help. As narratives tell, such tasks could include the preparation of foods for a feast for visitors, or a call on kin to defend their territory against invaders or to avenge an insult. They also travelled across their territories together: to forts when expecting attack, inland to camps for tree-felling or planting crops or seasonal food-gathering, or to the coast for fishing; these are the scenes of many episodes of tribal histories. Settlements and work sites (fishing-grounds, gardens, stands of trees with berries or for birding, rat paths and so on) were named, bringing a familiar, personal, aspect to the domestic and cultivated landscape. The names also provided a brief and easy way for an oral composer of song or history to call a place to mind for the audience. And, when cited in tribal oral tradition, names anchored in a particular place where important events had occurred confirmed occupation of the land and the right of the composer to recite the names in story, history or song. Buildings and Possessions Buildings and structures in the settlements and on the land can also be visualised from the oral record and they are often named: chiefs’ houses, sleeping-houses, storehouses, gateways and fortifications. Smaller 21

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possessions that the ancestors owned and used – especially prized and ornamented ones – can be pictured from songs, narratives and sayings; they may be described if of great beauty and are very often named. These might be canoes, adzes, fish-hooks, cloaks, weapons, ear and neck pendants. The naming of possessions (as of land), and particularly those inherited, was also evidence of ownership, rights and prestige, and again gave a sense of an item as part of the family, tribe and land – part of the all-inclusive lineage. Such treasures could have a functional and ceremonial value. There are moving episodes of great beauty in historical narratives in which a fine inherited cloak or precious greenstone ornament is offered in return for an act of kindness or to cement peace or allegiance – fulfilling a cultural ideal of reciprocity, of a striving for balance in the transaction of human affairs, which is also apparent thematically, and even stylistically, in the oral texts. Occupations If the oral traditions are read to investigate what Māori did to provide shelter and sustenance, then they are found at work building forts and houses, making hooks and fishing nets, felling trees and adzing them out for canoes, clearing the forest for cultivations, planting kūmara (the staple sweet potato), gathering and pounding the other staple of aruhe or fernroot, fishing and eeling, snaring birds and rats, preparing flax for garments and foods for cooking. And collecting water in gourds from springs – where sweethearts meet in love stories. For some of those tasks they had to journey across the land, following named pathways or memorised features on the landscape: along a valley, up a hill, past a stand of trees, by way of a river or lake. The traditions suggest that people roamed a lot over their own lands – and into others’ too. There are accounts of journeys for a variety of reasons: in search of a lover or new territory or food or for war. And these may describe the path followed by the hero, heroine or party, who, as they went, added new names, marking, for instance, where they hung up a cloak, sat and rested, ate their food, scolded their servant or lost their dog. Evidence of how the ancestors preserved and transmitted their traditional knowledge is also indicated in the old texts, and in fact the oral tradition was source of almost all that Māori knew, akin to a library. There are references to special places or named houses (whare wānanga) in the tribal territory where the most important knowledge was communicated between individuals or to chosen pupils; and there are references to the 22

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rituals used in such teaching. Skilled tohunga or experts in specific arts take roles at critical points in narrative histories, and songs allude to famous teachers and transmitted lore. All such references assert the survival of the tribal group’s inherited wisdom. Entertainment The traditional texts also portray the Māori ancestors enjoying, with great vivacity, a variety of entertainment. Songs are an evident example, given the thousands recorded in manuscripts. The scope of their subjects is large, but among them are many intended to delight: mocking and witty songs, songs sung to mimic and parody or in pleasure at a large catch of fish, songs performed while presenting guests with food at a celebratory feast or on a return home from a journey. In addition, there are central or archetypical scenes in narratives, such as challenges between chiefs as to their relative prowess or between suitors for the highborn daughter of a chief, which lead to contests in dance, darts, spear-throwing, wrestling or kite-flying. Fighting and War A very frequent contest in the oral record is of war. Fighting preoccupied Māori in the old world, whether because of antagonisms between individuals (lovers, siblings, relations, in-laws), skirmishes between small groups or full-scale battles between large groups of associated kin. Songs express grief at losses in battle or call for action against a wrong, sayings record the events or heroes or places of battle, and a preponderance of stirring narratives feature tribal wars. When reading the oral tradition to find the reasons for fighting and war, there are three that stand out. Firstly, individuals fought, as do all humans and families, over matters of love, hate, jealousy and misdeeds. Secondly, tribal territories had to be constantly defended against those who disputed boundaries or tried to seize others’ lands or claimed portions they regarded as rightfully theirs. And thirdly, there were transgressions and insults that had to be answered: the killing of a chief or wife or child, raiding of a food store, cursing of someone or kidnapping of a woman. Well-honed memories did not forget these incidents. To judge by the oral histories, reply (utu) to such offences fuelled many wars as protagonists sought to redress the balance, regain their mana or pride and standing, and have the relief of restoring the equilibrium by requital (ea). 23

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The oral chronicles of war were important to tribes. They told how their territories had been acquired or lost or expanded. They charted the numbers and occasionally names of chiefly victims or victors, the roles of chiefs and warriors, and the fluctuations in the numbers and fate of tribal groups – some lost to slavery, some decimated, some fleeing to new territory, some combining with others and taking a new name – demonstrating that social life in the old world was often subject to change. These narratives also had the effect of boosting and upholding the prestige, the mana of the tribe. They lauded those whose heroism, skills and strategies won the battles; they were a reminder of their triumphs as a people and brought satisfaction in retelling the failures of their enemies. And if their defeats had to be recorded in them too, it was only to log what replies were to be made or how these had been successful. It is not surprising, therefore, that some of the longest narratives and a great number of the songs in the oral tradition are about fighting and warfare. The oral texts also relate how wars were waged: how supporters were called upon to assist in a reprisal or seizure of land, the preparations (of ritual or food) by the war-party for the journey, the route of the journey, the plans on arrival at the place for attack, the way divisions were laid out, how the battle progressed, what was said or chanted or sung, what the outcome was, what spoils there were (and if land, how it was apportioned), and sometimes too what happened on the return home: the rituals, war-dances and speeches. The strong passions involved are also manifest in descriptions of fierce retribution taken, such as the cutting off of body parts or of heads to display, and the cooking and eating of the enemy. Equally, there are scenes of the grace and ritual of negotiating and making peace, which may include opposing chiefs’ words and songs on the occasion. Personal Qualities, Feelings, Humour, Morality Less tangible aspects of life, such as feelings, morals, and acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, may also be read or surmised from the oral tradition, giving an intimate sense of the people and understanding of or sympathy for actions taken by individuals. Songs, sayings and narratives extol the virtues – dignity, generosity, kindness, industry – of men and women, chiefs and commoners, or their accomplishments as orator or singer, wife or husband, host and provider of food, leader or warrior. Witticisms in sayings and songs, wryness in stories, comic situations (often 24

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to do with the sexual and scatological), and playful imagery all capture the Māori ancestors’ robust and lively sense of humour. Songs particularly give voice to how people felt and acted out of emotion or obligation, making love, hate, vengeance, anger and sorrow prevalent subject matter. And the tragedies of life in the old world are conveyed in narratives about, for instance, suicide from grief or shame or the loss of a husband in battle. Thinking and Beliefs Ordinary Māori (tāngata) shared their genealogy, physical world and life with the supernatural: gods (atua) and creatures such as taniwha, ngārara, tupua and patupaiarehe (fabulous creatures, reptiles, demons and fairy-like people), who behaved in some ways similarly to and in some ways differently from them. They were regarded with awe and sometimes fear, but all the same Māori considered them as kin: genealogies show descent from atua and patupaiarehe, for instance. They could intervene in individuals’ lives for good or evil. This is known from narratives and songs that tell of anxieties about and encounters with these beings from the ancestral realm, and which offer strategies and techniques for dealing with them, such as snaring a taniwha or sending off patupaiarehe with smoke from a cooking fire or using incantations to disarm them. Ritual observances and prayers were central to life in the old world, and accordingly these thread through all the genres of the oral tradition. There were procedures and ceremonies, songs, chants and recitations for many tasks and events; these may be referred to or spelled out in narratives or explanatory accounts. The extraordinary range of prayers and incantations recorded in manuscripts, which were used for the great and small events of life (from success in battle to a painful tooth), illustrate people’s belief in a spiritual world and the thinking that guided them.

The Oral Society Today, life in te ao tawhito can be read about in written or printed records of the oral tradition. In their time, the Māori ancestors knew about their history, past experience and knowledge from ngā kōrero tuku iho a ngā tūpuna, from compositions committed to memory and passed on verbally 25

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within their families. Edward Tregear, from his nineteenth- and early twentieth-century studies of the language and custom, captured something of the range of knowledge of ‘the Maori of old’ when he wrote: ‘His mind was stored with religious laws, with ancient hymns and spells, with histories of his ancestors in the remote past, and knowledge of his tribe in the active present to the remotest cousin on whom he could call in time of war. He knew by heart every boundary of his land, by name every headland of the coast and bend of the river . . .’32 During their early occupation of Aotearoa, Māori, like their Polynesian ancestors, had no knowledge of writing and print. They relied on their minds and memories for composing and preserving what they wanted to communicate and remember. They perceived their compositions through the voice and the ear – unlike writing, which relies primarily on the eye – and made them public by performance before an audience (not by circulation of words on paper). The oral composers had to create or adapt their compositions in their minds and then recall them to sing or tell or recite. In turn others had to remember what they heard if they were to pass on the information or sing the song again or alter it for their own needs. All knowledge, any necessary information for contemporary life or posterity, such as histories, genealogies, sayings, stories, songs and prayers (and presumably also instruction in ritual practices, crafts, birding or gardening), was stored in the mind and conveyed by voice and by those means preserved. There were, however, some prompts for the memory. For  example, a carving of an ancestor could help recall an episode of history or a pattern in weaving could embody a saying; treasured possessions can have their own histories – a finely worked inherited fish-hook, lost and found, features in and so secures the memory of one oral narrative; moko or tattooing, it is said, could be suggestive of personal information. The well-known tribal landscape also worked rather like a verbal map that served the collective memory, because it was extensively named: from features as grand as mountains, lakes and rivers, to gardens, rocks, trees and paths. The names could be recited as a way of giving directions or recognising a route across the land; at every step there was some incident of history or an ancestor or some sacred spot that might be recalled through a named feature of the geography.33 Individuals too could carry reminders of the past in their names, which might have been given for an ancestor or as the result of an incident at 26

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their birth or during the life of their elders: an ancient slight encapsulated in a personal name, for instance, necessitated or recalled a reply to it.34 By extension the exploits that gave rise to those names might be commemorated in narratives that were remembered when the individual was seen. Such tangible reminders as these are examples of a range of mnemonic aids that were essential to the oral composers. In ancient Māori society, verbal composition depended above all on the voice and memory for its creation, transmission and preservation. Orality in Action In the village community of the old world there was a lot of lively talk, in casual and formal settings. The written oral tradition itself tells this in the innumerable songs and chants that would have been sung, and in the genealogies, histories and stories that were created for telling and reciting. And  early nineteenth-century eye-witness accounts confirm it. Take Catherin Servant writing about his stay in New Zealand from 1838 to 1842: ‘Conversation plays an important part in the New Zealanders’ amusements. They love to talk at length. Everything is subject for long conversations’; and he added that such talk was highly animated with many gestures. Edward Wakefield similarly wrote of his time travelling around New Zealand in the 1840s, that nothing important would go past ‘without plenty of talking’, and he also referred to a speaker’s enlivening tone, accent, gestures and features.35 And, in one of Taylor’s notebooks dated 1857, there is the Whanganui leader, Hoani Wiremu Hīpango of Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi’s preface to a song: ‘He waiata mō ngā kōrero pai, he taonga hoki ki ahau te kōrero’ (A song about good talk, for talk is precious to me).36 When for ceremonial or social reasons songs or prayers were sung and chanted, stories told, traditions taught or speeches made that drew on the ancestral knowledge, there was the same liveliness – because these were performances. For instance, nineteenth-century observers remarked on the frequent and impressive oratory. They commented on the dramatic stance and flourishes of the speakers, on the wit, wisdom and acuity of their words, and on the silence and rapt attention of their audiences.37 Of the telling of histories and stories, there are again reports of dramatic renderings and the powerful effects on the audience.38 There are also descriptions of the vigour, loudness and length of singing. Wakefield wrote of fishing crews ‘sing[ing] as they paddled’ for two or three hours and ‘a triumphant chorus’ from each 27

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as they landed; and of being entertained with dance and song, with ‘some spirited hakas and waiatas for an hour’.39 Reflecting back to that time, it is hard to imagine how powerful, impressive – and beautiful – the sound and effect of those voices and words must have been in the comparative silence of that world, when other sounds in the landscape were few – the wind, water, trees, and birds in song and flight. The settings for performing the oral genres were various. At the centre of the tribal village was an open space, a meeting-ground, where people gathered for entertainment, ceremonies, or public discussion and speeches. Inside chiefs’ houses or family dwellings, stories were told at night. In or near the village there were houses (or specified locations) set aside as whare wānanga, where the teaching of history, rituals and genealogies took place. But in many other settings too there were recitations or songs. From the kinds of oral genres and their content, it seems that some compositions were used rather casually, that some songs sung or stories told were repeated because they were admired or enjoyed while others were ephemeral. Yet other matter was remembered and passed on for its enduring practical, emotional or spiritual value: genealogies, tribal histories and ritual texts, for example, were composed, recited or sung – or revised anew for a different occasion or quoted from to ornament a speech. Social, educational, political and ritual settings in which the oral compositions were created, performed and disseminated might be envisaged by examples such as these. • A storyteller captivated an audience around the fire in a chief ’s house at night with his own rendition of an ancestor’s encounter with a fearsome supernatural creature or of how their warrior chief won the day in fighting against a neighbouring tribe. A member of a group at work in the garden helped the task along by telling age-old, fabulous stories about godlike heroes. • A man sang a poignant but witty song about the loss of his crops. A woman accused of a misdemeanour went away on her own, composed a song, came into the village and sang out her defiant rebuttal; another woman remembered striking phrases in it and, later, in a similar situation, put them to good use in her own version. • A man in a canoe expressed his hopes for an abundant catch in prayer before he let down his net at sea, and when he paddled in 28

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•

•

•

•

with it, people sang as they drew it ashore and threaded the fish on lines. A sentinel pacing the perimeter of a fort intoned a chant to keep himself awake and advise his people that he was on guard. An expert in esoteric lore trained his chosen pupils, away from people and common ground, in recitation of cosmogonic genealogies and ritual chants. An elder tutored the young in their family lines, narrative histories and famous forebears. A parent watching children at play chided one for errant behaviour using a proverbial saying. A grandfather sang a song to his granddaughter, which acquainted her and others listening with their family lineage and history. A chief made a speech, liberally spiced with convincing quotation from the ancestors’ words, to persuade a related tribe to go to war. Boundaries of land that victors in war had acquired were recited as it was allocated to kin. At the conclusion of fighting, opposing war leaders sang songs to honour and cement their peace. A priest intoned prayers on the return of a war-party, who in turn chanted prayers and performed songs with dances before entering the village. Prayers and genealogies were recited to ease the labour of a noble woman giving birth; songs were sung to assuage the pain of tattooing.

In such ways in the past the Māori oral texts that are preserved in manuscripts came to life, were composed, heard, retained, revised, performed again and kept for the future – through the mind, the voice, the ear and memory. It is valuable for meaning and art to remember this when reading the oral compositions. And to think of the physical effort required for recall and performance: the mental concentration, control of the breath, strain on the voice of long recitations and, in some cases, exertion of action and dance. It is an advantage to understanding and appreciating the oral traditions to take them off the page, by reading them aloud or listening to them sung or recited or seeing them performed. The composition, style and meaning of them are informed by their origin in an oral society and their potency in this context.

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The Oral Tradition To talk of Māori oral tradition is in one sense to speak of the sum of knowledge that was passed on first orally and then by writing in Aotearoa. But in effect this comprises a series of tribal traditions composed by ancestors for descendants. In this respect the oral tradition is personal and consequently can convey strong feelings. It is autobiographical, for in intention, point of view and authority it is a tribe’s view of itself, and biographical, which is also an aspect of tribes’ depictions of each other. The oral traditions are focussed around key ancestors, their descendants and territory, the lineage of the tribe and the land. The words handed down came first with the people on the canoes of migration, were established with them on the land, and grew and developed as they did. Hetaraka Tautahi of Ngā Rauru in Taranaki, said to have been ‘one of the most learned, if not the most learned, tohunga in the traditions of his people of Aotea’,40 in a recitation to the elders of his tribe in the late 1890s, told of his ancestor, Turi, coming from Hawaiki on the Aotea canoe. Of its arrival he said: Ko te ūnga mai tēnei o Aotea waka, me hōna utanga katoa: he atua, he tangata, he taonga, he kai, he kōrero me ‘tahi atu mea. Now the Aotea canoe landed here, with all its cargo: gods, people, possessions, foods, oral traditions and other things.

Tautahi spoke of the cargo of kōrero, as if the words were as concrete as a book: in the oral society they were regarded as tangible and weighty. Then, after listing the names that Turi bestowed on the land to confirm his claim to it, Tautahi explained: Heoi ka tūturu te noho o Turi ki Pātea. Ka hangā tōna whare ko Matangirei. Ka tū tōna whare, kātahi ka whakapūmautia hana kōrero ki konei, te mouri o ngā atua, te mouri o te tangata, te mouri o Rongo, te mouri o Tāne, te mouri o Tangaroa, ko te mouri o Papatūānuku. Kātahi ka āta whakaawhiawhitia ki roto ki Matangirei ana karakia i muri ake nei.41 And so Turi’s occupancy at Pātea was established. He built his house, Matangirei. When his house stood, then his oral traditions were made

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kŌrero tuku iho permanent here, [with] the life force of the gods, the life force of humankind, the life force of Rongo, the life force of Tāne, the life force of Tangaroa, the life force of Papatūānuku. Then all around inside Matangirei he carefully encircled with his prayers that follow here.

In this short passage, Tautahi asserts the standing of his tribe on the land. In the preceding section, Turi had already established his claim by naming the land. Now as the narrative proceeds, he consolidates his occupation at Pātea. He builds a whare wānanga, a house for his traditions. His ancestors and their words are there now too; and in the house and over the landscape that surrounds it, these will be remembered and passed on. But more, the list of mouri (or mauri) that follows – a considered repetition of the word – confirms that Turi has instilled the vitality, the living spirit or essence of the gods and humans in the house, while also naming the requisite gods for his people’s physical survival: Rongo of cultivation, Tāne of the forest, Tangaroa of the sea and Papatūānuku the earth-mother. Then he creates a protective embrace of prayers around the walls of Matangirei, the name of which occurs twice in this short piece, for it is important and to be remembered – as it is also in song.42 The founding ancestor, the named land and house, the inherited traditions, and the homage to the gods and ritual firmly connect the words to his people. It is a powerful statement of belonging, and affecting because of that. However, the kinds of activities described in Tautahi’s Ngā Rauru account, and even the structure and phrasing of them, are typical of other tribal traditions and so in a broad sense it is Māori too. But even if the form and content of different traditions overlap to a large degree, what is important in them is the kin group’s record of itself. As Rawiri Te Maire Tau noted in comparing Ngāi Tahu and Ngāti Kahungunu traditions about the same historical event: ‘The differences are a matter of specificity, where each tribe marshals its memory banks around the actions of its own kin group . . . the oral traditions are one-sided . . . [they] recall the actions of one’s own community, not the roles and actions of other groups.’43 And this is because, as Judith Binney perceptively wrote, Māori history, structured as it is around the ancestors and kin, ‘is concerned with the holding and the transference of mana by successive generations’,44 with authority, standing and pride. While the tribal traditions are focussed around the group and are their own recollections, they are composed and handed on by individuals as 31

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they have learnt them from their elders, but in their, the composers’, own versions. This explains a very notable feature of Māori (and other) oral traditions: the different renderings of any one composition, whether a genealogy, history, saying or song. Māori oral tradition was not handed down in fixed texts that were repeated word for word (although it is recorded that some ritual texts were required to be recited exactly and without error); it was rather as Viv Edwards and Thomas Sienkewicz put it of an oral context, ‘memorization usually involves replication of the traditions, not of the specific words’.45 This is very clear in reading any of the genres, for instance, genealogies of chiefly lines within a tribe or accounts of pan-tribal ancestors such as the fisher-creator of the land of Aotearoa, Māui. One Ngāti Porou writer emphasised this when he completed his 1895 version of a widely told account of how Māui snared the sun. But first he enjoined his readers – perhaps thinking of sceptical Pākehā of the day or questioning generations to come – not to mock this fabulous story for it had the authority of tradition, of the ancestors: Ko te mutunga tēnei o te mahi a Māui ki te rā. Ka tūturu hoki te haere a te rā. Kāti, kauaka koe, e te tangata, hei kata ki ēnei kōrero, he kōrero tuku iho nō ngā tīpuna o tēnei iwi, o te Māori. E kōrerotia ana ēnei kōrero e ngā iwi katoa o tēnei motu, ahakoa rerekē tā tērā iwi tā tērā iwi, i mea kotahi anō te kanoi o ngā kōrero.46 This ends what Māui did to the sun, which fixed the passage of the sun. But now, people, don’t you laugh at these accounts, for they are traditions told [and] handed down from the ancestors of this people, of the Māori. These accounts [about Māui] are told by all the tribes of this land, and although those of this tribe or that tribe may differ, the main thread of the accounts is one and the same.

Even if the oral texts are not about pan-tribal heroes and are specific to a very small kin group, for instance, the same applies. Themes (antagonism between brothers-in-law, sons in search of fathers, marriages of chiefs) or archetypes (noble heroes, valiant warriors, highborn marriageable women) or topics (love, vengeance, jealousy) might be the same or similar, but names and events are particular. In respect of the same event, no one strove for an exact rendition. Nineteenth-century Māori writers frequently made the point when giving their own version of a tradition that other 32

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tribes or individuals might tell it differently.47 The same writer expressed the individuality in this way: He nui ngā tohunga Māori, arā, ngā pūkōrero, o ngā iwi katoa o Aotearoa me Te Waipounamu. Ki tētahi pūkōrero rerekē tana whakahaere, e haere tonu ana i runga i ngā kōrero a ōna tīpuna tuku iho, tuku iho, tae noa ki ōna mātua; e pēnā katoa ana te whakahaere o ngā kaikōrero i ēnei kōrero. Me ahau anō hoki, me te kaituhi o tēnei pukapuka, e kōrero ana ahau i ngā kōrero a ōku tīpuna tuku iho, tuku iho, tae noa mai ki ōku mātua. Koia tēnei kua oti nei [te] tuhituhi ki roto i tēnei pukapuka.48 There are many Māori experts, that is, scholars, among all the tribes in Aotearoa [the North Island] and Te Waipounamu [the South Island]. One scholar will follow a different arrangement, going along according to the traditions his ancestors handed down, handed down [over time and] on to his elders; and the reciters of these traditions all proceed in that way. And I too, the writer of this book, I am telling the traditions that my ancestors handed down, handed down [over time and] right on to my elders. This is what has been written in this book.

Another factor that individualises the traditions is the language, in its regional variation. Differences – in vocabulary, phraseology and pronunciation – are now not so great as to create many difficulties of understanding, although they may have been greater in the nineteenth century.49 One consideration in the oral society, however, was the sound of voices. That this was of pragmatic value in the old world is suggested by this quotation from an 1857 manuscript of tribal journeys and battles involving the famed Ngāti Toa warrior, Te Rauparaha, which is attributed to Te Pamariki Raumoa of Ngāti Mutunga in the Chatham Islands. At one point local people out in canoes on the sea observed the arrival of an unknown fleet: Kātahi ka pā te karanga o ngā tāngata o runga o ngā waka, ‘Nō whea tēnei ope?’ Ka whakahokia mai, ‘Ko au, ko Te Āti Awa.’ Ā, ka mōhiotia mai hoki ki ngā reo.50 Then the call of the people on board the canoes went out, ‘Where is this party from?’ The reply came back, ‘It is I, it is Te Āti Awa.’ And so they were recognised by their voices.

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Knowing the language of a different people served to distinguish strangers and allies in battle. Dialect was also a matter of pride and individuality, and it was a consideration for nineteenth-century Māori writers: in her reproduction and translation of some of his writing, Ailsa Smith noted Te Kāhui Kararehe’s desire to capture his distinct Taranaki dialect in his spelling.51 While singular aspects of tribal traditions are important to kin, there is much that is common to them all. There are similarities in content. For example, in accounts about gods and cultural heroes, in subject matter and preoccupations, and in motifs, themes and storylines. This is not surprising given a shared Polynesian heritage and way of life in Aotearoa. The genres and compositional style are also shared across tribes, giving reason to talk about a Māori oral tradition or now an oral literature. Oral and Literary Texts When first reading the traditions that Māori wrote down in the nineteenth century, it is immediately obvious that they are different in content and form from literary texts of today. This is a rather different way of telling history, recording knowledge, composing stories and expressing feelings; and it is the oldest way, for oral traditions have existed for much longer than there has been writing.52 Three things in particular distinguish Māori oral compositions. First are the predominant genres: genealogies, sayings, narratives and songs.53 These are also found in literature but they are not the primary genres in a literary world for capturing knowledge, history or experience, which are prose accounts, plays, poetry, novels, histories or biographies. Second is that there is no exact parallel in Māori oral tradition for the classification of fiction or non-fiction, although there is something that approaches it. For instance, some narratives are considered as histories, as accounts of the past (kōrero o mua) that record what were regarded as actual experience even if alongside the fantastic; and others are thought of as entertaining stories or tales (pakiwaitara, kōrero tara). There is also debate about the truth or accuracy of certain accounts.54 The oral texts, however, may well combine fiction and non-fiction, as these are understood in literature, by bringing the imaginative and spiritual into the explanatory or documentary. This is a mark of the thinking and reasoning of Māori in the old world, which is key to understanding and appreciating their oral compositions.55 34

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The third distinctive feature of the compositions is that they are notably poetic. In the early manuscript corpus there is comparatively little plainly descriptive or analytical prose. What there is often answers enquiries by Pākehā, but even so in many cases it follows the oral style in combining the creative, religious and instructive.56 (This raises the question of how much instruction in and explanation of, for instance, weaving, bird-snaring or food preparation was taught by example on the spot rather than discursively and with the aim of it being retained and passed on.) A shift towards the plainer prose of writing becomes apparent towards the end of the nineteenth century. There was a reason for this. Māori were answering new questions about their traditional knowledge and finding new ways of passing it on; writing for newspapers or interested Pākehā prompted an objective discourse, which inherently reflects the influence that writing has on thinking and the structuring and content of composed texts.57 Māori oral tradition is more rhetorical and literary than investigative and analytical, although it is not without enquiry and reasoning. Biggs captured the essence of the old compositions when he wrote: ‘Maori knowledge . . . was based on faith rather than doubt and it was parochial.’58 For instance, histories and songs recall great achievements in the lives and deeds of tribal ancestors and do not just focus on the honour but also give examples of how descendants should behave and live. And texts blend the fabulous with the actual; the spirit world is immediate and influential. Like poetry, these works aim for the ring or feel of truth and a sharp and compelling effect. The oral compositions were designed to be remembered, to persuade, to provoke, to impress and to teach, and accordingly were composed in attractive, memorable language. Genres The compositions that Māori handed down from generation to generation were named by genre in the language. They can also be recognised by their style, function and certain distinguishing features. I have chosen to focus on the four main genres of the oral tradition: whakapapa, whakataukī, kōrero and waiata, while also making some reference to related genres within them.59 My reason for proposing these as the main genres is that they are what Māori wrote down when recording their oral traditions in the nineteenth century. Focussing on them also reveals how the tradition works and what it comprises, that is, different kinds of 35

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texts that together inform or preserve knowledge or entertain. In grouping them in the following chapters, I have used the terms broadly to encompass a range of compositions of the same or very similar kind. The genre of whakapapa comprises lists of densely informative sequences of names, words or phrases. These create genealogies that record descent and family relationships, or explain phenomena (such as the evolution of life); they also specify the place-names of tribal boundaries or food sources (fishing-grounds, trees, gardens) or name owners and their prized possessions.60 Whakataukī are the many kinds of sayings that include shared proverbial wisdom, personal and tribal epithets, and quotations from or about the ancient and recent past of tribes. They closely parallel the set phrasing or formulaic language that is a distinctive feature of the other genres. Kōrero encompass different kinds of narratives, such as ngā kōrero o mua, pakiwaitara, pūrākau (histories, stories, myths) and prose such as explanatory accounts of custom and practice. And the term waiata, which I use generically, refers to the very many forms of sung and chanted poetry, for example, waiata aroha, pao and karakia (songs of love and feeling, witty songs, prayers). Although there were words in Māori for these genres, there was no overt description or analysis of them, such as the form they take or their stylistic features, and this is commensurate with other oral traditions. But reading from outside the tradition, the traits that distinguish them become apparent and are in fact typical of oral traditions. Language and Style For all the genres, and for Māori oral tradition as a whole, there are four features that at once strike a reader who is accustomed to literary works.61 First, the remarkable brevity of the texts. The  comparatively small vocabulary of the Māori language contributed to this but it did not limit expressiveness. One word can have a number of, and sometimes disparate, meanings; the context determines which is appropriate. This allowed for great play and suggestiveness with words – a requisite talent for the accomplished oral composer. The predominance of the phrase in Māori – ‘the natural grammatical unit of the language . . . [and] the natural pause unit of speech’, as Biggs defined it 62 – also supported brevity. A short piece, or even a long one of short phrases, is easy to recite. None of the oral 36

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compositions is of such length as the extremely long novels or histories of literature, although many are astonishingly long given the need for them to be remembered. And they are structured in memorable portions: sections in genealogies, episodes in narratives, verses in songs and prayers. More strikingly, the ideas, concepts or stories in them are refined down to the necessary words, with limited elaboration. They tend not to be discursive or reflective. But if a text was light on words, it was weighted with what John Miles Foley, in respect to oral epic, has referred to as ‘traditional referentiality’, or a range and depth of meaning acquired from the tradition and its many contexts over time.63 Second, the prevalence of poetry, even in prose. Third, the use of repetitions in composition: in language (words, phrases, sentences), structure and content (beginnings and endings, order of elements, themes and motifs), and in scenes or settings (competitive dances, meetings at springs, encounters in gardens). And fourth, the occurrence of variant tellings of the essentially same history, story, saying, song or prayer revised according to the teller, reciter or singer and the situation, within or across tribes. The language of the oral compositions was necessarily concise for the memory – so a few words worked hard. It had to be striking in performance to attract attention and encourage an audience to listen and remember – this is where poetry did its work. In order to aid recall and performance (and in a conservative society) it had to conform to a pattern and tradition – what the audience expected – and here repetition was valuable; yet it had to be sufficiently creative, relevant and interesting to gain and keep the audience’s attention and make it worth repeating and passing on (in another version pertinent to its time and situation) – here the composer’s finesse was tested. Those four features, and in effect many of the other stylistic traits I will comment on throughout, are indicative of a compositional style that was designed for the memory rather than writing. And this also tells something else about the essence of the tradition, of this way of knowing, of passing on knowledge from generation to generation. Comparatively, the words of an Indian scholar seem fitting here. Talking about how, during his childhood and youth, he was taught to commit thousands of lines to memory, he explained it as ‘a way of sharpening the mind – and of incorporating into your being the wisdom that had sustained your fathers and grandfathers, and generations before’.64 Such sharpness of mind was what 37

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nineteenth-century observers admired in Māori oratory; and the sense of a deep-seated reverence for the ancestors’ teachings points to the visceral aspect of the oral tradition and its power in performance, which were born of memorising and a profound respect for words.65 To ask in this day how it was possible to preserve by memory all the oral genres, all the sayings, stories, histories, songs, genealogies and lists, the whole record of a kin group’s experiences and observations about themselves and their world, is to recognise, knowing the great amount that people in oral societies recalled, how little the full potential of memory is now exploited. But the Māori ancestors were also helped by the way in which the oral compositions were created, performed and passed on. The acts of mental composition, committing to memory and face-to-face performance contribute to a notable form and style in the oral texts, which I will comment on here and return to and expand on by example in the chapters that follow.66 The language of Māori oral tradition is stylised; and it is very often poetic, employing the devices of rhythm, balance, metaphor and figurative language. Nineteenth-century Pākehā who were fluent in the Māori language greatly admired the poetry, some comparing the form and content of the traditions with the classical literatures of Europe.67 Another feature of the tradition – and also of poetry – is language that is always concise, never wordy. The missionary William Colenso’s interest in the language led him to write (if redundantly) in 1869: ‘Its brevity is often quite laconic; and while exceedingly terse, contains great beauty and power of expression.’68 Brevity does not imply simplicity in the oral texts. On the contrary, the sphere of reference can be large: one word rich in its range of associations, one name encapsulating a host of relationships, a short saying referring to the gods and ancient wisdom. In this way the language is highly allusive. For Māori those aspects of style made it easier to compose, recall and recite texts, easier for an audience to follow and comprehend them, and more likely that they would last by being passed on through the generations. But it is reasonable to ask how such terse, poetic, allusive language was understood; certainly understanding it outside the context and time of the oral society or knowledge of a tribal tradition can be difficult. Two things helped comprehension: first, the relatively small worlds of tribal groups, and second, the tradition itself, which repeated what had been passed down but in a way that made it significant to the present. 38

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As already noted, the tone and thrust of the oral traditions is rhetorical; they were designed to inform but also to impress or persuade, to engage the heart and mind – to which poetry and allusiveness contribute. For this reason, too, Māori oral texts are, as Walter Ong put it of others, ‘empathetic and participatory’; little about them is dispassionate and they are concerned to draw in others. In this respect also, they are very often ‘agonistically toned’; they deal with contests, struggles, tensions, fighting.69 This leads to another key aspect of Māori oral tradition, not to be forgotten when studying it as a literature, and that is the matter of performance, including the audience and occasion. Compositions were for public performance (not for individual, silent, lone readers) within the community. They speak to the audience, demand their attention, call for their sympathy, challenge, provoke or even insult: this is not the distanced composition of writing or of reading a book. Immediate, face-to-face communication invited response from those who listened. In the old world, the way of life was communal; Māori kin lived and worked together, and the ancestors and their wisdom were felt as ever relevant to their contemporary lives. The oral tradition in all its breadth is concerned with the experiences of the tribal group: their own ancestors, genealogies, landscape, history and shared lives.70 Those performing and those listening had the same sphere of reference, so allusions were more readily understood than if they had been part of a wide world of other peoples.71 A Native American woman once said of her oral text: ‘The song is very short because we understand so much.’72 As Ruth Finnegan has stressed, performance (‘the first and most basic characteristic of oral literature’) was essential because without it there was no preserving the text, it could have no ‘continued or independent existence at all’.73 Moreover, for Māori, performance was, in a sense, a re-creation, a reliving of tribal history and experience.74 Ancestors were brought to life across generations by, for example, the dramatic use of direct speech in a narrative – the heroic chief speaking – or in song by personal names that explained a relationship or a place-name that revivified the actions of an ancestor there. This studied attention to the past brought a traditional and conservative aspect to the oral compositions; there was not the constant looking for the unusual or starkly new that modern writing seeks. That, and a reliance on memory, made another key feature of the oral compositions acceptable: the large degree of repetition, of words, phrases and structure. 39

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Very prominent among the range of repetitions in Māori oral tradition is the formulaic language, the use of patterned or more or less set phrases or sentences.75 These are numerous (and different kinds will be noted in discussion of the genres), including conventional ways of starting and ending songs and narratives, typical expressions for certain subjects, set phrases to denote direct speech.76 They were useful for brevity, and the rhythmic recurrence of familiar phrasing assisted composing, memorising and recitation; and even, it is proposed, influenced thought itself.77 The formulaic also goes beyond the language. There are key subjects, regular usage in the structure of narrative and song, a certain order in the telling of stories of a similar kind, specific ways in which genealogies are chanted, and recurrent scenes or settings.78 Listeners in the oral tradition were not displeased by these various kinds of repetitions, as readers of literature would be; once accustomed to them, even when reading, these are pleasureable – and they are meaningful. Repetition for Māori in the old world must have meant enjoying the admired language of the ancestors and the satisfying depth of allusion to the honoured past. And listeners would have been alert to where the formulaic was typical and where pointedly adapted. For, as much as repetitions are notable, it is also remarkable how small, or even major, adjustments are made to the formulaic for effect: the inventive use of familiar phrases by placing them in a different context, changing a word to suit a different situation, using another name, showing up a subtle connection through genealogy. As Edwards and Sienkewicz observed: ‘Because oral transmission is essentially creative transmission, the end result bears the mark of contributions from many generations.’79 Ingenious reinterpretation and adaptation of the formulaic, and the content, were acceptable, and explain another characteristic of the oral texts – their variability. When Māori writers in the nineteenth century alerted their readers to different versions of traditions, they confirmed that although they were inherited they were also highly situational – and personal. The same subject matter – Tāwhaki’s ascent to heaven or an inter-tribal battle – could be told in a way that suited the composer-narrator’s purpose and kind of audience. The value of this licence to recompose is explained by Binney, who remarked of Māori oral narratives that they convey ‘an inevitable subjectivity, as well as a new objectivity, which enables people to see the past, and the present, afresh . . . The cycle of traditions about the people, land 40

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and events . . . is dynamic, not static.’80 The words of the ancestors are duly recalled but they also take on other meanings in different contexts and so are memorable and relevant – in another, but not entirely new, form. Aspects of the topic or formulaic structure or language of an oral text could be subject to all kinds of changes for another telling, recitation or singing. Certain lines of a song might be reused, the place or personal names in a saying changed to relate to another tribe’s equivalent situation, stories about cultural heroes told by tribes or individuals in different versions. If the texts were conservative they were also sufficiently reworked to attract the audience and add new insights; this marked the ability of the composer to be at once sensitive to the audience’s respect for the traditional composition but also inventive and contemporary in their use of the inherited language and content. The importance of such connectedness, of bringing together past and present, is evident in both compositional style and content in all the genres.

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2. Genealogies and Lists Whakapapa

In 1849, in response to a request from John White, Āperahama Taonui of the Te Popoto tribal group of Ngāpuhi wrote about the earliest ancestors in his area. He was a man of many talents: a prophet, a leader in political matters and learned. He was thoughtful about the new task of writing, expressing to White some doubts and worries about this way of recording, which were to be echoed by other Māori. For instance, he was unwilling to write down certain texts and remarked on the difficulty of recording all there was to be known from the traditions. Writing must have seemed laboured after the quick retrieval from the mind in performance. All the same he continued corresponding with White about traditions (and writing on many topics) over the years. He is reported to have told Judge Smith at Mangungu around 1855 that ‘he was writing a History of the Wars of his People – as well as all he knew himself or could learn from others of his tribe about the History and Mythology of the Maori’; it was clearly a matter of great interest to him.1 At the start of his notebook Taonui wrote: ‘Hānueri 3 Wenerei 1849. He pukapuka whakapapa mō ngā tūpuna Māori’ (January 3, Wednesday, 1849. A book of genealogy concerning the Māori ancestors). The date, its form and transliterated English words, and the title with ‘pukapuka’ for ‘book’ (also the word for the rangiora shrub, the flat leaves of which were at times used for writing), were modern usages from literate Pākehā. But the rest of his text (apart from the addition of dates as he began writing each day) followed the form and style that had come down to Taonui from elders 42

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in the oral society. He composed as if for his people, who already ‘understood so much’. Taonui began with a very short description of the ancestor Kupe’s arrival from Hawaiki in Hokianga, his search there for the original inhabitant, Tuputupuwhenua, and his return (‘hokinga’, which gave rise to the name of Hokianga) to his homeland. He then wrote briefly about Tuputupuwhenua before giving this short, select line of Kupe’s descendants down to Nukutawhiti. Ka whānau tā Kupe, ko Matiu, tā Matiu ko Mākaro, tā Mākaro ko Maea, tā Maea ko Māhu, tā Māhu ko Nukutawhiti.2 Of Kupe was born Matiu, of Matiu there was Mākaro, of Mākaro there was Maea, of Maea there was Māhu, of Māhu there was Nukutawhiti.

This plainly worded text is an example of the descriptive and explanatory lists in Māori oral tradition, in which names, words or phrases are recited as a ‘whakapapa’, a word that, in one of its senses, means ‘to make layers’. Each layer, of word or phrase, has a relationship to the next and the whole reveals connections that are highly informative. This example is short, but when it was recited in its patterned, repetitive, rhythmic way, it would have been redolent for listeners of the lives and stories of those ancestors: Kupe’s fame as explorer and traveller and incidents involving his daughter and granddaughter, Matiu and Mākaro,3 and the islands called after them in Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington Harbour). Nukutawhiti, who is the subject of Taonui’s next attention, was a great Ngāpuhi ancestor, remembered in songs and histories. Hearing such a genealogy, an audience in the oral society recalled not only the relationship of each ancestor to the other, the reciter and themselves but also the character and accomplishments of those individuals. This line of descent, therefore, tells much more than it would seem at first glance. And it tells what Taonui knew of this genealogy and wanted to convey in his version and use of it; others across the land would tell it, and about Kupe, in other ways.4 Taonui called his account a ‘whakapapa’. It was in one sense a genealogy and in another a history;5 to the informed, the names alone evoked the history for it was embedded in them. Throughout his notebook Taonui wove together lists of names (which at times he extended with epithets 43

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or brief attributes), narrative episodes, ritual, prayers and songs. Here is a sample focussed around another illustrious Ngāpuhi ancestor, Rāhiri: Tā Puhi-moana-ariki, ko Rāhiri, tōna tangata toa tēnei. Ko tana wahine mātāmua ko Āhuaiti. Ka hapū, ka mahue i a Rāhiri. Ka whānau taua tamaiti ko Uenuku tōna ingoa. Ka moe kē a Rāhiri he wahine kē, ko Whakaruru te ingoa. Ka whānau te tamaiti a tēnei wahine, ko Tāwakehaunga – koia Ngāi Tāwake.6 Of Puhi-moana-ariki, there was Rāhiri, he was a warrior [of theirs]. His first wife was Āhuaiti. When pregnant, Rāhiri left her. [Then] that son was born, his name Uenuku. Rāhiri married another, another woman, her name Whakaruru. The son of this woman was born, Tāwakehaunga – and so there is Ngāi Tāwake.

By adding succinct phrases to this chosen genealogical line, Taonui enriched it with the background history. In the phrase ‘tōna tangata toa tēnei’, Rāhiri is recalled as a warrior of the tribe. Taonui used this same phrase for other warriors as he went on with his history; by that refrain he ensured that they, and their prowess, were remembered and that the fighting strength of his people was proclaimed. After naming Rāhiri’s ‘first’ wife, which anticipated (and reminded) that there would be another one, Taonui used a series of short phrases initiated by the verbal particle ‘ka’ (a conventional usage in Māori oral narratives) to recall incidents associated with each of the names – almost a list in itself: Āhuaiti’s pregnancy, Rāhiri’s leaving her, the birth of ‘that son’ (Uenuku is referred to by the word ‘taua’, which denotes someone previously mentioned or known to the audience, because he too became famous), the other wife (‘kē’ repeated here to distinguish her from Āhuaiti) and the birth of their son,7 in whose name there lies the origin and, indirectly, history of a tribal group of Taonui’s time. It was enough to give the bare bones of these circumstances because Taonui’s kin would have known the detail; the outsider, the reader of his manuscript, however, might well find such spareness uninteresting or even confusing. Taonui’s forty-three page composition, with genealogy at its heart, is an example of how lists were used and worked in the tradition, how names were mnemonic and a few words expansively illustrative of history, and how genealogy neatly connected kin to their past and present. It also exemplifies the ways in which different oral genres were built around a genealogy and brought together to tell a history (or particular aspects of it), and how a 44

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composer-narrator selected what to include – what to emphasise, which people and incidents to concentrate on – for any one audience.

Genealogies and Lists in the Oral Tradition and Literature The sheer volume of manuscript genealogies confirms that in the oral society these records of family and tribe were highly valued and significant. These and many other kinds of lists that worked in a similar way make up this very informative genre. Whether about ancestors and their descendants, historical events or the geography and resources of the tribal territory, the list form did a lot of work recording, connecting and explaining. In regard to memorising, it was a very efficient way of summarising information: keeping track of generations in a family, giving structure to a minimal description of the evolution of the universe or cataloguing communal cultivations. Lists neatly described and delivered a great amount that had to be recalled, but there was more to them than convenience: ‘In functionally oral cultures’, Ong wrote, ‘the past is not felt as an itemized terrain, peppered with verifiable and disputed “facts” or bits of information. It is the domain of the ancestors, a resonant source for renewing awareness of present existence.’8 In Māori oral tradition these texts are relational, narrative and allusive; they are always about connections – to people, the land, the past – and not merely enumerative. The lists might seem terse and dull to a reader but when recited they have a pleasing beat, partly produced by the repetition of standard phrasing, which also served the memory. Moreover, they always have a point, or points, to make. Their brevity is deceptive; they demonstrate that one or a few words can convey a lot, as was necessary in the oral society. Taonui, as an oral composer, knew that names alone in any recitation would spark images, ideas or stories in the minds of his listeners (or readers).9 In the ancestral Māori world, someone versed in genealogies and other lists was highly knowledgeable and a source of information; lists were instructive. Citation of a descent line could win an argument or help individuals understand themselves and others – and things – in relation to the world around them. Descriptive enumeration of, say, the forts, settlements and gardens of a tribe defined rights; records tracking the sources of food in the tribal territory helped to sustain future generations. A list could also 45

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explain a brief reference in a text: for example, a descent line could clarify the relationship between individuals named in a song or the cause of a retaliation in an account of war; or a delineation of boundaries could justify the movement and interaction of tribal groups on the land. And a composer was able to make artful use of these details, for instance, by changing the pace and tone of a narrative with the measured recitation of a list. Many manuscripts of genealogies are simply long lines of single names that chart the generations. But others are embellished, as Taonui’s was. This can occur with different kinds of lists. For example, a long form of a person’s name may be given in a genealogy, an epithet added to one in the naming of tribes, a brief comment made about an event at a place named in charting land boundaries. Yet other kinds, although still very concise, may be elaborate, for example, an inventory of resources in the tribal domain that includes the names of cultivations, crops grown, owners and locations. Whether of family or another sort of catalogue, this genre is easily recognisable in Māori oral tradition. Lists may be very long or quite short but each is complete in itself for the composer’s purpose, which may be, for instance, reciting a genealogy from the gods to the ancestors, parents and the self; citing the twelve heavens of the cosmos; or naming the fishing-grounds at one locality. They are always open-ended because they can be composed, recomposed and used in various ways. For instance, different versions can be found of any one descent line from, say, the primal parents, Ranginui and Papatūānuku, to their offspring gods. And sections of lists are put to use in other genres: to preface, conclude or make a point in a narrative or to picture the path of a journey referred to in a song. In this the list form was like the other genres of the tradition, which could be modified to fit a composer’s or speaker’s advantage, wit or intelligent observation. And the greater the variety of ways in which a list was repeated, the more likely it would last. It was essential in an oral tradition to keep repeating what was important, to ensure it survived in the memory and was handed on. As with all the genres of Māori oral tradition, it pays to recall that the genealogies and lists were first composed to be heard. Sounds, pauses, stress and intonation cannot be recreated on paper; their force and effect came from hearing them recited.

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Whakapapa

Genealogies of Family and Tribe The lists that predominate in the manuscripts are genealogies of ancestors, of family and kin; and they are also the most pervasive and influential throughout the oral tradition. These are the texts that capture the lines of descent or heke, a word that in its associations reflects the allusive connectivity of words in the tradition, for it can also mean ‘migration’, recalling the ancestral canoe voyages, and ‘rafters’, which in a meeting-house symbolise the ribs of an eponymous or founding tribal ancestor. In recording the order or chronology of generations, genealogies can be autobiographical when defining the lines of an individual, or biographical when giving the lineage of a tribal group or family relationships. And they link the long-dead ancestors to the living. But, as examples discussed below will demonstrate, they extend beyond connections in the human family, being used to explain and record the relationships of, and with, other entities. As Anne Salmond put it, ‘the unity of all phenomenal life [is shown] through genealogical connection’.10 Aspects of custom, language and thinking confirm that genealogies were extremely important in the oral society and far from the mere lists they might seem to be on the page. They were one means of passing on valued information and a useful store of knowledge for composers. For instance, their centrality to narrative histories was stressed by Wiremu Wi Hongi, a Te Uri-o-Hua elder of Ngāpuhi, when he referred to ‘tātai and wānanga’ (‘genealogy and narrative’) as ‘inter-dependent parts of a single whole’; and Biggs wrote that they show ‘the interrelationships of the characters . . . kinship that is seldom stated explicitly in the texts’ and ‘clarify the chronological sequence and the essential unity of the history’;11 this is as true of their use in the other genres. Descent lines may preface, be cited in or conclude a narrative; be truncated to fit the form of a song or saying; or be combined with prayers in ritual. It is, therefore, not surprising that Binney described whakapapa as ‘the backbone of all Maori history’, and Tau, in his book about Ngāi Tahu traditions, as ‘the bedrock of oral traditions’.12 Vocabulary and imagery also testify to the importance of descent lines and to the different ways in which they could inform. Among terms for reciting genealogies there are ‘tātai kōrero’, ‘taki tupuna’, ‘whakatakoto tupuna’; and, with more specific meanings, ‘hikohiko’ ‘indicating principal names on the line and omitting others’, ‘taotahi’ to ‘recite genealogy in a single line of descent’, and ‘whakamoe’ to ‘trace a genealogy, assigning wives 47

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to the males’.13 And attractive images are, as Joan Metge has described, the kūmara vine ‘whose branches (kāwai) extend horizontally, putting down suckers at intervals’, or a tree ‘in which the ancestor is identified as the pūtake (roots and base), the descent lines and groups stemming from the ancestor as branches (kaupeka) and small family and individuals as twigs (rārā) reaching up to the light’; another metaphor pictures the shoots from the gourd (hue).14 It can also be concluded that this was a prized genre because there were specialists or tohunga versed in it. And there were places or houses reserved for, and ritual practices relating to, the teaching of genealogies; some kinds too were restricted to certain teachers and chosen pupils.15 The specialists and the ritual underscore how keenly it was felt that this knowledge should not be lost. The respect for this genre is also made apparent by the astonishing feats of memorising that Europeans witnessed in the nineteenth century and by the seriousness and length of time that had to be devoted to it. Elsdon Best reported in the 1890s how Tamarau Waiari of Rūātoki recited over three days, with time also spent giving explanation and information relevant to them, the descent lines of Ngāti Kōura from one ancestor, which amounted to over fourteen hundred names.16 Te Kāhui Kararehe was known for his recording of Taranaki tribal history and traditions, and S. Percy Smith published some of his work in the Journal of the Polynesian Society and used it in his own publications. In a letter of 1893, in reply to Smith’s questions about traditions and whakapapa, he wrote: Waiho raa maaku e paatai ki ngaa kaumaatua; e homai raanei, e kore raanei. Ki te hoomai te whakapapa kia kotahi pea te marama e mahi ana au noo te mea, he mahi nui rawa te whakapapa. Ko te waawaahanga i ngaa huarahi katoa o ia hekenga, o ia hekenga.17 Leave it to me to ask the elders whether it can be given or not. If the genealogy can be given, then it will perhaps be one month’s work for me, because genealogy involves a very large amount of work, with the dividing up into all the branches of each descent line.

In the old world there was no paper copy to aid remembering such a prodigious amount. Representations in carvings and tattooing may have 48

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helped, as could rākau whakapapa, notched sticks or boards on which a cut marked a generation. Grey wrote out a line of the ancestors of the Tūwharetoa high chief Iwikau Te Heuheu who had come on the Tainui canoe, adding after it: ‘Given to me at Pukawa on Taupo Lake in Dec. 1849 by Te Heuheu – named on the ancestral stick, and verified by many old men of his tribe who were present.’18 The last comment suggests that although different versions of genealogies might be given, there could be agreement – at least at any one time or place or within a group – about the correctness of them. The Manuscript Record and Publication Tangible evidence of its primary role, and again the facility of memory, lies in the extraordinary number of nineteenth-century manuscripts of genealogy in public libraries: hundreds of single pages, numerous foolscap ledger books – some three hundred or so pages long – and notebooks of all sizes. In addition, there are sections within, or attached to as explanation, narratives, sayings and songs. While it would seem from the manuscripts that this knowledge was principally the domain of men, it is very likely that some women were also versed in genealogies.19 When, in the nineteenth century, Māori came to write down their family lineages for the first time, some wrote them in lines along the page, others set them down the page, while others, later in the century, formed them into trees.20 Titles might be added to short excerpts or names underlined to give emphasis. Such additions helped the reader but these compositions were originally intended and structured for recitation. To judge by comments Māori made, writing (no doubt combined with the distraction of all the new that came with the Europeans) could have an adverse effect on their recall of lists, and it also brought other considerations. When the prominent tribal leader Tāmati Ngāpora, of Ngāti Mahuta in the Waikato, recording a canoe tradition for Edward Shortland in 1854 came to identify one tohunga (priest) on board, he wrote, ‘kua ngaro tōna ingoa, nō taku tuhituhinga te hē’ (his name has gone, and the problem is in my writing this down).21 Writing had distracted him and it may have been because he had lost the rhythm and sound of the oral recitation. A Ngāti Porou writer, also on the subject of a canoe history, of the Horouta, wrote of those who set out:

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mĀori oral tradition Ka tae ki te rā hei haramaitanga ki tēnei motu, ka eke mai ngā hapū katoa ki runga i taua waka. He ingoa katoa ō aua tāngata, e kore e taea e te kaituhi o tēnei pukapuka te tuhi mai ki roto. Heoi anō ko ngā rangatira anake e tuhia hei whakaatu mō ngā tāngata i hara mai i runga i taua waka.22 When it came to the day for coming to this island, all the tribal groups climbed aboard that canoe. There are names for all those people but the writer of this book is not able to write them in it. Only the chiefs will be written down as indication of the people who came on that canoe.

Perhaps he felt it would take up too much space to write them all out – the space of the memory was different from that of the page – or it may have been that he had forgotten some. Despite what might have been lost, writing captured a huge amount of genealogy. And the tremendous value of this genre to Māori society endured.23 When new ways of capturing and preserving came with the pen, Māori created their own personal manuscripts of genealogies and later also began to publish from them, in the first Māori-language newspapers of the 1840s and, by the end of the century, in journals and books and notably in tribal histories. The old method of recitation in tutoring and in oratory was not, however, lost.

Genealogies The Kin of Family and Tribe in Genealogies One reason for the prominence of genealogies was well explained by Prytz Johansen, whose great perceptiveness about traditional Māori life was surely the result of his very keen attention to the oral compositions: The whole cosmos of the Maori unfolds itself as a gigantic ‘kin’, in which heaven and earth are first parents of all beings and things, such as the sea, the sand on the beach, the wood, the birds, and man.24

This explains the extensive range of the genealogies and anticipates the great store of knowledge that they hold. The lists that make up the greatest number in the manuscripts, however, are those which document family and tribe. 50

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The first kin are the very gods; they are catalogued, as are their children. In  the manuscript book of 1895 by the Ngāti Porou writer mentioned above, there are some two hundred pages of narratives very neatly written and numbered by paragraph. These are about the first parents, Ranginui and Papatūānuku, their offspring gods, and fabulous heroes and human ancestors; the last narrative tells of the journey by the Horouta canoe to Aotearoa. The manuscript is interspersed throughout with descent lines, the necessary corollary to any telling of the oral history; in some parts the writer refers the reader to a separate manuscript of genealogies for clarification. The book begins with the descent of the children from the primal parents. Ko Rangi te tāne a Papa, ā rāua tamariki ka tauia ki raro nei: ko Tānetūturi, ko Tānepepeke, ko Tāneuetika, ko Tāneuehā, ko Tānetewaiora, ko Tāne-nui-a-Rangi, ko Tangotango, ko Mākoropupū, ko Hunga, ko Rongomaraeroa, ko Haumia, ko Tangaroa, ko Tānemahuta, ko Tāwhirimātea, ko Rūaumoko, ko Tūmatauenga. Ka mutu ngā tamariki.25 Rangi was the husband of Papa; their children are enumerated here below: Tānetūturi, Tānepepeke, Tāneuetika, Tāneuehā, Tānetewaiora, Tāne-nui-a-Rangi, Tangotango, Mākoropupū, Hunga, Rongomaraeroa, Haumia, Tangaroa, Tānemahuta, Tāwhirimātea, Rūaumoko, Tūmatauenga. That ends the children.

Underpinning the listed names, each brought into prominence by the repeated use of the particle ‘ko’, is the knowledge of their actions and roles. For example, the first four depict Tāne as he kneels, bends, stands upright and props up his sky-father, Rangi, above his earth-mother, Papa, in order to let in the light necessary for the children to have lives independent of their parents.26 A name can allude to a story or moral or character; the domains associated with the gods surely came to mind in the recitation of this list, such as Rongomaraeroa of kūmara cultivations and peace, Haumia of the staple fernroot and Tangaroa of the sea. The narrator ends his list with the abrupt, ‘Ka mutu ngā tamariki’; a typical and effective way of rounding off and defining a specific section of recitation, it was also used by composers of narratives. Then he goes on to tell more about the children, implicitly reflecting back to the initial list. It would be a very long account if 51

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all this seemingly plain string of names were fully annotated and described: the meanings of the names, the children forcing their parents apart, and their domains, enterprises and quarrels as gods. All of this was, however, alluded to and brought to mind by the list. As he came to each chronicle of their lives and deeds, the writer continued to catalogue the descendants and generations of other gods and fabulous ancestors. When he completed the genealogy for Māui, the trickster and fisherman whose catch was the land of Aotearoa, he made the point that there were many versions of it. Tērā atu anō ētahi whakapapa o taua Māui nei, roa atu i tēnei. Ahakoa, rerekē ngā whakapapa o taua Māui nei, ki ēta[hi] kaikōrero i roa, i rerekē, ki ētahi i poto. Ko ngā ingoa o tētahi kaiwhitiwhiti ki ētahi kāore tahi he tikanga, i te mea e haere ana i runga i te kanoi kotahi. Nō mua tonu mai te rerekē o ngā kōrero pūtake.27 There are also other genealogies of this Māui, longer than this one. In spite of those, genealogies of this Māui may differ, for some tellers they could be long [and] different, for others short. The names from one reciter may have no meaning to others, because [they] will be going along a single line of descent [of their own]. From long past there have been differences in the ancestral accounts.

Descent from the gods and cultural heroes of mythical times was personal for Māori. Ruka Broughton wrote of his Ngā Rauru people that ‘they may be regarded as a progeny of both human and divine parentage’, and referred to other tribes’ claims of descent from the gods.28 A genealogy may begin at Rangi and Papa and continue on down to the descendant reciter or writer. Or, even more impressively, start at the first stirrings of the universe and go down to the relevant descendant. Piri Kawau of Te Āti Awa in Taranaki wrote out, in the early 1850s, a thirteen-page genealogy entitled, ‘Ko te whakatupuranga o te tangata ki tā te Māori tikanga’ (The generation of humanity according to Māori tradition).29 It began with imagery related to the first signs of growth in the primeval dark and continued with cryptic names and phrases that alluded to the evolution of life and the emergence of humankind. The genealogical line also took in gods and ancients (tūpuna) down to Turi of the Aotea canoe, whose leaving 52

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and voyage from Hawaiki and establishment in Aotearoa were subject of the subsequent narratives. In his insightful reading of the old world, Johansen wrote: ‘Tupuna are not only grandparents and ancestors proper, but everybody in the kinship group belonging to these generations, thus an enormous block of living and dead persons.’ Those were the kin who had to be known, which explains the conscientious and methodical writing out of genealogies. Further, he wrote: ‘The actions of the kinship group are not only significant as true expressions of life in the ancestors, but also of life in the living; for the same life, the same mana, is active through the history of the kinship group.’30 Knowledge of family lines was not only of interest historically; it also had to do with the very essence and authority of an individual, as well as their part in tribe and society, and it was entirely relevant to, ‘alive in’, the present. Family genealogies can be recited chronologically and tell a history of descent. But they are also highly situational. A composer will begin a line where it is pertinent to the telling or conclude it at a descendant or descendants present or in mind. For example, Mohi Ruatapu of Ngāti Porou in his 1871 ‘pukapuka whakapapa’ (book of genealogy) ran some of his recitations down to ‘Rapata’ – Rāpata (or Rōpata) Wahawaha ‘for whom this account was written’ – and to others he knew who had ancestors in common.31 Many writers began their tribal histories, or sections of them, from the time of the canoes leaving Hawaiki. Around the mid-to-late nineteenth century Eruera Te Uremutu, a  chief of Ngāti Whakaue, wrote about Te Arawa history, and he included what is a rarity in the manuscripts, some illustrations;32 these are rather rough but delightful drawings of the ancestral canoes with figures on board. Among many descent lines he gave that told of his canoe and tribal affiliations was the one that follows. He introduced it with a comment about another canoe, Tainui, and matters of descent, and then noted that there was argument over whether the ancestress Wakaotirangi (or Whakaotirangi) was on the Tainui or Te Arawa canoe; in the way of versions in the oral tradition, she can be read about in each history. But Te Uremutu in his tribal record described her as the wife of Tamatekapua, the captain of the Te Arawa canoe, and told of her famously saving a basket of kūmara for provisions and later planting. Next came the genealogy:

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mĀori oral tradition Ngā uri o Wakaotirangi rāua ko Tamatekapua Tuatahi Kahumatamomoe, tuarua ko Tūhoro-mata-kakā, tuatoru ko Īhenga. Nā Kahumatamomoe, ko Uenuku-mai-Rarotonga, tāna ko Tāwake-moe-tahanga, ko Rangitihi-wakahirahira, tāna Tūhourangi, tāna ko Uenukukōpako, tāna ko Wakaue, tāna Tūtānekai, tāna Te Whatumairangi, tāna ko Ariari-te-rangi, tāna he nui ngā tama, te tuatahi ko Te Roro-o-te-rangi, te tuarua ko Kōtore, tuatoru ko Tūnohopū, tuawā ko Te Kata, tāna ko Te Rangiwaho, tāna ko Te Wareiti, tāna ko Ana, tāna ko Eruera Te Uremutu.33 The descendants of Wakaotirangi and Tamatekapua First Kahumatamomoe, second there was Tūhoro-mata-kakā, third there was Īhenga. From Kahumatamomoe there was Uenuku-mai-Rarotonga, who had Tāwake-moe-tahanga [and] Rangitihi-wakahirahira, who had Tūhourangi, who had Uenukukōpako, who had Wakaue, who had Tūtānekai, who had Te Whatumairangi, who had Ariari-te-rangi, whose sons were many, the first was Te Roro-o-te-rangi, the second was Kōtore, the third was Tūnohopū, the fourth was Te Kata, who had Te Rangiwaho, who had Te Wareiti, who had Ana, who had Eruera Te Uremutu.

Like many others, Te Uremutu used ordinal numbers to preface certain names and he also employed the pattern of ‘Nā . . . , ko . . . , tāna ko . . .’, which made for rhythmic reciting, and usefully allowed for hesitating at or drawing out those small words while recalling the next name. He, like Taonui, added interest to the names, for example, that there were many sons of Ariari-te-rangi (relevantly his side of the family), whom he then listed by number down to himself. Te Uremutu’s recitation called up the renowned, those whose names and deeds remain in Te Arawa’s oral narratives. For instance, Kahumatamomoe and Īhenga, celebrated for their long journeys naming and claiming the tribal land; Wakaue (or Whakaue), the eponymous ancestor of Ngāti Whakaue; and Tūtānekai, who stars with Hinemoa in the widely known love story.34 In listing these prestigious and chiefly names, Te Uremutu justified his Te Arawa version, and, by bringing the generations down to himself, demonstrated his right to be reciting the genealogy.35 To turn again to Johansen: ‘It is no exaggeration to say that the Maori must be surrounded by relatives in order to be a real human being . . . the 54

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kinless man is the slave.’36 The oral tradition records in stories and songs the shame associated with severance from or disapproval by family and action taken against slights to kin: a young man who does not know his father goes in search of him; a woman disparaged because of an inappropriate love affair cites her noble lineage in a song to seek forgiveness; a man answers an insult to kin but in doing so has to know if the culprit is kin, and if so, one he may kill. These cautionary examples signal the primary place of genealogy in the old society and the necessity to restore cracked, broken or lost links in it. Another significant aspect of this genre is the enduring connection it makes between the living and the dead. Genealogies were no doubt recited in funeral orations in the old world, for this was a feature of obituaries in nineteenth-century Māori-language newspapers. In 1877 Reupena Erueti sent to Te Wananga notice of the death of his child, Mihiata Nohomaiterangi, not two months old. He asked that it be published to notify relations (‘hei panui ki nga whanaunga o taua tamaiti kai te ao’) and to include the child’s genealogy if the paper had space (‘Ki te watea Te Wananga, me tuku atu te whakapapa o taua tamaiti ki Te Wananga’). He explained that the name Nohomaiterangi came from the noble line of Ngāi Te Whatuiāpiti and listed some of the names of recent chiefs. He then began the whakapapa, ‘Ka noho a Nohomaiterangi i a Te Whatumaraia, ko Panitaongakore . . .’ (Nohomaiterangi married Te Whatumaraia [Whatumariari] and there was Panitaongakore), which he continued down to his own marriage and the child. After that he wrote, ‘Tenei tamaiti he putanga no tetahi waenga o Ngai Te Whatuiapiti’ (This child was an offspring of one section of Ngāi Te Whatuiāpiti), adding that the death was a great grief to the tribe (‘nui rawa to ratou pouri mo taua tamaiti’).37 This moving notice is indicative of how genealogy, and implicitly kin, was central even to the very short life of a child, whose potential for the tribe was anticipated; and also how pride in – and perhaps consolation from – ancestry was manifest by quotation of it and the tribal names that coalesced with it. The practice of compiling obituaries for nineteenth-century newspapers was common among Māori and it was the oral tradition they drew on for this: genealogies (at times of some length), ōhākī (the last words from the dying) and waiata tangi (laments), which left an archive in print of these deeply emotional, expressive and poetic texts. Genealogy also had a role in other formalities and rituals. Lines of 55

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descent were quoted in prayers and incantations, and those from the gods and showing high descent were thought to aid their power and effect.38 An example from Te Arawa tradition was the reciting of the genealogical descent of Tūtānekai’s supposed father to ease his mother’s, Rangiuru’s, prolonged labour. When that did not help she revealed the true father by asking for Tūwharetoa’s line, and Tūtānekai was born.39 Pētera Pukuatua, a  Ngāti Whakaue chief of Te Arawa, described to Edward Shortland a practice in the case of a woman in severe labour. He began with a brief karakia or prayer and then followed with, ‘Kātahi ka whakatakoto i te uri tupuna o te pāpā’ (Then the father’s line of ancestors is presented), giving names of high chiefs (‘ko te uri ariki’) and then more recent ancestors. For the child who was still not coming, he added another descent line, and then another prayer. But, he concluded, if the child would still not appear (and a boy was anticipated for it would be a different practice if a girl was expected, he added), then the reciter would invoke the very ancient line of descent from Tiki (‘Ki te kore e puta mai, ka tikina ki a Tiki’): Ko Tiki-i-ahua Ko Tiki-i-apoa Ki te whakaringaringatanga Ki te whakawaewaetanga Ki te kukunetanga mai i Hawaiki.40 Tiki-formed-up, Tiki-mounded-up, With the making of arms, With the making of legs, With the emerging of him at Hawaiki.

Here, a smartly rhythmic, descriptive genealogical style works too as a karakia; as an appeal to Tiki it harks back to the first human, shaped and mounded (or rounded out), as the names recall (Tiki-i-ahua, Tiki-i-apoa), from sand (or earth) and formed into a body.41 Some say that Tāne made the first form called Tiki, others that Tiki made it himself. But the influence of, the expected effect from, these brief and picturesque lines, lay in their reference back to the most ancient time of all creation in Hawaiki, and 56

Whakapapa

forward to every child developing in the womb.42 Perhaps the insistent beat of the voiced genealogies also gave impulse to the birth. As recourse to the lines of high chiefs in such a ritual tells, the society of old was hierarchical. Genealogy was also about rank; knowing one’s place was important for correct behaviour and fulfilling obligations. Even before they were capable of understanding them, very young children of nobility were sung oriori, songs that alluded to tribal history and quoted ancestral lineages – and in which the list form was also used to picture, for instance, journeys, features of the landscape and prized possessions.43 First experiences of these songs and repeated hearing of them were no doubt of advantage to children’s learning when they heard their genealogies or history referred to in speeches and talk as they grew older, or if they were chosen to receive formal tuition in these traditions. A person’s descent could also have implications for marriage, particularly for those of high birth as these Māori scholars remarked. Te Rangihīroa (Te Rangi Hiroa), of Ngāti Mutunga in Taranaki, wrote of the old society that, ‘Rank and leadership went by primogeniture in senior families, and purity of descent was jealously guarded by selection in marriage’; and Āpirana Ngata, of Ngāti Porou, referred to elders tracing descent for the right match.44 In a manuscript preserved in the papers of Samuel Locke, a collector of Māori traditions in the Hawke’s Bay area in the 1860s, there are historical episodes concerning the arrival and establishment of Ngāti Kahungunu ancestors. One tells of the highly accomplished Kahungunu himself and his taking by trickery of the noble and beautiful Rongomaiwahine from her husband. At the conclusion of the amusing rendition of his cunning, the teller goes on to name their offspring: Ka mauria atu a Rongomaiwahine, ka tangohia i a Tamatakutai, ka whakamoea ki a Kahungunu. Ka moe, ka puta ki waho ko Kahukuranui, ko Rākaihikuroa, nā Rākaihikuroa ko Tūpurupuru, nā Tūpurupuru ko Te Rangitūehu, ko Hineao, nāna ko Te Huhuti, ka moe i [a] Te Whatuiāpiti, ka puta ki waho ko ngā tāngata katoa o tēnei whenua, e mau nei te ingoa o ōna iwi anō, ko te putanga o tō Kahungunu wehenga.45 Rongomaiwahine was carried off, taken from Tamatakutai, married to Kahungunu. [They] married, Kahukuranui came forth [and] Rākaihikuroa,

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mĀori oral tradition from Rākaihikuroa there was Tūpurupuru, from Tūpurupuru there were Te Rangitūehu [and] Hineao, who had Te Huhuti, who married Te Whatuiāpiti [and so] came all the people of this land, who carry the name of his own tribes, the issue of Kahungunu’s descent lines.

Rongomaiwahine was taken from Tamatakutai and wedded to Kahungunu; he was the more successful man, which was of advantage to her tribe. The genealogy recalls and affirms their marriage and how it came about in the initial statement and in the reiteration of the phrases ‘ka whakamoea . . . ’ , ‘ka moe . . .’. Another formulaic pattern of this genre follows (‘Ka moe . . . , ka puta ki waho ko . . . , ko . . . , nā . . . , ko . . . ’), which allowed the composer’s recitation to run on smoothly and quickly. The descendants selected in this recitation were warriors and chiefs, and another important marriage was recalled – also subject of a lively love story – in the names of Te Huhuti and Te Whatuiāpiti.46 The conclusion brings forth the satisfying image of ‘all the people of this land’, the whole tribal group who derived from the supremely capable Kahungunu. As this example shows, significant marriages were purposely noted in the genealogical record. Te Rangihīroa gave one reason for teaching them to the young: ‘Those who showed special interest or whose birth required it, were taught not only their tribal genealogies but also the marriage connections with other tribes so that inter-tribal relations could be referred to with the proper etiquette on future meetings.’ This, he said, was part of the knowledge ‘arming a young man who might be drawn into verbal arguments abroad’; the other part he referred to was the tribe’s history of war.47 Indeed, tribal history, in which the records of war are numerous, could not be properly understood without a knowledge of genealogy; revered names in lines of descent are also those that feature in narrative histories and songs, and the reason for a certain historical incident may lie in a genealogical link. A wise orator knew kin descent and the history of war for another reason, ‘so that if a disparaging remark were made about a defeat which had been suffered, it could be countered by drawing attention to the victory which had avenged the previous defeat’.48 Genealogies logged, overtly or implicitly, the people, the time and the events of history. In his series of lectures in 1944 about the early settlement of the ancestors of East Coast tribes, Ngata stressed the compiling of genealogical tables as ‘fundamental to’ that history;49 he interspersed them 58

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throughout and built his points around them. In Taonui’s ‘whakapapa mō ngā tūpuna’, the recitation of lines was purposeful to the narrative and the reciter for keeping record of the chronology and, in some cases, the personality and talents of famous ancestors. But, over and above the individual, a genealogical list could be compiled to inform about the origins and ancestral founders of tribal groups,50 as in the very neat example that follows. Manuscript collections of family or closely related tribal traditions often well illustrate how different genres work together to build a richly documented and coherent history and heritage, and also the parts which lists play in that. In the late nineteenth-century papers of Taranaki leader Te Kāhui Kararehe and his brother, Taurua Pororaiti Minarapa, lists carry history, practical information about family and tribal relationships, and even emotion. This one is of tribal groups; it is preceded by a short line of descent and prefaces a striking narrative about their renowned ancestress, Ueroa: Ko ngā ingoa hapū o tō mātou whaene, ko Ngāti Haeroa, nō Ueroa tēnā ingoa; Ngāti Waka, nō Wakaiti tēnēi ingoa; Ngāti Rongo, nō Rongotuhiata tēnei ingoa. Ko hēnei ingoa hapū e toru kei runga i te iwi [o] Taranaki e iri ana, ēnei ingoa hapū, Ngāti Haeroa, Ngāti Waka, Ngāti Rongo.51 The names of our mother’s tribal groups: Ngāti Haeroa – that name from Ueroa, Ngāti Waka – this name from Wakaiti, Ngāti Rongo – this name from Rongotuhiata. These three tribal names resound over the people of Taranaki, these tribal names of Ngāti Haeroa, Ngāti Waka, Ngāti Rongo.

This slight piece, with its knowing repetition to fix the names for the listener, informs about ancestors, tribal groups and related people. There can be further information too, if veiled, in the listed names of ancestor or tribe. Reading on in the manuscript history, there is explanation for the name ‘Ngāti Haeroa’ (lit. ‘long cutting’). It derived from Ueroa’s ritual slashing (haehae) of herself in grief on learning of the death in battle of her husband, Tamakaha; that story rang out too in any genealogy with her name. Names combine personal and tribal history in a potent mix, which is why lists of them can be richly associative and a select list very telling. A genealogical account was also a way of recording or verifying 59

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ownership and rights of various kinds, for instance, of kin-owned property, large and small. Named, inherited treasures are found in lists, sometimes with their own kind of descent recorded. In 1888, in an issue of the newspaper Te Korimako, there was a report by the Ngā Rauru scholar Wiremu Kauika on the discovery of a famous adze named Te Āwhiorangi. In the report he also explained where the adze originated and then described it. He began by listing the names of its parts:52 Ko te pare o Te Awhiorangi ko Te Rangiwhakakapua; te kaha, ko Kawekairangi; te kakau, ko Mataheihei. The shield of Te Āwhiorangi is Te Rangiwhakakapua; the lashing is Kawekairangi; the handle is Mataheihei.

Then he gave its descent: I heke ariki tonu mai a Te Awhiorangi i a Tane-tokorangi, a tae noa mai ki a Rakaumaui, mau tonu mai ki a Turi, ka eke mai i runga i Aotea(roa), ka whiti mai ki tenei motu. Whakarawea ana e Turi ki tona tamaiti matamua, ara, ki a Te Hiko-o-te-rangi. Ka haere tonu te toki ra i te hekenga ariki, tae noa mai ki a Rangitaupea; whakanohoia ana e Rangitaupea ki ona maunga ariki, ara, ki Tieke, ki Moerangi. Te Āwhiorangi came directly down the line of high chiefs from Tānetoko­ rangi, and on right on down to Rākaumaui; [then it] was retained on down to Turi, who boarded the Aotea [canoe and] crossed over to this island. Turi bestowed it on his firstborn son, that is, on Te Hiko-o-te-rangi. That adze continued on the descent line of high chiefs, right on down to Rangitaupea; it was lodged by Rangitaupea on his lofty mountain range, that is, at Tīeke, at Moerangi.

Composed in the genealogical style, with brief expansions that point to the narrative history, the phrasing is impressive. The repetitive, rhythmical phrases, ‘heke . . . tonu mai’, ‘tae noa mai ki’, ‘mau tonu mai ki’, ‘eke mai i’, ‘whiti mai ki’, ‘haere tonu’, ‘tae noa mai ki’ (of a type also used in describing land boundaries), parallel and emphasise the long line of prestigious descent and the long journey to Aotearoa. As Kauika also wrote in the 60

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article, Te Āwhiorangi was said to be one of the axes that Tāne used to cut through the embrace of Rangi and Papa;53 the story is captured in the prestigious ancestral name of ‘Tānetokorangi’ (Tāne who propped up the sky). That exalted association, along with the noblest (‘ariki’, and this word is purposely repeated) line of possessors, explained the placing of the axe in a very sacred location, a burial ground, on the ‘maunga ariki’ or revered mountain in the tribal domain. Kauika ended with the statement that Te Āwhiorangi remained with them, the Ngā Rauru people at Waitōtara – as did its history in song and chant.54 While this genealogical dissertation speaks of rights, it also tells how this taonga or prized, inherited possession was perceived like kin. Te Āwhiorangi is personified not only by a name but also by association with a noble descent line, a familial connection from the most ancient of ancestors to the tribe in their territory in Aotearoa; this can be the case with various kinds of sacred and inherited possessions.55 In the nineteenth-century written record, the form of genealogies followed a more or less set style, as in the order and patterned phrasing exemplified above. There is a different list, however, in a manuscript from a collector of South Island traditions, J. F. H. Wohlers, a missionary on Ruapuke Island in the far south in the mid-nineteenth century. It was composed by the Ngāi Tahu leader, Matiaha Tiramōrehu, who was tutored in his tribal traditions and genealogies and also a leader for his people. He used the refrain, ‘Who was So and So?’ as preface to the genealogical description. Perhaps it was prompted by Wohlers asking the very question in English or he may have chosen it after the fashion of questions and answers used in prayers and songs. Here is a portion from the seventeen-page list, with its evidence of the South Island dialect. Ko wai a Tikiauha [Tikiauaha]? Ko te tangata tuatahi i āhua e Tāne ki Hawaiki. Ko wai a Iowahine? Ko te wahine tuatahi i āhua e Tāne ki Hawaiki hei hoa wahine mō Tikiauha. Ko ai a Te Aioteki? Ko te tama tuatahi a Tiki. Ko ai a Te Aioter[e]a? Ko tō muri iho i a Te Aioteki. Ko wai a Te Aiowhakatangata? Ko te tama tuatahi a Te Aioterea. Ko wai a Rakiroa? Ko te tangata tino mātau ki ngā mea o te raki.56 Who was Tikiauaha? The first man formed by Tāne in Hawaiki. Who was Iowahine? The first woman formed by Tāne in Hawaiki as wife for Tikiauaha.

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mĀori oral tradition Who was Te Aioteki? The first son of Tiki. Who was Te Aioterea? The one who came after Te Aioteki. Who was Te Aiowhakatangata? The first son of Te Aioterea. Who was Rakiroa? The man who was very knowledgeable about matters of the heavens.

If the interrogatives are unusual, the style is otherwise conventional in the ancient names, the line of descent, the snippets of information and the rhythmical progression; and also in having an underlying story, the forming of the first male and female and their descendants. It is interesting and not uncommon in narratives that the protagonist’s name encapsulates something of the very story he or she is part of, in this case who he was and what he did, ‘Tikiauaha’ (Primeval man, Creator). If Tiramōrehu’s way of reciting was innovative, it followed from tradition in the sense that the oral composers trod a fine line between traditional forms, useful to the memory, and the new; they used subtle, sometimes bold, changes to gain the attention of the audience or advise of something previously unknown. Or, as in the following example, to make a trenchant point. In papers of S. Percy Smith, collector and publisher of Māori history and oral tradition, there is a copy in his hand of a genealogy given to him, as a note on the manuscript tells, by the Ngāpuhi tribal leader, politician and writer of traditions, Hōne Mohi Tāwhai, probably around the 1880s. Ko ngā whakapapa o ngā tūpuna o ngā ture o Niu Tīreni Ko Aotearoa ka moe i a Te Mana-o-Ingarangi, puta atu ko Kāwana Hopihana, ka moe i ngā rangatira Māori o Aotearoa, o Te Waipounamu, puta atu ki waho ko Te Tiriti-o-Waitangi, ka moe i a Pāremete, puta atu ki waho ko Ngā Ture-o-Niu-Tīreni, ka moe i a Kaiwhakawā-Tumuaki, puta ki waho ko Kairuri, ka moe i a Kōti-Whenua-Māori, puta atu ki waho ko Karauna-Kārati, ka moe i a Lawyer [Rōia], puta atu ki waho ko Mōketi, ko Wira, ko Rīhi, ka moe i a Whakapati-ki-te-waipiro, puta atu ki waho ko, Haina-hoko-haurangi, ka moe i a Tinihanga, puta atu ko Whenua-kore, ka moe i a Ngākau-pōuri, puta atu ko Te Mate-noa-iho.57

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Whakapapa The genealogical lines of the ancestors of the laws of New Zealand Aotearoa married Crown-of-England, and there came forth Governor Hobson, who married the Māori chiefs of Aotearoa and Te Waipounamu, and there came forth Treaty-of-Waitangi, who married Parliament, and there came forth Laws-of-New-Zealand, who married Chief-Judge, and there came forth Surveyor, who married Native-Land-Court, and there came forth Crown-Grant, who married Lawyer, and there came forth Mortgage, Will, Lease, who married Tempt-with-liquor, and there came forth Signer-seller-drunkard, who married Deceit, and there came forth Landless, who married Sad-at-heart, and there came forth Endless-misfortune.

The satirical personifications make up the family. In other ways Tāwhai’s composition was traditional, in the elaborated names and the formulaic phrases of ‘Ka moe . . . ka puta ki waho ko . . .’, and in the wit and irony. But it was entirely modern, and bitter in its day, in its summation of how government and laws were severing Māori from their connection with the whakapapa of land and kin. These varied examples of familial genealogies demonstrate how highly informative they were for the oral society. Rich in meaning, authority and influence, they were immensely useful as they charted and preserved the relationships between humans in their social and political lives. But as Johansen recognised, the links of kin went far and wide, beyond the personal of family and much further back in time. Cosmological Genealogies There is significant use of allusion in the examples of genealogies above, but the most interestingly and densely allusive of this genre are what Biggs called ‘the cosmogonic genealogies that attempted to explain such inexplicables as the creation of the universe and the mystery of existence itself ’.58 They are of great range and complexity. Agathe Thornton, in an astute and revealing study of texts of cosmology, described the vast reach of whakapapa, which cover ‘the conception of all existence’, in this way: The sacred tradition is an enormous whakapapa comprising the coming-to-be of the world and its structure, the production of humankind, and eventually

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mĀori oral tradition the canoe ancestors and their lineages down to the present day. Its branches are innumerable, constituting the gods, the heavens, the earth, but also the life and status of men, women and children, of stars, trees, birds, fish and so on.59

Such a mighty genealogy with its many lines and branches fits with Eco’s characterisation of lists as giving the seemingly immense and infinite some order, form and unity, while also conveying the greatness and beauty of what is itemised.60 Māori cosmogonic genealogies render, in an extraordinarily visual and, when recited, mesmerisingly rhythmic way, how out of a primeval emptiness (Te Kore) and darkness (Te Pō) there came the growth and development of life in the world of light (Te Ao Mārama). These recitations can be very brief or very long (and often cryptic); portions of them are quoted in other genres and they are closely entwined with narrative cosmologies.61 They are enormously varied, reflecting the individuality of each composer’s understanding as well as, again, a reliance on established phrasing.62 They were a poetic, practical way of rendering complex ideas and beliefs in a few words and of giving a sense of the enormity of the cosmos. Two excerpts exemplify something of the style and art of this kind of composition. Tautahi began his recitation with the aeons of ‘Te Kore’, of nothing, of emptiness or, as some describe it, of a formlessness with potential for being. Matua te kore, Te Kore nui, Te Kore roa, Te Kore tē kitea, Te Kore tē whāia, Te Kore tē whiwhia, Te Kore tē rawea, Te Kore i tē kuku, Te Kore i tē waiwai, Te Kore i tē mania, Te Kore i tē paheke, Te Kore i tē paremo, Te Kore i oti atu, oti atu ki Te Pō . . .63

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Whakapapa Parent of the void, The great Void, The long Void, The Void of no seeing, The Void of no seeking, The Void of no acquiring, The Void of no possessing, The Void with no grasping, The Void with no sensing, The Void with no slipping, The Void with no sliding, The Void with no descending, The Void ever onwards, ever onwards until The Darkness . . .64

Tautahi continued with like phrases for the time of darkness (‘Te Pō’) and on to the forming of heaven and earth, Rangi and Papa, the gods and his own ancestors. But in this portion of his recitation, he graphically portrayed the vast, static ‘Te Kore’ by expressive repetitions,65 which impressed on his listeners the length and immensity of this state (with seeming no escape from it) and the complete absence of the senses, sensations, actions and movement that give humans their notion of the universe and their being. As Te Rangihīroa pointed out, repetitions were pleasing to listen to and satisfying for the speaker. He recalled how once when translating for a Māori orator’s speech to ‘a mixed audience’, he suggested to him that ‘he avoid monotony by leaving out the numbers between the first and tenth Po’. The orator ignored him and Te Rangihīroa realised he was right, ‘because what might have appeared monotonous to the European part of the audience gave pleasure to the Maoris present and, above all, satisfaction to the orator’. More importantly, in the oral society, the repetitions worked for the memory, and also for the imagery and meaning.66 Piri Kawau was close colleague of and interpreter for Sir George Grey (and went to England and South Africa with him). His role as secretary is evident in a great number of pages of his writing in the Grey Māori manuscript collection.67 In the very long, descriptive cosmology in his hand, referred to above, there are other words and formulaic phrases that typically recur in accounts of the first stirrings of life in the time of Te Pō, and again the rhythmically repetitive style: 65

mĀori oral tradition I tupu mai i Te Pō, I kune mai i Te Pō, I weu mai i Te Pō, I aka mai i Te Pō, I tāwareware [tāwariwari] noa mai i Te Pō, I tāmore mai i Te Pō, Ka noho ngā tahua tipua, Rāua ko tawhito . . . 68 Growing from the Darkness, Sprouting from the Darkness, Forming roots from the Darkness, Spreading tendrils from the Darkness, Freely emerging from the Darkness, Released from the Darkness, Then there were the assemblies of spirits, And the ancients . . .69

Here the imagery of a plant developing is used to depict the emergence from Te Pō of the generative or development that led to life and to the spirits or gods (‘tipua’) and ancient ones or humans (‘tawhito’). This image is one with the idea of humankind as first formed by Tiki from soil, and of Papa as the earth-mother from whom all derived.70 These kinds of genealogical lists, sometimes obscure, often beautiful, are one of the untapped sources that Biggs urged analysing to understand how the Māori ancestors regarded and comprehended their world. And they are further evidence of their remarkable powers of memory. Explanation of the origin of many kinds of things in the world follow the format and phrasing of genealogical descent. Take this description given to the Reverend Richard Taylor of the ‘birth’ of certain trees and birds: Ka noho a Tāne, ka noho i a Mūmūwhango, ka puta ki waho ko te tōtara. Ka noho a Tāne i a Te Pūwhakahara, ka puta ki waho ko te kahikatoa, te akerautangi. Ka noho a Tāne, ka noho i a Te Atatangirea, ka puta ki waho te maire-raunui. Ka noho a Tāne, ka noho i a Parauri, ka puta ki waho ko te tūī. Ka noho a Tāne, ka noho i a Papa, ka puta ki waho ko te kiwi, ko te manu hunahuna a Tāne. Ka noho a Tāne, ka noho i a Haere-aua-awa, ka puta ki waho ko te weka.71

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Whakapapa Tāne lay, lay with Mūmūwhango, the tōtara [tree] came forth. Tāne lay with Te Pūwhakahara, the kahikatoa [and] the akerautangi [trees] came forth. Tāne lay, lay with Te Atatangirea, the maire-raunui [tree] came forth. Tāne lay, lay with Parauri, the tūī [bird] came forth. Tāne lay, lay with Papa, the kiwi came forth, the hidden bird of Tāne. Tāne lay, lay with Haere-aua-awa, the weka [bird] came forth.

The repetition of the two phrases ‘ka noho’ and ‘ka puta ki waho ko’ allowed for easy recitation and for the reciter and audience to focus their attention on the names. And, again, two phrases such as ‘Ka noho . . . , ka noho’, gave space for the reciter to pause if trying to recollect the next names. When it came to the kiwi, the composer chose to amplify the list with a saying, ‘Te manu hunahuna a Tāne’, which refers to this nightbird that hides in the dark or a person who goes unnoticed in a crowd.72 Genealogies of this kind gave reason to those in the old world for the existence of flora and fauna. In the form of recitation, and in this case the names that personified the progenitors, there is an impression of the closeness of all in the environment.73 That sense of the familial pervades the oral tradition. For example, favoured trees were named: there are accounts about building canoes in which named trees were chosen to be felled, and Wakefield had the experience in 1845 of a chief telling him the history, or life, of the tōtara trees cut for the rafters of a house.74 Perhaps that too was the reason for part of this genealogy being included in an oriori,75 to apprise the young, and remind others, of their family in the natural world. There are numerous subjects explained and defined in genealogies, by which the Māori ancestors fathomed the nature of and reasons for the things of the world: there are some for the moon, stars and heavens, for insect people, and in relation to the sea and the weather.76 Lines of descent make up a substantial record and description of people and phenomena.

Knowledge in Lists Compact lists, sometimes briefly elaborated, capture a diverse and interesting range of other information. Some turn up in the very early histories, notably in accounts about the canoes of migration: long or short lists name chiefs or people or atua on board or itemise the cargo of plants, animals or 67

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objects. A rather memorable instance is in Tautahi’s history of the Aotea canoe. He tells of how Rongorongo took a named, precious cloak to her father, Toto, to exchange for the canoe on which she and Turi, her husband, would leave Hawaiki; and then he recites the names of the eight dogs whose skins were used for the cloak.77 In Aotearoa the list-making went on. Many documented land as markers of territory or rightful inhabitants. Others related to war, fighting and transgressions. Yet  others kept account of physical possessions, such as building and resources. Claiming and Mapping the Land As described in Chapter 1, the custom of naming the land was very pragmatic: it defined the territory of a kin group, provided evidence of the right to occupy and use it, and enabled pathways to be followed.78 Names marking out boundaries were cited in narratives of war, for example, when newly won territory was assigned; sections of lists appear in songs and, in a truncated form, in sayings. But to return to Ong’s characterisation of an oral society’s feeling about the past, the mapping of the landscape by name was more to Māori than useful ‘bits of information’. In regard to the ‘social importance’ of tribal boundaries, Maharaia Winiata wrote that they were of much greater value to the people than the annotations on a surveyor’s plans: ‘The history of the tribe is revived in the recital of the prominent land marks that constitute the boundaries of the land.’79 After the ancestors arrived in Aotearoa, they explored the coast and waterways or trod over the country defining their own areas and exploring further afield. And their descendants remembered this through lists. Some are very abrupt as in this style: ‘Ko te haerenga mai o Turi me tōna iwi i tahaki. Te kopanga o te maro o Turi, koia Marokopa. Te moenga o Turi, koia Mokau [Moekau] . . .’ (Turi and his people came ashore here. [From] the folding of Turi’s kilt, there is Marokopa [Folded kilt]. [From] where Turi slept, there is Mokau [Moekau, ‘Just slept there’].80 Others may be more expansive and picturesque. Shortland’s manuscript collection contains a very long and lively rendition of Kahumatamomoe and Īhenga’s journeys of ‘taunaha whenua’, exploring, claiming and naming land for their Te Arawa people. It was given to him (possibly in the early 1840s) by Ringori Te Ao. Whether he wrote the account is not known, for it is in Shortland’s hand, but he was a writer of letters. One person described him as ‘a mischevious character’, and 68

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a great sense of the playful and humorous is evident in his composition.81 Te Ao recorded Īhenga making his mark in such ways as these: Kātahi ka hoe, ka ū he one anō. Kātahi ka para i te wairenga [waerenga]. Ka oti te para, ka huaina te ingoa o taua wāhi ko Te Wairenga-a-Īhenga. Ka hoe anō, ka tae ki te mātārae, ka kite ia i te kawakawa e tupu ana. Kātahi ka ngaua e ia, huaina tonutanga iho ko Ngaukawakawa. Kātahi ka wha[ka]whiti atu i te ngutuawa i Ōhau. Nāna anō i hua i tana haerenga tuatahi mai, ko te ingoa o tāna kurī. Nō te kaunga o te kurī ki te wai, ka romia e te ripo, ka whakatinaria ki roto ki te wai, mate tonu atu. Otianō ka whakawhiti atu ia i te ngutuawa [o] Ōhau, ka whiti ki te one. Kātahi ka whakarere i ngā kākahu. Ka titiro iho ki ōna papa, ka huaina ko Ngā Papa-o-Īhenga. Ka hoe anō, ka tae ki tua atu, kātahi ka ū ki uta ki te huhuti i te pū kāretu hei whāriki mō te kōpapa. Ka hutia, huaina tonutia iho, ko Pūkāretu.82 Then he paddled on [and] landed on another beach. Then he made a clearing. The clearing done, the name given to that place was Te Waerenga-a-Īhenga [Īhenga’s clearing]. Paddling on again, he came to a headland where he found kawakawa growing. Then he chewed some [and] from then on the place was named Ngaukawakawa [Chewing kawakawa leaves]. Then he crossed over at the river mouth at Ōhau. He himself had named it on his first journey here, with the name of his dog. When the dog swam in the water [there], it was caught in a rip, overwhelmed in the water [and] died. So he crossed over at the Ōhau River mouth [and] went over to the beach. Then he took off his clothes; looking down at his buttocks he named [the place] Ngā Papa-o-Īhenga [Īhenga’s buttocks, which were possibly finely tattooed]. Paddling on again, arriving on the far side, he then landed on shore to pull up a bundle of kāretu grass as matting for the small canoe. He pulled it up; from then on [the place] was named Pūkāretu [Bundle of kāretu grass].

Logging names as if in a genealogy made the land familiar. Orbell wrote of this habit: ‘The act of naming was the main thing, for it established a connection between the ancestor, the place, and the name. In this way it gave these men and their descendants a claim to the land, a close and continuing relationship with it.’83 And, as this excerpt illustrates, it also gives some idea of the occupations, experiences and character of the people, as well as their prolific bestowing of names. 69

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The connection of kin, property and genealogy, and the occupation of and claims to land, were major concerns for nineteenth-century Māori in their dealings with Pākehā settlers. This was especially so after the establishment of the Native Land Court in 1865, for from that time Māori had to give oral testimony in court to establish their right to the land in question and to obtain an official title to it. In this setting their long-held lists of genealogy were crucial, as were their land boundaries, which were surely known from long before the court came into existence. In 1857, Ngāti Wai wrote to Te Waka o te Iwi asking that the newspaper print the boundaries of the land surveyed by Captain Hira (Hill) for their permanent use. They began, as so many did, with ‘Ko te timatanga o te rohe kei . . . ’ (The beginning of the boundary is at) and made use of standard phrasing such as ‘rere tonu’ (runs on [to]), ‘ka whakawhiti i te awa’ (crosses the river), ‘ka piki i te hiwi’ (climbs the ridge), ‘haere tonu’ (goes on); and, also typically, left out (as in the ellipsis of poetry) the expected ‘ki’ (‘to’), the place-name sufficing and making the text briefer. Ko te timatanga o te rohe kei Maunganui, wahia o runga o Maunganui, kei te Pakeha tetahi taha, ki [kei] a matou tetahi taha; rere tonu Opuawhango, rere tonu Taupaki, rere tonu Tokaroa, rere tonu Waiwerawera, rere tonu Papakio, rere tonu Puketorotoro, rere tonu Tiheruheru, rere tonu Kahupumau, rere tonu Opuaw[h]ango, rere tonu Herangi, rere tonu Haukawakawa, rere tonu Toka-awatea, rere tonu Pukumanuka, ka whakawhiti i te awa o Oruapawhero, ka piki i te hiwi, ka eke [heke] i Te Ripitini, haere tonu, a, Tataweka, ka rere kei Totarawhaka-anganga, kei Te Ranga-arua, ka rere kei Ahuriri; ka rohe te wahi ki a matou.84 The beginning of the boundary is at Maunganui, [it] is divided over Maunganui, the Pākehā has one side and we have one side; [it] runs on [to] Ōpuawhango, runs on Taupaki, runs on Tokaroa, runs on Waiwerawera, runs on Papakio, runs on Puketorotoro, runs on Tīheruheru, runs on Kahupūmau, runs on Ōpuaw[h]ango, runs on Hērangi, runs on Haukawakawa, runs on Toka-awatea, runs on Pukumānuka, crosses the Ōruapawhero River, climbs the ridge, goes down from Te Ripitini, going on until Tātāweka, where it runs to Tōtara-whakaanganga, to Te Ranga-arua, [and] runs to Ahuriri; that is the boundary of the part for us.

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In this way a reciter pictured the lie of the land for those listening and impressed it on their memories. This is a relatively short example, whereas many go on for much longer, again requiring a concentrated effort of memorisation, and also a very intimate knowledge of the landscape. Then Ngāti Wai wrote, ‘Ko to matou kainga tenei ake, ake, amene noa’ (This is our settlement, for ever and ever, and amen ever after). It made a strong, even warning, statement about possession. It was also a clever combining of the traditional with the phraseology of Christianity. Such play on new words that had come into their language was irresistible to many nineteenth-century Māori writers; it is to be expected given the skill with words that the oral society enjoyed and the pleasure composers took in spicing their texts with the unexpected to gain attention and response. The ‘amene’, which concluded Christian prayers and hymns, combined with the particle ‘noa’, gave a great sense of finality, ‘so be it without end’. In  further confirmation of what they were to retain, the writers then listed their kāinga, settlements or villages. And they concluded, as in the time-honoured fashion of speeches, with the text of a song, and one that articulated a cultural norm, of love for their (well-named) land: ‘Tenei ano ta matou waiata aroha mo to matou whenua.’ The boundary recitation recreated, redrew, the landscape in the mind – in the old world there was no looking down at a map when walking over or thinking about places.85 At least some of the names in this list of boundaries and settlements were likely to evoke people, events or stories as to how a name arose – and deep feelings. Winiata wrote that over generations ‘there gathered around’ the tribal territory ‘a host of honeyed memories and sentiment, that somehow seem to merge the land into the thinking and feeling of the tribe’.86 This is why after Ngāti Wai’s practical listing, it was important to write out the song too; it was satisfying emotionally, and a fitting and emphatic conclusion. And it is another instance of how the flexible oral genres did their work together. Land and People Boundary lists were also a way of defining which tribes, and even specific descendants, belonged on the land. In an extensive manuscript recording of traditions relating to Ngāti Kahungunu in Wairarapa, there is this example dated 1903. It is from an eight-page listing, combined with some narrative, of those associated with areas around Lake Wairarapa. 71

mĀori oral tradition Ka kōrero a Hōhepa Āporo ki a Eruha Piripi i ngā rohe o Wairarapa Moana, me ngā hapū e pā ana ki taua moana, me ngā tīpuna tika e pā ana i tētahi taha o te moana me tahi taha. Ka tīmata ngā rohe: I tīmata mai i Kiriwai, Te Rae-o-Te-Hīha, mau atu ki a Hine-a-toi, mau atu ki Ōhineūnga, mau atu ki Te Waiwhero, mau atu ki Te Maire, mau atu ki Wairarapa awa, mau atu ki Tōtarahāpuku, he tauranga. Ka mutu tēnei. Ko ngā hapū kei roto i ēnei rohe: Ko Ngāti Te Hīha, ko Ngāti Hineraumoa, ko Ngāi Tūkoko. Ngā putanga a Te Hīha, ko Mītai rāua ko Tamaihi; ngā putanga a Tūkoko, ko Rāniera Te Iho, ko Tāmihana Hiko, ko Hōhaia Te Rangi; [ngā putanga a Hineraumoa] ko Rākaihikuroa, ko Hēmi Te Miha. Ko ngā putanga tēnei a ēnei tīpuna e toru.87 Hōhepa Āporo told Eruha Piripi the boundaries of Lake Wairarapa and the tribal groups pertaining to that lake, and the correct ancestors pertaining to one side and other of the lake. Beginning the boundaries: [This one] starts from Kiriwai, [there is] Te Rae-o-Te-Hīha, [and then] it is retained out to Hine-a-toi, retained out to Ōhineūnga, retained out to Te Waiwhero, retained out to Te Maire, retained out to Wairarapa River, retained out to Tōtarahāpuku, a fishing-ground. That ends this one. The tribal groups within these boundaries are: Ngāti Te Hīha, Ngāti Hineraumoa, Ngāi Tūkoko. The issue from Te Hīha are Mītai and Tamaihi; the issue from Tūkoko, are Rāniera Te Iho, Tāmihana Hiko, Hōhaia Te Rangi; [the issue from Hineraumoa] are Rākaihikuroa and Hēmi Te Miha. They are the issue of these three ancestors.

Right at the start there is a reminder of how at that time knowledge was still passed on by word of mouth. Repetition of the formulaic ‘mau atu ki’ might seem tedious to a reader but the reciter could use it with ease, unconsciously, while concentrating on the names to follow; and it kept up the tempo of recitation. It also allowed the audience pause to focus on the next name, and to picture the land as they traversed it in their minds. The last place-name exemplifies the kinds of additions made to such lists, with its label, in apposition, as ‘a fishing-ground’, before the simple, closing statement, ‘Ka mutu tēnei’. The list that follows on in this manuscript is of tribal groups and eponymous ancestors linked to contemporary descendants, 72

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those who are legitimate in this well-defined area of land. There are other forms of this kind of relational list with similar details; and yet others that are different, as in an example that itemises the name of forts, tribal groups and chiefs in a description of a migrating journey.88 Each was created according to the point and situation of the recitation but all served in the oral tradition to preserve details of practical value to the people. The spread of and connections between tribal groups as well as the extent of chieftainship may also be described by list. To go again to the papers of Te Kāhui Kararehe and Taurua Minarapa: in a long account of Taranaki history, one episode tells of word of the death of the chief Tamakaha brought to his wife, Ueroa. In her grief, and following custom, she slashed her body, and her blood flowed as did her tears. Her voice, and pain, called to her kin in the surrounding pā or fortified villages: Ka haehae a Ueroa i tōna tinana, waiho te toto kia maringi ana. Ka pā tōna reo ki ngā rangatira o ngā pā katoa o tōna iwi o Taranaki, tīmata mai i Ngāturi, tae noa ki Te Ngāhoro, tae noa ki Ōmata, tae noa ki Aorangi, tae noa mai ki ngā pā i Ōākura, tae noa ki ngā pā i Whenuariki, tae noa ki ngā pā i Tīmaru, tae noa ki ngā pā i Pito-one, tae noa ki ngā pā i roto i Katikara, tae noa ki ngā pā i Mangaone, tae noa ki ngā pā i Kaihihi, tae noa ki ngā pā i Hangatahua, tae noa ki ngā pā i Wherekino, tae noa ki ngā pā i Waitapuae, tae noa ki ngā pā i Matanehunehu. Ka mutu i Waiwherenui te tūtū a Ueroa. Ka heke katoa ngā pā katoa o ēnei muriwai i runga i te reo o tō rātou kuini, ki te uhunga hoki ki a ia.89 Ueroa slashed her body and let the blood flow. Her voice reached the chiefs of all the forts of her people of Taranaki, starting from Ngāturi [and going all the way] on to Te Ngāhoro, on to Ōmata, on to Aorangi, on to the forts here at Ōākura, on to the forts at Whenuariki, on to the forts at Tīmaru, on to the forts at Pito-one, on to the forts within Katikara, on to the forts at Mangaone, on to the forts at Kaihihi, on to the forts at Hangatahua, on to the forts at Wherekino, on to the forts at Waitapuae, on to the forts at Matanehunehu. Ueroa’s summoning ended at Waiwherenui. And all from all the forts in these areas came down at the voice of their queen, to lament for her.

The image of the bloodied, distressed Ueroa is raw. Her anguish reached (‘pā’ can also mean ‘affect’) the chiefs of her people throughout Taranaki. Again repetition works its point and effect. The recurring, rhythmic ‘tae 73

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noa ki’ draws out the impressive size of the territory over which Ueroa had influence; and the constant ring of ‘ngā pā’ advises the strength of a people who have so many fortified villages. The list ends with the habitual closing phrase ‘Ka mutu . . . ’ . This is a simply structured list that yet affirms the loyalty of all those people to this highly respected woman (named ‘queen’ in a nicely pointed modernism), who would come at her word to grieve with her and, moreover, act in reply to the killing of her husband. Her ‘reo’ (voice) achieved this, as would have been expected in the oral society, in which voice and words were potent. The traditional compositions have a memorable way of combining the pragmatic with the deeply emotional – even in a list. A list could work like a map in the mind but it could also make history, in the sense of carrying underlying narratives associating people with places. Te Ao produced such a catalogue for Shortland, as in this section: Ko ngā tino rangatira o Te Arawa i heke mai i Hawaiki ki tēnei motu, ki Aotearoa, koia ēnei: ko Tia, ko Maka, ko Oro, ko Ngātoroirangi, ko Marupunganui, ko Ika, ko Whaoa, ko Tamatekapua, ko Hei. Ko Tia ka haere, noho atu kei Tītīraupenga, kei Taupō. Ko Maka ka haere ki Tītīraupenga. Ko Oro ka haere ki Taupō, ki Whanganui atu. Ko Ngātoroirangi ka haere ki Taupō, mate atu ki Ruapehu. Ko Marupunganui ka haere ki Rotorua, mate ai. Ko Ika ka haere ki Whanganui, mate ai. Ko Whaoa ka haere ki Paeroa. Ko Tamatekapua ka haere ki Moehau. Ko Hei ka haere ki Whitianga, kei Ō-a-Hei e tanu ana, kei waho, kei te rae.90 The high chiefs of Te Arawa who migrated from Hawaiki to this land, to Aotearoa, were these: Tia, Maka, Oro, Ngātoroirangi, Marupunganui, Ika, Whaoa, Tamatekapua, Hei. Tia went and lived away at Tītīraupenga, at Taupō. Maka went to Tītīraupenga. Oro went to Taupō [and] on to Whanganui. Ngātoroirangi went to Taupō, died at Ruapehu. Marupunganui went to Rotorua and died there. Ika went to Whanganui and died there. Whaoa went to Paeroa. Tamatekapua went to Moehau. Hei went to Whitianga, lies buried at Ō-a-Hei, on the coast, on the headland.

Two lists make up the record. One is simply of names, each prefaced by the purposely named ‘focus particle’ ‘ko’, which draws attention to these Te Arawa founding ancestors from Hawaiki, who are storied in their oral 74

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tradition. The other recalls their travelling about (in the repeated ‘ka haere’) and where they settled, in some cases too where they died. They keep alive the names of these high chiefs and the places associated with them. With each restatement, in lists or other genres, those names, and so the tribal history, were kept in minds. The outer rim of a tribal domain as well as sections, places and people within it were logged by list in the oral tradition. This kind of recording was essential to a kin group; putting it in words asserted right and command over the landscape, and lauded the tribe’s activities and accomplishments there, which were to be preserved for the benefit and enjoyment of future generations. It was also vital to know what land had to be protected and who would defend it. War and Transgressions In a letter to Sir George Grey in 1851, Ngāti Toa chiefs spelled out their reason for having the mana or right over some lands. The piece tells of Te Rauparaha and his war-party, with Ngāpuhi allies, on a journey down the island and across to Te Waipounamu, which was famed for its highly valued pounamu or greenstone. This excerpt shows how they catalogued the route and the battles that were to give them prominence: Ka haere mai, ka tae mai ki Taranaki. Ko Te Kerikeringa he pā horo, e toru rau ki te moenga. Haere mai Whanganui, kotahi rau ki roto o Purua i mate. Haere mai Rangitīkei, he parekura, kotahi rau ki te moenga. Ko Te Aokehu, ko Te Kōtiri-o-te-rangi, ko Rutea ngā rangatira o Rangitīkei i mate. Manawatū, ko Te Nāwaki-o-te-rangi ka mau, whakaorangia ake hei no [noho ki] Manawatū. Pukerua, he pā horo, takoto iho hokowhitu. Te Ariuru, he pā horo, kotahi rau ki te moenga.91 [They] came on [and] reached Taranaki. Te Kerikeringa was a fort taken, three hundred to the sleep of death. Coming on, Whanganui, one hundred died within Purua. Coming on, Rangitīkei, a great battle, one hundred to the sleep of death. Te Aokehu, Te Kōtiri-o-te-rangi [and] Rutea were the chiefs of Rangitīkei who died. [At] Manawatū, Te Nāwaki-o-te-rangi was captured but was saved from death and would live at Manawatū. Pukerua, a fort taken, a large war-party [lit. ‘one hundred and forty’] lay dead. Te Ariuru, a fort taken, one hundred to the sleep of death.

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And so it goes on throughout the letter in its abrupt but somewhat triumphant way as a chronicle by list of the warring journey, with occasional detail. There are few words, just sufficient to confirm victory: the named forts taken, the numbers dead, with a break in the pattern to identify some because they were chiefs; in sum a tale and record of mighty warriors. As well as catalogues of battles, there are lists of ‘kōhuru’, of murder or acts that were culturally defined as treacherous; and these are indicative of the Māori ancestors’ belief in the need for there to be payment (utu) for grievous injustice and requital (ea). There is an example in Richard Taylor’s papers, which was written by Hoani Wiremu Hīpango.92 An influential Whanganui leader from the 1840s to 1860s, he went with Taylor to England in 1855 (and wrote accounts of his voyage to and time there) and also provided him with traditions.93 His list starts in Hawaiki: ‘[Ko] te tīmatanga o te kōhuru tuatahi ki Hawaiki nā Whirotupua . . .’ (The first act of treachery began in Hawaiki with Whirotupua . . .). Whiro, personification of evil, was the originator of murder and other behaviours regarded as offensive and unjust.94 Record of those acting as he did follows, in spare statements one after the other, such as these: ‘Ko Ngārangikarutua, nā Waitōtara i kōhuru, nō Wanganui. Ka patua ko Te Rangi-o-marere me te wahine hei utu’ (Ngārangikarutua, Waitōtara murdered, from Wanganui. Te Rangi-o-marere and wife were killed in reply.) The long list focusses on names of individuals, tribes and places, at times referring to reasons for action taken and replies made; and lines section off some statements to show their connections. Hīpango explained the keeping of such records when he wrote, ‘he kōhuru anake te take kino, hei ngau i roto i te ngākau o te tangata’ (death by treachery [or, heinous offence] alone is the grievous wrong that gnaws at the heart of a person) and added that payment would be sought even if after generations.95 Buildings and Resources Forts, houses (particularly whare wānanga), gardens and trees in the tribal domain were made familiar with names, and these can be found in lists, sometimes in association with those who owned them.96 Storehouses, which were a sign of much admired good providers, were also subject of lists, as in this example:

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Whakapapa Ko ngā ingoa o ngā whata e tika ana mātou ki te tapa. 1. Ko Te Wahinerueke. Nā Ueroa tēnei whata, kei Awhituri tēnei whata, kei Pito-one, ki te taha moana te tūnga o tēnei whata. Ko Tātaraimaka te pā, ko Pukehou te kāinga o Ueroa. 2. Taniwha, Pukuroa, he whare nō Tamaraupango rāua ko tōna taina, ko Tongawhakaruru. Kei te Raiti Hauta i Kapoaiaia te tūnga o tēnei whare. Ko te tapanga tuarua nā Te Kaea. He whata i tū ki Paoa pā, ki te marae, ki Tukuapunga; nā Pororaiti anō i hanga taua whata.97 The names of the storehouses that we may cite. 1. Te Wahinerueke. This storehouse belonged to Ueroa; this storehouse was at Awhituri, at Pito-one, this storehouse stood beside the sea. Tātaraimaka was the fort [and] Pukehou the home of Ueroa. 2. Taniwha [also named] Pukuroa, was a house belonging to Tamaraupango and his younger brother, Tongawhakaruru. This house stood where the lighthouse is at Kapoaiaia. The second name was from Te Kaea. And there was a storehouse that stood at Paoa fort, at the marae, at Tukuapunga; Pororaiti himself built that storehouse.

In the writing, figures mark the numbers rather than the words of a recitation; and the piece is also contemporary in locating one storehouse by reference to a lighthouse. Adding new information to the old, revision to suit the setting, was usual for the oral composers; it was also a way of retaining a link between past and present. And what was added became part of the tradition to be passed on. Nineteenth-century Māori upheld this habit in their writing, including new words, phrases, events and ideas in their compositions. This example otherwise follows a common pattern of names and short explanatory detail; a personal aside too such as here about Taurua Pororaiti Minarapa is not uncommon and in this case it fittingly links with genealogy that follows and goes down to Te Kāhui Kararehe. A remarkably long and detailed list of sites is to be found in a notebook, dated 1880 and said to have belonged to Hoani (John) Kāhu of Ngāi Tahu. The manuscript contains very many pages of lists that enumerate, or link, people, places, tribes, resources and boundaries; it is an expansive example of the densely labelled, intimately known tribal landscapes of old. In one section the writer began with the names of ancestors who lived on the land, Kaiapoi, and then added, ‘Te take o te whenua, ko te whenua i nōhia ai e rātou’ (The right to the land was that it was land they occupied). Then the basis to the right was explained by itemising, by name, the places of their 77

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occupation and, in particular, by giving evidence that they had worked the land for food. Following each place-name were phrases of these kinds to describe the resources: ‘he kāika nohoanga, mahinga kai’ (a settlement lived in and source of food); ‘he rauiri, he pā tuna, he awa’ (a weir, an eel weir, a river); ‘he mahinga kai, ōna kai he tuna’ (a source of food, its produce eels); ‘he awa mahinga kai, ōna kai he tuna, he kōkopu, he kōura’ (a river, source of food, its produce, eels, kōkopu fish, crayfish); ‘he pākihi mahinga kai, ōna kai he kāuru, he koutu aruhe’ (open country, source of food, its produce kāuru [cabbage tree] stems, fernroot patches).98

As the list goes on, specifying more and more place-names and sources of food, and enumerating many signs of life on the land, an active occupation is made evident. And the list documents for a later time what foods Māori ate and the extensive nature of the resources and cultivations in their localities – and their skills in harvesting them, which were helped by other lists, such as maramataka or calendars that itemised the moons and appropriate times for fishing or planting.99 The list in Kāhu’s notebook also includes some references to sacred places, illustrating how sites were viewed in relation to their productive purposes, both secular and religious. The text is terse but it is patterned and, in recitation, rhythmic. In one sense it is very clear as a straightforward list and for the local people it would have brought those places and foods readily to mind; it is likely, however, that at least some of the place-names would also have prompted memories of certain ancestors’ achievements or historical incidents in those localities. The examples in this chapter of the list genre point to its definitive role in the records of tribal history and tradition and its rich significance as a corpus of cultural knowledge and history. It is unusual as readers to think of lists in this way but this genre exemplifies quite starkly that to find out about the old world of the Māori, it is instructive to understand the purposes and value of the different kinds of compositions in their inherited oral tradition.

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3. Proverbs and Historical Sayings Whakataukī

In Eruera Te Uremutu’s narrative about the voyage of the Te Arawa to Aotearoa, there is, as was described in Chapter 2, mention of a difference of opinion about the canoe on which Wakaotirangi came. He put his view in this way: Tēnei tētahi tautohetohe mō Wakaotirangi. Nā Waikato, nā Ngāti Raukawa, nā Ngāti Maru, nā Ngāti Maniapoto e kī ana nō runga i a Tainui tēnei wahine, a Wakaotirangi. E tohe ana a Te Arawa ko te wahine tērā a Tamatekapua, e mau nei tana pepeha mō te kai, mō te iti, mō te kore. He kī nui tēnei nā Te Arawa, ‘Ko te rokiroki a Wakaotirangi’, e mau nei tana pepeha. Tēnei kupu nō te tahuritanga o Te Arawa. Ka riro ngā kai i te wai, toe iho ko te rokiroki a Wakaotirangi. Ka mahia ki te wenua i Maketū, ko Parawai te māra i mahi[a] ai taua kete kūmara; e mau nei tāna mahi[nga] kai, kāore e nui, nō mua iho anō, tae iho ki ēnei rā.1 There is a dispute about Wakaotirangi. Waikato, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Maru [and] Ngāti Maniapoto say this woman Wakaotirangi was on board Tainui. Te Arawa contends that she was the wife of Tamatekapua [and] her saying remains now in relation to food, to a little or lack of it. This is an important saying of Te Arawa’s, ‘What Wakaotirangi secured’ [and] her saying remains now. This statement comes from when the Te Arawa was swamped; foods were carried away by the water [and] all that remained was what Wakaotirangi had secured [in her kit]. That was planted in the land at Maketū, Parawai being the

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mĀori oral tradition garden where the kūmara [sweet potato] of that kit were planted; her cultivation remains now, it is not large but is from very long ago down to this day.

The saying that Te Uremutu used, and on which he focussed his assertion that Wakaotirangi was on board the Te Arawa canoe, is a good example of this genre of the oral tradition, which is often characterised by contested origin, form, meaning and versions. While the saying is impressively concise and memorable as a simple statement – ‘Ko te rokiroki a Wakaotirangi’ – it encapsulates a lot. It is a tribal saying, as is evident from the name and its underlying genealogy, as well as the story of the historical incident that accompanies it. As Te Uremutu made clear, it is ‘he kī nui tēnei nā Te Arawa’ (an important saying of Te Arawa’s), which gives them claim to this ancestress, a claim that he makes emphatically by his repetition of ‘e mau nei tana pepeha’ (and her saying remains now). In his use of ‘nei’ (now, at this time), he confirms its longevity and immediate, living relevance, which recalls H. W. Williams’s definition of this particle: ‘In animated narrative, suggesting that the speaker has the events he is telling pictured before him.’2 Used at other times this phrase could bring to mind the journey of the Te Arawa, the swamping of it at one point with the loss of food from its cargo, and the saving of the seed kūmara in Wakaotirangi’s kit, which she had sensibly tied up. Adding weight and continuity to the history, Te Uremutu told how the seed was planted at Maketū and that her cultivation remained ‘tae iho ki ēnei rā’ (down to this day). The words from the ancestors captured in the saying, the story and the name of the garden, as well as what they did, were thus kept alive within the very landscape. This saying is also typical of the genre in that it has variants – in wording, attribution and name – which, however, retain its core meaning. There are, for instance, ‘He rukuruku nā Whakaotirangi’ (Whakaotirangi’s bundle) and ‘Te pūtiki a Whakaotirangi’ (Whakaotirangi’s knot).3 While such details may vary, the story is the same or very similar, and involves the saving of the sacred and staple kūmara by a famous ancestress. When the story steps outside Te Arawa’s lineage, the words belong to the Tainui canoe, on which Whakaotirangi (wife of its captain, Hoturoa) kept her seed tied up in her basket while others ate theirs. On the Aotea canoe, it was Rongorongo who carefully guarded the vital tubers, as commemorated in ‘Te kete a Rongorongo’ (Rongorongo’s kit). Going beyond tribal histories, the saying became used generally: for instance, it might be used to advise the wisdom 80

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of acquiring or keeping even a small amount of food or to express regret at having only a little to offer.4 Within and across tribes, composers crafted their own stories, songs and sayings and in that respect they were individual, one tribal member’s version differing from another or a composer reshaping an earlier text for a new setting. But they shared a considerable amount, including the kinds of things that happened in the past, themes and ideals, scenes and character types, as well as compositional structure and forms of language, as the above examples testify.

Sayings in the Oral Tradition and Literature Sayings were valuable to the oral society. Like genealogies they were a vital way of memorising and transmitting knowledge and history, sharing with them a condensed expressiveness and a large sphere of reference. They were of great use to composers and orators, and they were admired. That may seem surprising because sayings are not highly regarded from a literary point of view;5 they invite collection rather than serious study. But sayings in the sense of proverbs, or wise and witty comments, comprise only a part of this capacious genre. These comparatively short texts served the purposes in the oral society of succinctly referring to guidelines for behaviour, religious and philosophical concepts, historic events, famed ancestors, and the characteristics of individuals, tribes and places; and so they are an archive of information about the old world.6 The Manuscript Record and Publication The nineteenth-century manuscripts establish the value of these words to the Māori ancestors. A great number were recorded contextually, within histories or songs.7 Māori also turned to them to verify, explain or summarise when talking or writing about customs, rights or beliefs. In the extant stock of individuals’ manuscripts, it is common to find sayings jotted down here or there or in short or rather long lists. Te Rangikāheke, in his prolific writing of traditions for Sir George Grey from around 1849 to 1853 (estimated at over eight hundred pages), made a list of some two hundred sayings and incorporated many others in his texts about history and traditions.8 In 1849 Jowett of Ngāti Hauā in the Waikato 81

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wrote ‘from the dictation of Te Paki’, a high chief of Waikato, some forty-five such sayings with explanations as to meaning and use.9 In one of the thirty exercise books that, from the 1880s to the turn of the century, Hāmiora Pio of Ngāti Awa filled with traditions, he compiled under the title ‘Whakataukī nō mua’ (Sayings of old) a list of one-hundred-and-sixty-two and there are more in his other notebooks.10 Grey drew from Te Rangikāheke’s list for his book of around five hundred texts, Ko nga Whakapepeha me nga Whakaahuareka a nga Tipuna o Aotea-roa (‘Proverbial and Popular Sayings of the Ancestors of the New Zealand Race’, 1857), in which he also published most of Jowett and Te Paki’s list. Like other nineteenth-century collectors, he gathered sayings from the writings and memories of Māori colleagues or from what he heard in daily use and speeches; and he felt the need to study them to further his understanding of the language and culture. Taylor prefaced his compilation with the statement that: ‘Proverbs are the most highly esteemed; they are extremely numerous, and are used on all occasions.’ The extensive subject matter, fine language, and astute and compelling use of this genre were also admired. Shortland spoke of sayings as ‘witty and elegant’ and of their practical effect, in oratory and everyday speech, in inciting people to action or moral conduct. Colenso referred to them as ‘of a high class of thought’ and testified to their power of persuasion.11 The nineteenth-century (and later) record of sayings, and the extraordinary scope and richness of them, are superbly illustrated in Ngā Pēpeha a ngā Tīpuna (‘The Sayings of the Ancestors’, 2001), compiled by Hirini Moko Mead and Neil Grove. Reading the 2,669 texts and explanations (and this is not an exhaustive list) also confirms that this was a genre of great significance to the ancestors.12 Māori in the nineteenth century obviously appreciated their inheritance of sayings, not least because they continued the habit of coining them in response to new experiences: European customs, the law, Christianity and their own syncretic, prophetic movements.13 Given the careful recording in writing, they wanted them, old and new, remembered, for which they also used print. There are plenty to be found in Māori-language newspapers published from the 1840s to 1930s, in letters, articles, traditions and lists that Māori contributed. The respect of the ancestors for these gems was surely no different from that expressed by their descendants. Writing to Āpirana Ngata in 1929, Peter Buck (Te Rangihīroa) commented (proverbially) of the traditions he was collecting: ‘By the time that you finish off whakatauki you 82

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will more than touch the hem of skirts of the prophets.’ And Rēweti Kōhere wrote of the sayings in his small book that if the young could memorise a quarter of them, they would be considered ‘cultured men and women’.14 Ancestral Wisdom Two reasons might be given as to why sayings were so admired and effective, reasons which epitomise the old world and something of this genre (and, indeed, all the genres). One is that Māori respected them as tradition, as the words of the ancestors, ngā kōrero tuku iho a ngā tūpuna. Prefacing a statement with the phrases ‘E ai ki te kōrero . . .’ or ‘E ai ki ngā tūpuna . . .’ (According to what is told [to tradition] . . . According to the ancestors . . .) asserted that it was well-grounded as inherited advice or information. Sayings themselves make the point, as in ‘Kia mau ki te kupu a tōu matua’ (Hold to the word of your elder) and ‘Kia heke iho i ngā tūpuna, kātahi ka tika’ (If it comes down from the ancestors, then it is valid); these also embody the well-attested notions of words connecting the living and the dead and of the past as immanent in the present. In this respect too the view that obtained in the old world was no doubt the same that prompted Kōhere to write in the new: ‘Ma nga whakatauki ka mārama he iwi mātau o tātou tīpuna. Ko te whakatauki he whakapuaki ana i te whakaaro’ (The sayings make clear that our ancestors were a knowledgeable people. Sayings reveal their thinking).15 Because of this respect for tradition, and the clever contextual use and adaptation of them, repetition of these texts (what those versed in literature might regard as ‘tedious’ or ‘the same old saying’) was enjoyed; and, as Orbell put it, ‘brought with it the certainties of the past’.16 It also ensured their survival. The second reason that this genre was revered is that it contains quotations derived from narratives and songs that evoke the experiences and events in the days of the ancestors – and the very words they spoke. Sayings can make a history in miniature. Major figures or events in a tribe’s history can be identified by selecting a number in a genealogical (or chronological) line; in that way they were advantageous to memorising. But their role is much broader. They augment genealogies and can be a composite part of or quoted in narratives, which in turn can be reason for or explain the origin of them.17 Composers of songs drew on sayings and song lines became proverbial. As Ngata found in his collecting of traditions, ‘The “whakatauki” studies react on the song annotations.’18 And his ‘react’ is right, because 83

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whether incorporated in or related to songs or histories, or used in daily talk or oratory, they activate or trigger meaning and a range of associations. Kinds of Sayings There are several words in Māori for ‘saying’. The one I chose as title to this chapter is the most common. In combining ‘whakatau’, ‘cause to come to rest’,19 with ‘kī’, ‘say, tell’, it has the meaning of a previous statement (spoken, although it may be used in song) that is intentionally recalled. There are other words too; in the manuscript record the most frequent are ‘whakataukī’, ‘kupu’, ‘kī’, ‘kōrero’ and ‘pepeha’ (which in modern usage very often refers to a tribal saying). As in English, which has ‘proverb’, ‘aphorism’, ‘adage’ and ‘maxim’, there is no clearly definable difference between them.20 To reflect on the lack of definitions for this and the other oral genres, consider that there were no dictionaries in the oral society. Answers to questions were sought from a person (not a book) who explained by example. And, apart from the words themselves, there was no specific, well-defined terminology or discourse about the genres. Definitions in an oral society related to function; there was a shared understanding as to different genres, a ‘patterned expectancy’, and the situation defined the applicable term.21 This explains why, for example, a text referred to as a whakataukī in one setting (quoted in a narrative) may be called a tauparapara in another (performed as a chanted introduction to a speech).22 The form of sayings is similarly indeterminate, although there are some typical styles and patterned phrasing. Under the label of whakataukī, there may be a concise phrase, a single statement, a short passage, a brief conversation. Apart from proverbs, epithets, mottos and slogans that arise from pithy comment or observation, there are instructions, intentions, greetings and farewells, predictions and challenges. There are also exchanges between individuals, abbreviated forms of tribal boundaries, as well as quotations from, or summary beginnings and endings to, songs and narratives. Form has to do with function here as well. The variety of form is perhaps explained by the diverse origins and uses of sayings and their links with other genres. Some are self-sufficient in meaning but many can only be understood from a larger context: knowledge of the environment, cultural conventions or morality, or the delivery of a song, narrative, genealogy or occasion in history. Grey recognised this when he wrote in the Preface to his collection about the 84

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difficulty of translating the sayings ‘from their containing so many local or personal allusions, and from their often involving some anecdote or fable, a knowledge of which is necessary to a full understanding of the proverb, which, perhaps, consists of a single sentence extracted from such an anecdote or fable, to which, by a rapid allusion, it is supposed to refer the mind of the hearer’.23 The minds of the listeners in the oral society were attuned to those ‘rapid allusions’. Although it is only possible to speak in general terms about the form and function of sayings, it is not difficult to recognise them. In written form, lists make them self-evident, and when incorporated in or taken from another genre, quotation marks will indicate them. However, in the manuscript narratives, where there may be no or only erratic or idiosyncratic punctuation, it is almost always clear when one is used. The form of the text and the context can make them apparent (and this is how they must have been recognised in the old world), but introductory phrases of this kind also announce them: ‘Nō reira te kupu . . .’ (And so there is the saying), ‘Koia nei te pepeha . . .’ (This is the saying . . .), ‘Kātahi ka whakataukī a Mea . . .’ (Then So-and-so coined, or used, the saying . . .).24 A similar preface occurs occasionally in songs but usually a listener must know the wording;25 frequent quotation of the sayings would have helped make that possible. Language Concision and an economy of words freighted with meaning are essential to the language of sayings. As Arapeta Awatere and Koro Dewes put it: ‘He aha te whakataukī? He kupu kōrero i kōpakina ai he tikanga whānui ki ngā kupu ruarua’ (What is a whakataukī? A statement in which a breadth of meaning is encompassed in a few words).26 Brevity, a feature of both the form and conceptual ideas expressed in sayings, will be a familiar refrain in my description of the oral tradition. But in this genre it is especially striking. Referring to the oral literature of the African Bantu people, a scholar wrote of ‘The crabbed allusiveness and sophisticated calm’ of the proverb;27 and this is consonant with Māori sayings too. Restraint in the use of words was a necessary habit of composers in the oral society. A semantically dense text of few words served them well; they could tease out meanings or associations from it, and, if necessary, change one or more of the words to suit. Sparsely worded and pointed sayings might test the listener but they could also have great impact with their messages. 85

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Some sayings are plain in language and meaning, and yet effective and enduring. But very many are poetic, using devices already mentioned as common to the tradition: balance, rhythm and alliteration, and the figurative language of metaphors, similes and symbolic reference. There is also clever use of symmetry (of idea and form) and contrastive opposites.28 Poetry gave to sayings what it gave to all the oral genres, beauty and profoundness, and also an oblique, at times cryptic, nature, an indirect speech that was much admired. When Ngata referred to the effectiveness of a colleague, Māui Pōmare, as a speaker who ‘talked in parables, indulged in “whakatauki”and so on, because probably greater definiteness would have disappointed his people’, he spoke of a traditional preference and practice.29 Formulaic Usage and Variants Sayings were tenacious in the oral tradition because they were short, highly informative, expressive and memorable. The range of styles, diverse content and subtle forms made them readily citable in songs, narratives (whether to describe, summarise, conclude or emphasise) and, as already remarked, in genealogies. Many, too, were a composite part of texts. In this pragmatic respect, and in their brevity, the sayings are closely akin to the formulaic or repeated phrases and statements that characterise the tradition, examples of which were noted in genealogies and will be found in narratives and songs. As Edwards and Sienkewicz observed: ‘In traditional language, it is sometimes difficult to separate the formula from the proverb.’30 Reference has already been made to the formulaic nature of oral traditions in Chapter 1, but since it fits typologically here, a further comment on this might be useful. Ong, in his examination of the nature of oral traditions, made the point that thought itself in primary oral cultures was mnemonic and formulaic: ‘The more sophisticated orally patterned thought is’, he wrote, ‘the more it is likely to be marked by set expressions skillfully used.’31 His contention is consistent with the many ways in which sayings are put to work in Māori oral tradition – and with the central place of the formulaic in all the genres. Indeed, this genre has its own expressions that begin in the same way or reproduce certain phrases or images, such as ‘Ka mahi . . . ’ (Well done . . .), or ‘Te uri o . . . ’ (The descendants of . . .), or ‘Ngāti Mea . . . kōwhao/tangata/taniwha rau’ (Ngāti So-and-so of a hundred holes/ people/supernatural creatures).32 Coupled with this kind of repetition in the oral tradition was the licence 86

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to adapt a text to fit the circumstances of its use. The beauty of a saying lies in its variability, in the ingenious changes that a composer or orator can make to its form and meaning; even a small shift to meaning or of word can surprise or inform while at the same time respecting the essential message. Different versions of Māori sayings are usual. And variation applies not only in regard to the text itself but also to claims to its origin or the person said to have coined it or an individual’s or tribe’s explanation of its meaning. Subject Matter It is interesting to speculate about how Māori memorised their sayings in the oral society – and recalled them when writing them down. Looking at Te Rangikāheke’s and Pio’s lists, it seems that they wrote them as they came to mind, mixing different kinds and content. If they had been asked for sayings about chiefs or canoes or tribes, they might have listed them by subject, as was the practice in published anthologies. The subject matter of this genre is enormous. Sayings may be about a particular person or place or occasion or about themes and topics like bravery in war, hospitality or good behaviour. They include matters that are personal and impersonal, tribal and social, sacred and secular; they speak of the present and also reach back to the mythological and historical. But the subject matter is beguiling because the potential for meaning in them is great; the topic or implication of one may seem quite clear in one context but in another it may apply to something that is slightly or unexpectedly different. This was the magic of them for the oral composer. Despite variants of form and meaning, it is possible to categorise the sayings in a general way, and it is useful to do so here to give a sample of their kind and content from the vast number. I have chosen those that typify the sort of information they contain or suggest; that picture the life, habits and thinking of Māori in the old world; that exemplify some of the different forms they take; and that illustrate their contribution to the memorised recording of traditions.33 I have grouped these under three headings and a selection of subjects. The first are sayings that encapsulate proverbial wisdom, which is grounded in ancestral ways and is representative of the culture. The second set reflects the very ancient heritage: they speak of origins (of the world, the gods and humans), the Hawaiki homeland, and the setting out of the canoes of migration. The third group speaks for tribes. These are exclusive 87

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(or relatively so) to genealogical and geographic domains; they originate within tribes and are regarded as their own. However, there is no clear division between these three groups, and indeed they often overlap. As the example at the beginning of this chapter demonstrates, the same text can be found in different tribal traditions with a change of name or wording, and what was once a tribal saying, with a well-recorded origin, can become common property when the message appeals and is used widely.

Proverbial Wisdom Proverbs in Māori oral tradition are concerned with a timeless world, the lived environment, and social and cultural precepts. They acknowledge tradition in its widest sense;34 and many are probably very old. Te Raumoa Balneavis, of Ngāi Tāmanuhiri and Te Whakatōhea, wrote of a list compiled by H. W. Williams (1908), which he republished in the journal Te Wananga in 1930: Ko te ahua ia o etahi o nga whakatauki nei, he taonga i mauria haeretia mai e nga tipuna o te iwi Maori i nga motu o Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa: he taonga kua rato ki nga iwi katoa, a kua waiho hei whakareka korero ki nga marae maha, hei kupu whakarite ranei i nga taumata whakatakoto korero.35 It is the case with some of these sayings that they are gems brought on here by the ancestors of the Māori people from the islands of The Great-Ocean-of-Kiwa [Pacific Ocean]; gems which have been disseminated through all the tribes and which have remained to enhance speeches on many marae or as metaphors used by distinguished speakers.

Compared with the sayings about history in the next sections, these are impersonal, for over a long period of time the reasons for or authors of them have been lost. Some, however, although widely used, may be said to derive from tribal histories, and tribes may claim, or dispute, authorship of them, as Balneavis surmised in seeking information about the list: ‘Tera e totohe nga iwi ki nga putake o etahi o nga whakatauki’ (Perhaps tribes will argue over the origins of some of the sayings). Giving the example of a saying which is attributed to two tribal traditions, he wrote, ‘tera e 88

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ki tena iwi na tona tipuna, e ki tetahi atu iwi na tona tipuna’ (perhaps one tribe will say it is by their ancestor and another tribe say it is by their ancestor).36 The primary purposes of these texts were didactic. The messages in them carry ideals and concepts perpetuated in mythological and religious traditions; they advise about morals and standards of behaviour, caution or warn, make wry comment on human nature, and prompt thought. Many are appealing observations that might inspire or encourage action or reflection, or simply compliment a person. Despite their brevity, they usefully contribute to a picture of how Māori in the old world lived and worked and what they thought.37 They also give some idea of what was acceptable and unacceptable, but only some idea, because the advice in them is reflective, not definitive; and although they are finely cloaked in the culture, they also wear the human condition – full of contradictions and inconsistencies. Words Proverbs capture the keen attention paid to words in the oral society. For example, there is disapproval of failing to uphold one’s word in this plain statement: ‘Ngā kōrero o ērā rangi, mahue noa ake’ (The statements of past days, simply abandoned). And the annoyance and potential damage of chatter, like incessant rain, is intimated in the parallel and contrasted phrases of: ‘He pata ua ki runga, he ngutu tangata ki raro’ (Rain dripping above, gossip of people below).38 But a well-phrased saying that really captures the influence of words is one that Te Paki explained: Mō te tangata e mea ana ki tōna kāinga, ka noho te heke ki tōna kāinga, ka amuamutia e te tangata whenua, ka whakamā ki taua kupu: ‘He tao kī hoki e kore e taea te karo, he tao rākau ka taea anō te karo.’ He mea whakamā whakaharahara taua kupu, te tao kī, arā, he amuamu taua tao.39 [This] is in relation to a man who suggesting to his village that a migrating party stay at their settlement is grumbled at by the local people and is ashamed on account of the saying: ‘A spear of words indeed cannot be parried, but a spear of wood can certainly be parried.’ That phrase, the spear of words, was extraordinarily shaming, that is, grumbling was that spear.

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Repetition, alliteration and contrast drum home the message. As  the man knew and the saying reminded, the voiced annoyance of the people mattered very much. Te Paki pictured a domestic setting but the imagery is also illustrative of a society practised at war. Another version represents that in equally well-balanced, contrastive phrases: ‘He tao rākau e karohia atu, ka hemo; te tao kī, werohia mai, tū tonu’ (A shaft of wood can be parried and miss; the shaft of words thrown at you, strikes and stays). The thrust and parry of fighting with spears is conjured up in these words and phrases (which also appear in narrative accounts of fighting), including the ‘tū’, which has another meaning of ‘to wound’ physically – and emotionally as these formulaic phrases in song attest.40 The saying points to a significant association between words and war, which is manifest in many situations. The marae ātea or open space in the village where speeches were made was considered the realm of the god of war, Tūmatauenga, where fighting talk was acceptable. Powerful oratory drew tribes into taking part in war, insulting words began wars, and words exchanged between chiefs during war could exacerbate or bring an end to fighting. Moreover, the words of the ancestors left expectations in regard to war: as one nineteenth-century Ngāti Tautahi recorder claimed, his kinsman and renowned warrior of Ngāpuhi, Hongi Hika, was driven to wars to right past wrongs at the bequest of his elders: ‘kia mana ai te kī a era o ana tūpuna kua mate atu’ (‘to honour the words of his ancestors who had died’).41 War and Reprisal War and fighting, just causes for attack and reply, and transgressions and due punishment are the subjects of many oral compositions. Prefacing a study of early nineteenth-century Māori wars, which is well illustrated with quotation from traditions, Angela Ballara wrote: ‘. . . warfare was endemic in Māori society; it was an integral part of the Māori political system. . . . War was the ultimate sanction in resolving disputes.’42 This explains the considerable record of warfare, which makes for dramatic telling (or reading). The physical matter of fighting, the reasons, morals and rituals that underpinned it, and the heroic, ignoble or tragic roles of those who took part, are represented picturesquely and symbolically in sayings – and literally. In Hīpango’s manuscript list of kōhuru cited in Chapter 2, there is a passage in which reasons for killing in repayment for a wrong are summed 90

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up (and emphasised by repetition) in plainly instructive sayings that strongly advise against meanness, theft or dishonest use of possessions, of these kinds: Tētahi take, he tangata kaiponu, ka patua te tangata kaiponu, ko tōna whakataukī, ‘Tangata kaiponu, patua.’ Ko tētahi take, he tangata kaiā. Tēnei hoki tōna whakataukī, ‘Tangata kaiā, patua.’ .... He utu taonga tētahi, ka kawea kētia, ka patua. Koia anō hei utu mō tana kawenga kētanga. Tōna whakataukī, ‘He kaihau taonga, ka patua hei utu.’43 One reason is a man who keeps things for himself; the man who keeps things for himself will be killed, the saying for him being, ‘A man who keeps things for himself, kill him.’ Another reason is a thief. And this is the saying for him, ‘A man who is thief, kill him.’ .... Payment for goods is another, when someone takes them away without right, he will be killed. This is in payment for taking them away without right. The saying for him is, ‘A taker of goods will be killed in reply.’

Proverbial injunctions, which were surely popular in casual speech in the old world, also occur in histories. Mohi Te Ātahīkoia of Ngāti Kahungunu, prominent in tribal and political affairs from the 1870s to early twentieth century, was tutored in his traditions when young, going on to collect and record them in writing when he was older. This excerpt is from one long engagement in his tribal history. In  a scene preliminary to some fighting, a significant incident for the Ngāti Kahungunu ancestor and chief, Te Aukamiti, is captured in this way: Ka tata tō rātou ope ki tētahi o te pā, ka tūtuki te waewae o Te Aukamiti. Ka whakataukī iho, ‘E kore e hoki [i] te waewae tūtuki, kāpā [a]nō he upoko pakaru.’44 As their party approached one of the forts, Te Aukamiti struck his foot. He exclaimed with the proverb, ‘You should not go back because of striking a foot, but only for a broken head.’

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It was a brave statement but also rash, given that striking the foot was considered a bad omen, and in this case it was ominous. As the next sentence in another account told: ‘I pakaru tonu hoki te upoko i Matakakahi’ (His head was indeed broken at Matakākahi).45 The saying is very much part of this history, as two accounts by different narrators affirm, but it also bears a wider interpretation of not giving up in the face of small difficulties.46 Te Rangikāheke also drew on proverbial wisdom in his history of fighting between tribes of Rotorua and Waikato, when he commented on the war extending from inland to the coast: ‘Kei uta te kino, kei tai te utunga’ (Evil inland, replied to at the coast); and he followed the saying with similar phrases used in a tau or poetic chant.47 It was pertinent to those very wars but its sphere of reference is greater, for the oral narratives record that it was common for war in the old world to spread. A primary reason for that was the obligation to reply to injustices, to restore the balance between right and wrong, and fulfil the ideal of reciprocity – in belligerent or peaceful activities. The prevailing theme of ‘symmetry and complementarity’ in Māori life and tradition48 is neatly depicted in this saying by the balanced phrases in apposition, the implied restoration of stability in the words ‘kino’ and ‘utunga’– and by extension the complementary view of land and sea. Using a combination of the formulaic and proverbial in one historical narrative of Taranaki, a fight and its combatants are pictured in this way: Heoi anō, ka tūtataki ki te hoariri. Ka kawe, ka kawe, tētahi, tētahi. Koia tōna whakataukī: ‘He riri horahora, he tāne tētahi, he tāne tētahi, te kai a te tamaiti rangatira he pakanga.’49 Finally they met the enemy. [The fight] went on, went on, one against the other, one against the other. This is the saying for it: ‘Widespread fighting, man against man, man against man; the food of young chiefs is battle.’

The initial statement sets the scene of meeting the enemy. The  simple phrases that follow suffice to picture the nature of the fight and the repetitions advise that it was a long-drawn-out engagement. Then the composer, as if reciting although writing, reinforced the image in the minds of his listeners with proverbial phrases of ancestral wisdom highly acceptable to them. By this repetition – of words and image – memory of the event and future narration of it were served. The culminating phrase added a flourish; 92

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it was the relish (kīnaki), the satisfying reminder that war was the métier of young chiefs, which also proclaimed this a chiefly battle. Domesticity and the Natural Environment If there are plenty of sayings about war and fighting, there are equally a large number about peace and domesticity. A very attractive feature of many are metaphors that reflect nature and the environment and demonstrate how closely observant the Māori ancestors were of the physical world and its inhabitant kin. In a letter of farewell to Sir George Grey, prior to his leaving New Zealand in 1853, Ngāi Te Rangi of Tauranga, after their initial mihi or greeting, used their knowledge of the sea as point of comparison with Grey’s leaving: E hoa, tenei ano he kupu whakatauki mou: ‘Haere ana koe ko nga pipi o te aria; ka noho matou ko nga pipi o te whakatakere.’ He kupu whakarite tenei mou.50 Friend, this is another saying for you: ‘You are leaving as the pipi shellfish in the shallows, we remain as the pipi in the depths.’ This is a metaphor for you.

Once again, parallel phrases mark a contrast. Grey was to be moved away as the pipi are driven by the tides, into the unknown, while Ngāi Te Rangi were to remain in the still depths, safe at home. It acknowledged him and perhaps showed a concern for him. Orators and composers could make much of the interpretation of metaphorical proverbs, but other simple ones could be enjoyed in conversation. Take similes, as in comparisons that begin with ‘Me he . . .’ (Like . . .) or ‘Ānō . . . ’ (Just like . . .).51 Many are of great charm. An appetite for the sweet, praise of the pleasureable or (as used in song) tears from the eyes, could be suggested with ‘Me te wai kōrari’ (Like the nectar of the flax flower). A weaver of flax must have coined the tactile image in ‘Me he tapa harakeke’ (Like the edge of a flax blade) for a fine and smooth finish. And an artist’s work was obviously of superior quality if it deserved ‘Ānō me he whare pūngāwerewere’ (Just like a spider’s home).52 Such phrases might also be combined into more elaborate comparisons and deeper associations. Te Rangikāheke chose this striking set to depict the bold and handsome Māui-tikitiki-a-Taranga at the start of his attempt to gain immortality for humans: 93

mĀori oral tradition Ka tomo atu ki te whare, ka marere ngā kahu, ānō te kiri me te anuhe tawatawa, ngā mahi a te kauri, ngā uhi matarau a Uetonga. He entered the house, and shed his clothes. His skin had the markings of the mackerel, as it were, the work of kauri-soot, and the hundred-pointed tattooing-needle of Uetonga.53

The image was made more arresting by Te Rangikāheke’s sense of the dramatic in having Māui take off his clothes to reveal the tattoo. The comparisons superficially link to the traditional culture, when the ancestors knew the markings on the mackerel and used the soot of burnt kauri gum as ink for tattooing, which Uetonga was said to have discovered. Thornton, however, revealed that these comparisons dig deeper and link back to myths.54 Te Rangikāheke obviously liked the imagery (and so did song composers) for he used these phrases (and others relating to tattooing) in his story about the good-looking Tiki-tawhito-ariki.55 The built environment and personal possessions are also pictured in sayings. They are another repository of knowledge about how Māori viewed the natural world,56 and, very often by analogy, about how life was lived and what was of value. A fortified settlement on a hill, a place reserved on a summit where chiefs sat, the large house of a chief, and the idea of strength and nobility come to mind in ‘He taumata, he wharenui’ (A summit [and] a great house). The importance of the canoe – for fishing, fighting, escape and exploration – explains the miserable situation in ‘Kore te hoe, kore te tatā’ (No paddle, no bailer). A practical familiarity with and aesthetic appreciation of plants and trees underpins these three images: ‘Ko te upoko i takaia ki te akatea’ (A head bandaged with the akatea vine), for a wounded warrior who fought on; ‘Ko ngā rangatira a te tau tītoki’ (Chiefs of a tītoki season), referring to the rare occasions when the chiefly adornment of oil from the tītoki tree was abundant enough for anyone to use; and the lovely, lyrical, four-phrase endearment: ‘Taku hei piripiri, taku hei mokimoki, taku hei tāwhiri, taku kati taramea’ (‘My pendant of scented fern, my pendant of fragrant fern, my pendant of scented gum, my sachet of sweet-scented speargrass’), which also ornamented song and was chanted in rituals for the dead.57 The sun, moon, stars, rainbows, fish, dogs, insects, grubs and rats all appear in sayings. Birds, however, their habits, movements and signals, are 94

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a favourite (as they are in songs).58 A manuscript principally about birds, from around 1857 and possibly by a Ngāti Kahungunu writer because the first page is headed ‘Heretaunga’, includes examples such as these: He manu nui tēnei manu te moa, e ai tōna whakataukī, ‘He moa pea koe, ko te manu nāna i takahi te rātā’, waiho iho hei whakataukī mō te tangata kaha. .... He riroriro tēnei, he kaiārahi nō te tau, e ai tōna whakataukī, ‘Ka puta ngā karere a Mahuru’ . . . . he tohu raumati tēnei manu. Ka rongo ngā tāngata i taua manu e tangi ana, ka whakataukī ake, ‘Ka puta ngā karere a Mahuru.’ ‘Nā wai te karere?’ ‘Nā Mahuru te karere.’59 This bird, the moa, was a large bird, as in its saying, ‘You are perhaps a moa, the bird that trampled on the rātā tree’, which remains as a saying for a strong man. .... A grey warbler is a harbinger of the season, as in its saying, ‘The messengers of Mahuru appear’ . . . . this bird is a sign of summer. When people hear that bird singing, they quote the proverb, ‘The messengers of Mahuru appear.’ ‘Who is the messenger from?’ ‘The messenger is from Mahuru.’

A reminder of the great but extinct bird (also captured in ‘Ko te huna i te moa’ ‘Gone like the moa’), the first saying alludes to rātā saplings that could not grow straight if the mighty moa stood on them.60 In this explanation it is praise for a strong or determined man; alternatively, as a rhetorical question, it might suggest scepticism about strength. As the second saying tells, birds heralded the seasons. In explanation of it the writer observed a rule of oral recitation in repetition of words and phrases to lodge them in the memory, while also creating an appealing scene by imagining someone checking the sighting and its promise of the warmth to come. Land Knowledge passed on about the environment was necessary to the Māori ancestors’ survival in the old world. It was the land that provided: ‘Te toto o te tangata, he kai; te oranga o te tangata, he whenua’ (Food is for the blood of people, land is for the life of people).61 Traditional histories are very often about land acquired by discovery or 95

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inheritance or lost by conquest – or abandoned, ‘he whenua mahue’. Taonui wrote of this proverbial phrase, using it twice to give it weight: Ka moe te tangata, ka kite i a Tuputupuwhenua ka whakaputa i raro i te whenua, ka mea te tangata nāna te moe, ‘He whenua mahue’. Tōna tikanga o tēnei kupu, ‘he whenua mahue’, e mate katoa ngā tāngata i te patu, i te tūroro rānei.62 When a man dreams [and] sees Tuputupuwhenua emerging from under the ground, the man who had the dream will say, ‘Land will be abandoned’. His meaning in this saying, ‘land abandoned’, being that all the people would be killed by attack or by sickness.

Predictions, by dream or signs, were influential in the old society, the omen in this case being the loss of that essential possession and provider. Land deserted, ‘whenua mahue’, was cause for grief, as is evident in songs, some of which include this phrase or a variant of it. It might be assumed from one lament that the idea came from Hawaiki, where lands were abandoned when the inhabitants migrated (said variously to be because of fighting, family feuding or overpopulation): Waiho au i konei popoki noa iho ai, Ki Hawaiti-nui [sic], ki Hawaiki whenua mahue . . . Leaving me here with grief bowed down, At Great Hawaiki, Hawaiki land abandoned . . .63

Subsequent parallels in lands lost to war or misfortune in Aotearoa (or after colonisation) reflect that ancient experience. In another instance of repetition in the oral tradition, and of the symmetry or parallels in life, incidents of ancient history were retold and recreated in later narratives, songs and sayings, as in examples that follow.

Of Origins and Ancient Life In this category, subject matter and referents are the ancient history and beliefs that Māori shared but told in their own tribal or individual versions. 96

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A reflection of the world-view and founding principles of the culture, these sayings describe or allude to the remote time of the gods and cultural heroes, and are invested with the mythological, religious and fabulous. At the same time they look forward to those who left the homeland of Hawaiki to voyage to and settle in Aotearoa, where their lives and deeds were also depicted in sayings. Gods and the Godlike When Te Rangikāheke wrote accounts of the origin of the universe,64 he drew on time-honoured phrases that are both proverbial and genealogical in his narrative about the primal parents, Ranginui and Papatūānuku, and their offspring. He told how the children, confined between the bodies of their parents, sought the space and light they had glimpsed and desired for the growth of humanity (‘kia tupu ai te tangata’). This quest Te Rangikāheke summed up in: Koia ēnā kupu: ‘Te pō, te pō, te ao, te ao, te kimihanga, te hahaunga, i te kore, i te kore.’65 So there are those words: ‘The dark, the dark, the light, the light, the searching, the seeking, from the void, from the void.’

His phrasing was formulaic; he used another form of it in these excerpts from an earlier section of his writing entitled ‘Tūpuna’ (Ancestors), in which he gave a genealogy of the origin of the world: Ko te pō, Ko te pō . . . . Ko te kore, Ko te kore . . . . Ko te kimihanga tuatahi . . . . Ko te hahaunga tuatahi . . . .66 The dark, The dark . . . .

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mĀori oral tradition The void, The void . . . . The first searching . . . . The first seeking . . . .

As remarked in Chapter 2, these kinds of phrases were used to trace from a time of formless darkness to the first signs of growth and life and on to the space and light from which life came. The cosmological shift from the dark to the light is paralleled in the children’s searching for a way out of the blackness and their limited world; and Te Rangikāheke acknowledged and emphasised their long and arduous quest by his repetitions. The conceptual ideas in the foundational genealogies sound throughout the oral traditions in phrases such as those Te Rangikāheke used here. In different genres they brought back the same images of the emergence and development of life, but they also pressed forward into the present and, constantly recalled, acquired a great depth of resonance; an effect, to refer again to Foley, that comes from ‘the invoking of a context that is enormously larger and more echoic than the text or work itself, that brings the lifeblood of generations of poems and performance to the individual performance or text’.67 In Te Rangikāheke’s quotation of those easily remembered sayings and phrases, there was a return to the beginning of the physical world and also to the time when the possibility of a new life was divined by the children of Rangi and Papa, by those who came first to inhabit the cosmos. While the origin of the cosmos and the divine ancestors’ discoveries lie behind these kupu (words, sayings, formulae), in another context they can take on related implications and open up connections to ordinary life: to human curiosity, the seeking out and testing of new experiences of the world, moving from the unknown to the known, and the process of learning. The patterns or models of the mythological, both in the form and meaning of words, were played out through the tradition as a whole, the sayings being one way and one of the genres that recalled them. This kind of recollection by apposite repetition reveals how so much could be remembered. The separation of the parents by their children that ensued and brought light into their world is also captured by epithets or extensions to names (which are like sayings), for example, ‘Ranginui-e-tū-nei’ (Great sky 98

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standing [above]) and ‘Papa-tūā-nuku’ (Earth lying on the other side [below]). Naming, adding to names and renaming altogether, of people and places and tribes, was a common practice, and the results highly descriptive and evocative.68 In those two examples, as often, they work at two levels of meaning: the personification of the sky and the earth and the history of their separation. For a prominent figure, other sayings coalesce around the name. Consider ‘Ngā uaua o Papatūānuku’ (The sinews of Papatūānuku), which makes reference to creepers in forests and roots under the earth that give support and sustenance. It represents the strong and pervasive influence of Papa as the earth-mother (which gave reason for one use of it in a song).69 And, because it brought to mind the ancient stories of the primordial world as well as Papa’s importance to the present, the words were lasting. This was the great work of sayings in the tradition. One way to follow the lives of key figures in ancient times and to discover their roles and attributes, and by extension their stories, is by sayings. Take the gods in examples that Te Paki dictated: Mō te whare tēnei: ‘Ko Tāne pupuke’, ko ngā toetoe e uhia atu ana, me ngā raupō, me ngā pou, me ngā kaho. Mō te waka: ‘Ko Tāne horo’, mō ngā maramara e horo ana i te tārainga, otiia, ‘Ko Tāne pupuke’ anō hoki tētehi ingoa o te waka, mō ngā rauawa, mō ngā takā, e whakapiritia atu ana ki te waka.70 This is for a house: ‘Tāne heaped up’, [for] the toetoe stalks it is covered in and the raupō bulrushes and the poles and the battens. For a canoe: ‘Tāne in fragments’, for the chips that fall in the adzing of it, however, ‘Tāne heaped up’ is also an appellation for a canoe, for the sideboards [and] for the battens that are attached to the canoe.

These descriptions are reminders that everything used from Tāne’s forest domain was closely associated with him, not just the large house or canoe but also the materials that were acquired to construct them, and that when those products were used he was to be acknowledged with appropriate ritual. But other meanings can be read into these phrases, and there are many more sayings about Tāne himself.71 99

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Similarly numerous are characterisations of the god of war, Tūmatauenga (Tū of the fierce face). For example, ‘Mō te ata kurakura o Tūmatauenga, o Tūkariri’ (Fit for the glowing dawn of Tūmatauenga, of Tūkariri) gives another epithet for him, ‘Tū who angers [or, fights]’, and also advises that dawn, the time for attacking in wars, was a time of day sacred to him. In the red of ‘kura’, anger can be conjured up or the kōkōwai (red ochre) painted on a warrior’s face, the blood of battle, or the colour associated with the sacred and noble. About the past and Tū’s role, the saying was also for the future, when it was quoted at the birth of a son in the hope of a warrior for the tribe.72 Tū became the emblem of war because he raged against his brothers when they refused to join him in fighting Tāwhirimātea, their sibling master of wind and storms, who attacked Papa, their mother (the earth). As recounted in the Ngāti Porou manuscript of 1895, this was Tū’s response: Ka kite nei ia i te kaha kore[?] [o] ōna tuākana me ōna tāina, kātahi ka tahuri mai anō ia hei hoariri ki a rātou. Ka patua, ka mate, ka kainga. Koia te whakataukī mō te tangata i patua, ka mate, ‘Ko te ika a Tūmatauenga.’73 When he saw the cowardice of his elder and younger brothers, then he turned and once more became their enemy. They were attacked, killed [and] eaten [by him]. So there is the saying for a man who is attacked and dies, ‘The fish of Tūmatauenga.’

Tū is remembered by this phrase, or variants of it, in narrative and song, for instance, when a warrior is slain in battle or in the formulaic cry, ‘Kei au te mātāika’, ‘I have the first fish’, that is, ‘I have killed the first of the enemy.’74 It might be said that each generation in a genealogy has its range of sayings to epitomise the great. After the gods there are heroes who are revered because of their fabulous accomplishments or discoveries. ‘Ko Tāwhaki koe?’ (Are you Tāwhaki?) was asked of the presumptuous, who might have supposed they were capable of his extraordinary exploits of climbing to the heavens, returning to life from death and successfully avenging past wrongs.75 The celebrated Māui has words in plenty, and long-lasting ones, as one writer acknowledged at the end of his genealogy – at the same time using the long forms of Māui’s names to remind his audience of the circumstances in which his mother, Taranga, gave birth to him and his place in the 100

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family as the pōtiki or youngest : ‘ . . . ko Māui-tikitiki-o-Taranga, ko te teina, ko Māuipōtiki, e mau nei anō ngā whakataukī o taua tangata ināianei’ ( . . . then there was Māui formed in the topknot of Taranga, the younger brother, Māuipōtiki, and the sayings about that man are still retained today). In 1852 the great Ngāti Toa chief and warrior, Te  Rangihaeata, according to a note by Grey on the manuscript, recited traditions to his kinsman scribe, Hēnare Mātene Te Whiwhi, tribal leader of Ngāti Raukawa and Ngāti Toa; the result is a beautifully written manuscript of fine oral compositions. In telling about Māui, Te Rangihaeata chose a popular yet significant way to conclude an episode about his stealing and extinguishing all but one of the sources of fire held in Mahuika’s finger nails. He used a saying of a mere four words, which summed up and so preserved the story: ‘Nō konei i tika ai tōna whakataukī, “Ko Māui tineitinei ahi”’ (It is this that validates the saying for him, ‘Māui extinguisher of fire’).76 The numerous sayings about gods and godlike heroes suggest recognition of them in everyday life; and this too was why they were woven through the oral genres, quoted in different ways and contexts, to ensure that those powerful ancestors, and the words for them, were remembered. Origins of the Natural World The origins and natures of the elements, plants and creatures are also known from sayings. Te Ngārara was among those who gave traditions (in the early 1860s) to Shortland, reciting them to him: ‘Ko ēnei ngā kōrero nā Te Ngārara i puaki mai, he mea kōrero-ā-ngutu; nāku i tuhituhi’ (These are the traditions that Te Ngārara revealed to me, by word of mouth, and that I wrote down). He summed up this recitation of a genealogy for the sun and moon with a saying: Ka moe a Hāronga i a Tongotongo, ka puta ko Te Rā, ko Te Marama. Ka whakaaro a Hāronga kāhore he mārama mō tāna tamāhine, ka whakamoea a Te Kohu, ka whakamoea i a Te Ikaroa, ka puta ko ngā whetū hei mārama mō te tuahine o Te Rā, mō te whānau a Tongotongo, koia te whakataukī, ‘Ngā tokorua a Tongotongo’, ko Te Rā, ko Te Marama.77 Hāronga married Tongotongo [or Tongatonga], Te Rā [Sun] and Te Marama [Moon] came forth. When Hāronga perceived that there was no light for her daughter, Te Kohu [Mist] was married, married to Te Ikaroa [Milky Way] [and]

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mĀori oral tradition the stars came forth as light for the sister of Te Rā, for the family of Tongotongo, and so there is the saying, ‘The two of Tongotongo’, Te Rā [and] Te Marama.

Here again the short form of a saying connects with a genealogy, one that explains light and darkness, the sun and moon, and the light of the stars. In its form, the dualism – the two offspring Sun and Moon, the division into day and night, and the doubling in the name Tongotongo – effectively captures, even in so slight a phrase, the point of the story, one that was told by others in different versions and genres.78 The ancestry of creatures may be explained by sayings, which can also characterise them. As Te Ngārara (perhaps wryly thinking of his own name) also told Shortland: ‘ “Ko ngā aitanga-a-Punga”, ko te ngārara, ko te mangō, ko ērā atu mea kikino, ka waiho hei whakataukī’ (‘The progeny of Punga’, lizards, sharks and other ugly things, remains as a saying).79 This reminder of Punga the ancestor and his descendants could also be an unkind word for the unattractive. In a distinct style, termed either whakataukī or kōrero tara (fables), there are witty or wry exchanges between flora, fauna or celestial bodies, about their fates and uses. To take one from among a number that Taylor recorded: Whau. Hei kona koe, tu ai hei parepare. Aute. Haere koe ki te moana hei whau kupenga, ka mutu hei pouto kupenga.80 Whau. You remain here to be made into headbands. Aute. You go to the sea to be tied to nets and end up as floats.

The pretty, delicate aute bark was used decoratively and the light wood of the whau tree practically; and this is nicely and effectively counterpointed in the exchange. Hawaiki The fabled Polynesian homeland was a place of origins: ‘I  kune mai i Hawaiki, te kune kai, te kune tangata’ (It originated from Hawaiki, the origin of food, the origin of people). Its greatness and plenty are extolled in epithets such as ‘Ko Hawaiki kai’ (Food from Hawaiki).81 The sentiment of this saying is delightfully voiced in a comparison with Aotearoa’s plenty 102

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in this excerpt of the narrative that Te Ao gave to Shortland (referred to in Chapter 2). When Īhenga returned home from a journey of exploration, he brought prized foods (the listing here accentuating the bounty), which were laid out before his family. Tāwhaki, Īhenga’s cousin, asked his sister to bring some for him and his father, Kahumatamomoe: Ka tae ko te tūpē kiore, ko te tūpē kawau, ko te tapatahi inanga, me te tapatahi toitoi. Oti anō, ka whakatika atu a Tāwhaki rāua ko tōna pāpā ki tō rāua nohoanga kainga. Ka kai rāua, ka ngunguru, ‘E! E! He kai hua-rangi, he kai Aotearoa! Ko Hawaiki tonu tēnā kāinga, he kai rere noa mai!’82 [She] reached for the pot of rats, the pot of shags, the basket of whitebait and the basket of fish. And then Tāwhaki and his father got up and went to where they sat to eat. As they ate, they murmured, ‘Oh! Oh! Excellent food [lit. ‘fruit of heaven’], food of Aotearoa! The land is Hawaiki itself, with food just flowing in!’

Hawaiki is liminal in the tradition; it sits on the line between the romantic past and the actual present in Aotearoa. There are residues in sayings of leaving and returning to it. In Kawau’s recording of Turi’s migration, there is this saying (and the list form) to describe the canoe and its cargo: Ka rewa te waka, ka utaina mai te kūmara nei a te kakau, me te kiore, me te pūkeko me te karaka, te aha, te aha. Koia te whakataukī, ‘Aotea utanga nui’.83 The canoe was launched; loaded aboard were kūmara of the kakau [variety] and rats and pūkeko [birds] and karaka [seeds] and so on. And so there is the saying, ‘Aotea of the large cargo’.

First drawing out and emphasising the string of items by ‘and’ (‘me’), the list is then truncated by ‘te aha, te aha’ (and so on), which suggests some length if it had gone on and a large cargo, as does the saying in conclusion. There are other explanations as to the cargo and different renditions of what (and who) was on board; the saying remains as reminder and basis for them all.84 The ties with Hawaiki were preserved in the new country, firstly because there were some return journeys, and secondly because foods (and people) from ‘Hawaiki kai’ were planted there. One return was recorded by Merito Hetaraka, a Ngāti Awa chief, in a piece dated 1907 and entitled: ‘Te taenga 103

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tuatahi mai o te kūmara i Hawaiki ki Whakatāne’ (The first arrival of the kūmara from Hawaiki at Whakatāne). It is a version of the well-known story of Taukata and Hoake who, newly arrived from Hawaiki, gave Toi some of the kūmara they had brought with them. Finding it delicious, Toi set out to get some. Hetaraka’s version is attractively traditional in its style; and he chose to conclude it with a whakataukī: Ka oti te waka, kātahi ka hoe ki Hawaiki, ka ū. Na, ka riro mai te kūmara me te oneone anō i kapua mai i Hawaiki, ā, ka hoki mai te waka rā. Ka ū anō ki Whakatāne, na ka tiria ngā kūmara nei. Ko te ingoa o te waka i haere nei ki te tiki i te kūmara, ko Te Aratāwhao. Ko te ingoa o te māra i Whakatāne i whakatōkia ai ngā kūmara ko Matirarau. Mō reira hoki tēnei whakataukī mō te kai, ‘Te iti oneone i kapua mai i Hawaiki.’85 When the canoe was finished, then [they] voyaged to Hawaiki [and] landed. Now, [they] took the kūmara and also the soil scooped up from Hawaiki and, in due course, that canoe returned here. When it landed again at Whakatāne, then these kūmara were planted. The name of the canoe that went to fetch the kūmara was Te Aratāwhao. The name of the garden at Whakatāne where the kūmara were planted was Matirarau. From that there is this saying for food, ‘A little earth scooped up from Hawaiki.’

It is notable that, as late as it is, written in the early 1900s, all the hallmarks of the oral style remain in this piece:86 the series of statements beginning with ‘ka’ that run on one after the other, which are common to the narratives; and the repetition of key words and names – waka, Hawaiki, kūmara (the real focus of the episode) – and place-names that connect the tradition to a tribe. And then, as a neat conclusion, the whole, for future reference, inherent in the tightly worded, rhythmic saying that connects food back to its original home and earth. The imagery finds parallels in other histories, in which ancestors traversing new lands scoop up the soil and smell it to determine its richness, with the intention of living there and cultivating in emulation of ‘Hawaiki kai’.87 Although it could be applied more generally, this version yields most interest in Hetaraka’s narrative context, and this is very much the case for sayings about the early history of Aotearoa.

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Of Tribes in Aotearoa Despite variability in form and origin, it is reasonable to speak of a class of tribal sayings. Shortland referred to mottos depicting the attributes of tribes (as did Taylor) and commented that the authenticity of tribal accounts was increased by description of the origins of proverbs, and that those particular to a tribe were not understood by others without explanation.88 Balneavis wrote of the older collection he re-published: Ko etahi o nga whakatauki ka taea te here e nga ingoa tangata, e nga ingoa kainga ranei ki te iwi ano nana te whakatauki . . . . Otira ko nga whakatauki pera, e pungaia nei e nga ingoa kainga, ingoa tangata ranei ki runga ki tena iwi, ki tena iwi kaore e marama i nga iwi o waho mai i nga iwi nona nga tipuna poka-ki ra. Me ata whakataki ano tona korero o tena tangata, o tena kainga ranei, o tena parekura ranei e marama ai.89 Some of the sayings can be tied down by the names of people or by the names of places to the very tribe whose saying it is . . . . However, the sayings like those, which are anchored by the names of places or names of people to this tribe or that tribe, will not be understood by tribes outside of those tribes whose ancestors are recorded there. The story about that man or that place or that battle must be carefully explained to make them intelligible.

A frequently used label for such sayings today is pepeha. After a title that epitomises them, ‘Ngā whakataukī whakarangatira i ngā iwi’ (Sayings that ennoble tribes), Awatere and Dewes wrote: ‘He pepeha te karangatanga o tēnei momo whakataukī, ara, te whakataukī mo ngā waka, mo ngā iwi, mo ngā mana, mo ngā rangatira’ (Pepeha is the term for this kind of saying, that is, sayings concerning canoes, tribes, rights and chiefs).90 Use in the manuscripts suggests that this was only one among other words (for example, whakataukī, kupu, kī) applied to them, but one of the glosses of pepeha is ‘to boast’, and indeed these sayings are self-referential and aimed at defining and consolidating the tribal presence and authority. These texts tell of the history and character of a tribe from their own and sometimes others’ viewpoints. In  one sense they were personal records; in describing the skills, experiences and accomplishments of leading ancestors, and the idiosyncracies of kin groups and relationships 105

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between them, they gave voice to the emotional attachment and pride in the past that was at the root of tribal belonging. But they were also practical, used to chronicle and verify history, document features of and rights to land, and remind of relationships and obligations. In all, these words served to acknowledge and affirm a tribe’s identity and territory: its origin, history and collective presence.91 And they embodied all kinds of experiences: the profound, terrible, actionable, trivial, amusing, habitual. As Shortland and Balneavis pointed out, a  close knowledge of the kin group is necessary to make sense of references in these texts. They assume an informed familiarity with the past and the terrain; for instance, names call up genealogy, events in history or the landscape. But they can also allude to interaction between tribes and their recognition of each other’s histories and versions of sayings. So  Shortland recorded Te Ngārara saying, after giving a short genealogy for the origin of pounamu (greenstone): Koia tā Ngāi Tahu whakataukī mō te kahurangi, ko ‘Te Whatuira-a-Tangaroa’; ki tēnei motu, ki te rāwhiti nei, ko ‘Te Ika-a-Ngahue’.92 This is Ngāi Tahu’s epithet for the kahurangi greenstone, ‘Te Whatuira-aTangaroa’; in this island, here on the east, it is ‘Te Ika-a-Ngahue’.

The South Island Ngāi Tahu’s ‘whatuira’ (translucent stone) accurately depicts this pale green variety, while the North Island, East Coast, version with ‘ika’ (fish) speaks of the greenstone figuratively as a valuable possession; these individual expressions were grounded in their own stories of the origin of greenstone and its arrival in Aotearoa.93 As an example of the sharing of proverbial traditions, and of the different uses and meanings possible in tribal sayings, there is the popular formula ‘Ko Ngāti Mea kōwhao rau’ (Ngāti So-and-so of one hundred holes). In relation to the version ‘Ko Ngāti Maru kōwhao rau’, Grey recorded an explanation that must have come from a member of the tribe: Mo te hua o nga nohoanga o nga tangata, o nga whakaaro; ka mate i tera pa, ka ora i tera pa – ka houhia te rongo i tera kowhao, e whakaaiohia ana i tetahi kowhao.94

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Whakataukī It concerns a good number of settlements, of people [and] of strategies; if [they] fell in that fort, [they] would survive in the other fort; when peace was made in that hole, it could yet be under negotiation in another hole.

Among versions (of text and interpretation) recorded for other tribes, there is one with the added formula ‘taniwha rau’ (of a hundred supernatural creatures). Grey noted two implications of ‘Ngāpuhi taniwha rau; Ngāpuhi kōwhao rau’: ‘The Ngapuhi tribe have a hundred fierce dragons, or chiefs; be careful, therefore, how you attack them. The Ngapuhi tribe have a hundred holes, or villages, in which warriors collect.’ Other interpretations of the phrase ‘kōwhao rau’ are that the tribe lacked unity because of the independence of its groups, and comparison is made with a broken canoe that has holes in it.95 One gets the sense of how far meaning can go in the case of any one saying, and how over time it may be applied in different ways by different tribes. From these two small phrases alone arise allusions to the size and disposition of close-knit tribal groups, awesome creatures that live in the domain, the strength of chiefs and their strategies and capacity, and the nature of the landscape. A few words pack in a lot of meaning. There are many mottos that distinguish tribes. Some are short and self-explanatory, such as ‘Arawa māngai nui’, but in the way of sayings this can be either perjorative (Big mouthed Arawa) or complimentary (Arawa of fine orators).96 Others are longer and oblique. Another farewell address written to Grey in 1853 was from chiefs of Ngāti Awa (now Te Āti Awa) living at Taranaki (among several signatories were Rāwiri Waiaua and Wiremu Kīngi Te Rangitāke). They expressed their feeling and respect for him in this way: Ko te aroha tenei o nga mokopuna o Whanuiarangi, ara o Ngatiawa o Rungaoterangi. Ko tona whakatauki, ‘Te toki e kore e tangatanga i te ra.’97 This, the love from the descendants of Whānui-a-rangi, that is, of Ngāti Awa-o-runga-o-te-rangi [lies in] their motto: ‘The axe that will not be loosened by the sun.’

The strength and solidity of the traditional axe – of stone or greenstone – is one allusion here, although another interpretation is that the cord attached 107

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to the axe is being referred to, bound so tightly it would not rot in the sun. Either way, as Mead and Grove succinctly explained it: ‘This metaphor refers to the tribe, which is bound tightly together (especially when faced by an enemy) by ties that will not be loosened in the heat of battle.’98 It was surely a metaphor for the similar strength of their affection for Grey. In their address the chiefs chose to use the long form of their name, Ngāti Awa-o-runga-o-te-rangi. It  identified their eponymous ancestor (and so their genealogy) but also, as is the case in oral narratives, it was used judiciously, for an extended name was prestigious and they were speaking to the Governor. The epithet, however, held its own story, one version of which was written for Grey, who published it in his collection of sayings. It follows a theme, storyline and structure found in other oral narratives.99 A spirit ancestor, Tamarau-te-heketanga-rangi, as his name states, came down from heaven. There, on earth, he procreated with a woman, and, on leaving her he said (in the formulaic instruction of this kind of story): ‘E whānau tō tamaiti a he tāne, me tapā (a) tōna ingoa ko Awa-nui-a-rangi, ko te awa i heke iho ai au i te rangi.’ Nō konei anō taku whakataukī, ‘Te Āti Awa-o-runga-o-te-rangi.’100 ‘If, when your child is born, it is a boy, give him the name Awa-nui-a-rangi, for the incantation by which I came down from heaven.’ From this too there is my [tribal] saying, ‘Te Āti Awa-o-runga-o-te-rangi’ [Te Āti Awa from on high, from heaven].101

Here the tribal label arises (as many do) from a statement by an ancestor. The descendant narrator made it of his time by use of ‘taku’ (my), a way of speaking that could also include the tribe.102 Then he intimated that there was a longer story about this, which he left to his elders to tell: ‘Heoi anō kei ngā kaumātua te roanga.’103 Ngāti Awa’s use of the motto in their letter to Grey (and such eloquent letters surely derive their style from the oratory of old), and the narrative origin of the tribal epithet, exemplify the inter-dependence of the genres in the oral society and how they help build a cohesive tradition.

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Of Chiefs Set phrases also kept record of chiefs, very often, but not always, in praise of them. In the old world the head of a chief was considered sacred, which is the basis for ‘Ko Rangitihi upoko whakahirahira’ (Rangitihi greatly exalted). The Te Arawa man’s head (upoko) was ‘exceedingly sacred’, so he was undoubtedly a very high chief. But the saying also spoke of his tribe. Grey’s explanation is voiced from a tribal member, ‘therefore, no tribe should treat us, his descendants, with disrespect, or dare to curse us’. A different version builds on the image of greatness by the addition of a formula referred to above: ‘Rangitihi upoko i takaia ki te akatea.’ This is explained in tribal history: when Rangitihi’s head was split by an enemy’s club, he tied it up with the akatea creeper and led his war-party to success in battle.104 Together the phrases praise the nobility and courage of the chief, and also prompt thought of the tribal past. Another example of a laudable attribute is recorded for the Ngāti Whātua chief, Pokopoko: Kāhore ia i kite i te konihi, i te kōhuru, engari tāna he riri nui; houhia ake te rongo, mutu tonu ake.105 He would not consider stealth [or] murder but his fighting was in the open [and] when peace was made, that was the end of it.

Admired for this style of fighting and for making and keeping the peace, he became ‘Pokopoko-whiti-te-rā’ (Pokopoko who makes the sun shine). S. Percy Smith gave an example of the long-lasting effect and applicability of such labels: The Maoris well know how to introduce references to their ancient history into their speeches, and to apply them to existing circumstances. Thus, at a large gathering of Maoris at Aotea, Kaipara, in April, 1883, on the occasion of opening a new runanga or meeting house, and where several of the Nga-Puhi tribe were present whose fathers had been the enemies of Ngati-Whatua, Te Keene Tangaroa addressing the guests said, ‘Welcome O Nga-Puhi, my elder brothers; come to the house of Pokopoko-whiti-te-ra, &c.’ In this the speaker was alluding to their present meeting in peace after their ancient enmity.106

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The descendants (uri) shared in the praise of this ancestor too, in ‘Ngā uri o Pokopoko-whiti-te-rā, te aute tē whawhea.’ Here the admirable quality is further endorsed by the addition of the formulaic ‘te aute tē whawhea’ (the aute bark undisturbed). As someone said to Grey in regard to this phrase: ‘Ko te tikanga mo te pai, kahore he kino, kore rawarawa’ (It means peace, no fighting, absolutely none). For another use of it in ‘Haere mai ki Hauraki, ki te aute tē awhea’, Grey explained the metaphor in this way: ‘If you visit Hauraki, you will be left there in certain peace and free from danger; as little blown about as a piece of aute bark beaten out for cloth, which has been laid out in the sun to dry, in some sheltered place.’107 The image – the delicate cloth of aute bark, the warmth of the sun and the lack of wind – has a lightness and ease that speaks of peace. This drawing on and cumulative addition of various phrases is typical of what are often termed the ‘building blocks’ of composition in an oral tradition, and in the mind.108 The Landscape In Te Ao’s tracking of Īhenga’s journeys, there are many sayings that mark some observation or experience, and which in turn are repeated in a place-name, in passages such as this: Ka hoe anō, ka tae atu he wāhi anō, ka huaina e ia, he kupu whakataukī nāna i roto i tōna ngākau, ‘Me tū whakapakari rā.’ Nō reira ka huaina e ia ko Tūpakaria-o-Īhenga.109 [He] paddled on again, arrived at another place [and] he named it [from] a proverbial expression he had in mind, ‘Let [me] stand defiantly there.’ So it was named by him Tū-pakaria-o-Īhenga [The bold stance of Īhenga].

The place is described in Te Arawa tradition as a kāinga (settlement) and pā (fort),110 and Īhenga must have imagined how he would live there and boldly defeat invaders. The saying and place-name give a glimpse of his personality, contributing to a feeling for the long-dead ancestor’s continued presence in the landscape. While tribes labelled their land, the landscape could also reflect them. In 1904 before a Papatupu Block Committee (officially established for tribal groups to debate claims to land before taking them to the Native Land Court for title), Pūtoto Kereopa of Ngāti Tautahi and Ngāti Whakaeke in 110

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Te Tai Tokerau cited the saying ‘Ngā papa kino o Kirioke’ (The dark rocks of Kirioke) as part of his claim to land there. As he explained it: Ko tēnei whakataukī mō te mangu o te kiri o te tangata, me te mangu hoki o ngā kōhatu o Kirioke, me te toa hoki. Ko tēnei whakataukī mō Ngāti Tautahi me Ngāti Whakaeke anake, kāhore i whakataukītia mō tētahi hapū kē atu.111 This saying refers to the blackness of the skin of the people and also the blackness of the Kirioke rocks, and their warriorship too. This saying applies to Ngāti Tautahi and Ngāti Whakaeke only; it is not quoted to refer to any other tribe.

The repetition intensifies the dark colour that suggests to others that they should be wary of these people. The linking of the rocks to the people gives a sense of their solidity and this is reinforced by the assertion of their courage and fighting strength, which might also be alluded to in the place-name, Kirioke or Strivers. Kereopa affirmed the individuality of this appellation, suggesting in naming those entitled to it that there was prescribed use of some sayings. Working the land, and cultivating and catching food, also provided metaphors for local sayings, such as ‘Ko te kōura puta roa’ (The crayfish’s long hole). In one account in an unknown hand, possibly of the late 1890s, the writer recorded what his elders told him (‘I rongo anō au ki ōku mātua i ēnei kupu i raro iho nei’) about some inter-tribal alliances, migrations and wars, involving, among many, Ngāti Raukawa and Ngāti Toa. Included is an episode in which Tūwhare of Ngāpuhi came with his war-party to Whanganui, heading inland of the river (‘ka ahu whakauta o te awa o Whanganui te haere a Tūwhare’). The writer then took the perspective of the Whanganui chiefs who, realising that they were in no position to attack Tūwhare because he had the advantage of guns, planned to take a path along the Whanganui River through the gorges (‘me whakataki ki runga o Whanganui ki te āpititanga o ngā pari o te awa o Whanganui’). He went on to describe the situation, also explaining what the saying carried in the way of meanings: Ka tae ki Pukehika, ko te tino pā tērā o te iwi [o] Whanganui, i aranga ai tōna whakataukī, ‘Ko te kōura puta roa.’ Te take o tēnei whakataukī, ko ngā tāngata takitahi o te iwi e haere ana ki Raetihi, ki Waimarino, ki Murimotu, mahi manu

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mĀori oral tradition ai, ā, ka pono mai ngā ope taua, ka patua atu. Nō reira ka kīia he peke ērā nō te kōura. Engari ko te pū ia o te kōura kai roto tonu i te rua. Te tikanga, ki te haere te tangata ki te rapu kōura, ka tae ki te haupapa, ka kite i ngā peke o te kōura, e puta mai ana ki waho o te rua, kātahi ka hopu te ringa ki te peke o te kōura, ka kukume mai, heoi motu mai ana te peke. Engari ko te pū o te kōura (arā, te tinana) i noho tonu mai i roto i te rua, i hōhonu atu hoki ki roto i te rua, na, kāore e riro mai i te tangata.112 [They] reached Pukehika; that was the main fort of the Whanganui people, for which the saying arose, ‘The crayfish’s long hole.’ The origin of this saying was from when a few people from the tribe were going to Raetihi, Waimarino [and] Murimotu to procure birds, and were come on by war-parties and killed there. So it was said that they were limbs of the crayfish. But the main part [‘pu’ can also mean ‘tribe’] of the crayfish was still in the hole. To explain: if a man goes in search of crayfish [and] reaching an overhanging rock sees the limbs of a crayfish coming out of a hole and his hand seizes a limb of the crayfish, when drawing it out the limb will break off. But the main part (that is, the body) of the crayfish will remain in the hole, very deep within the hole, and it will not be taken by the man.

Here the saying alludes to an older story about tribal members killed on a journey (journeys featuring in many narratives) as well as the history of a more recent war; and it has a word to say about catching crayfish – or enemies – and evading them. In one sense it belonged to the Whanganui tribes, as a metaphor for the formidable steep-sided gorges of their river: Smith called it a ‘poetical or honorific name’ for the river, in reference to ‘the fastnesses on its banks in case of invasion’. A variant, however, ‘Te kōura unuhanga roa a Tama’ (Tama’s long drawing out of the crayfish) suggests a much older derivation, since Tama is said to have been ‘the first man to retrieve crayfish from their holes and eat them’.113 In sayings and formulaic phrases, there are very often direct links to, associations with or echoes of the past in the present. Māori oral tradition is in this way interconnected and unified, although on the surface it may not seem so, given the many disparate, even fragmentary texts: sections of genealogies, sayings and their variants, and episodic narratives.

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In Tribal Narratives In historical narratives, tribal sayings can be particularly forceful; sometimes cryptic, they may be hard to understand without knowledge of the local people, history and language. Very often they are key quotations, around which a narrative or episode is organised and remembered;114 others may be used pointedly to begin or sum up. They may also take the form of direct speech, such as a strategy called out to warriors in the course of a battle; exchanges between chiefs; an exclamation, challenge or instruction as a result of action; or a prediction. To take another example from Papatupu Block Committee minutes, which are a substantial record of tribal histories in the old and oral style: in 1903, Rē Te Tai of Te Rarawa gave impressive renditions of narrative history as claim on Waihou land. In one episode he told how Toākai had his revenge on Ngāti Miru who had previously taken his settlement: Ka whakatika mai Toākai, tae mai ki Ōngaro pā. Kua riro N[gāti] Miru ki te kohi mātaitai i te moana. Ka mahue iho ki te pā rā ko Moetaraiti, ko tō rātou matua. I te haerenga o ngā tamariki a Moetaraiti, ka whakataukī ki ngā tamariki, ‘Haere mai, haere, e te whānau, kia hoki rawa mai koutou āpōpō, e tetēā ana ngā niho o Moetaraiti.’ Tae mai te ope rā ko Moetaraiti anake i te pā rā, me ētahi e toru tekau pea. Ka patua e Toākai, ka mate ngā tāngata, ka tahuna te pā. Ko te mātenga anake o Moetaraiti i kite e tetēā ana ngā niho.115 Toākai set out [and] came to Ōngaro fort. Ngāti Miru had gone off to collect shellfish from the sea. Moetaraiti, their father, was left behind in that fort. When Moetaraiti’s children were leaving, he said to the children in words that would become a saying: ‘Come now, off you go, family, [but] by the time you return tomorrow, Moetaraiti’s teeth will be clenched.’ When that war-party arrived, only Moetaraiti was in that fort, with perhaps thirty others. He was killed by Toākai; the people died, the fort was set alight. Only the head of Moetaraiti was seen, with teeth clenched.

Awe-inspiring images such as this one are not uncommon in the oral histories. In this case it is illustrative of customs of war in the old world, but whakataukī were used as a way of picturing many and different kinds of vivid situations that were to be remembered. Te Tai was following the ancestral style in focussing the episode around this one. In other ways, too, 113

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his composition was typical: for instance, in the scene of a few alone in a village being attacked and killed while others are away gathering food; in the short, abrupt phrasing of the language; in the repetition of the names of key characters as well as the saying that endured; and in the direct speech of the prediction and its restatement at the conclusion. In the sequels to this event in the minutes, similar patterns are played out, with exchanges between protagonists and other sayings coined that in turn would be quoted in later recitations of historical episodes of the people. Such statements made by the ancestors and remembered by their descendants encapsulated events of tribal history that could be relived with great effect every time the words were spoken.

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4. Narratives and Prose Kōrero

There are many traditions about Kupe in the oral repertoire of tribes. Some are about his voyage from Hawaiki and discovery and exploration of Aotearoa; others explain the reasons for names of places and landmarks associated with him.1 This one is about his naming at Palliser Bay on the shore of Cook Strait but it has more to tell too. It was written by Hoani Parāone Tūnuiārangi of Ngāti Kahungunu and Rangitāne. A leading figure within his tribes and politically from the 1880s to the 1890s, he was versed in traditions and, encouraged by S. Percy Smith, contributed articles to the Journal of the Polynesian Society.2 Ko Kupe te tangata tuatahi ki tēnei whenua, e kīia nei ko Aotearoa. Nō tōna taenga mai i te upoko o te motu nei, ka kite ia i tētahi toka, he nui te ika o ia āhua ka nohoia i reira. Ka whakanōhia e Kupe 2 [e rua] ngā ika ki roto i te puna waitai hei mōkaikai mā tāna tamāhine. I tētahi wā ka haere te tamāhine ki Kaikōura. I muri ka aroha a Kupe ki tāna tamāhine; ka piki a Kupe ki runga i te hiwi tiketike, kia kite ia i te wā kai reira nei tāna tamāhine. Ka aroha te ngākau o Kupe, ka tangi haehae i te taha o ngā ika a tāna tamāhine. Ka heke ngā toto me ngā roimata me te wai o te ihu, mau tonu atu i runga i te toka kōhatu, i taua rā tae noa mai ki tēnei rā. Ko ngā ika a te tamāhine a Kupe, ka[i] roto tonu i te puna e noho ana, i taua rā mai, tae noa ki tēnei rā. Ki te hīia aua ika e te tangata me ētahi mahi kino, ka

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mĀori oral tradition pōngarungaru te moana, kua kore te tangata e kaha ki te hī hāpuku me ērā atu ika o te moana. Ko tēnei whenua kāore ōna ingoa. Nō te rā i a Kupe, ka tapaina te ingoa ko Te Mātakitakinga-o-Kupe-ki-Kaikōura, ki te wāhi i haere ai te tamāhine a Kupe. Heoi ngā kōrero mō ngā ika me ngā toto me ngā roimata o Kupe.3 Kupe was the first man to this land called Aotearoa. On his arrival at the head of this island, he found a certain rock, which many fish of different kinds frequented. Kupe placed two fish in a saltwater pool as pets for his daughter.4 At one time the daughter went to Kaikōura. When gone, Kupe longed for his daughter; Kupe climbed up onto a high ridge so he could see the place where his daughter was. Kupe felt longing in his heart, he wept and lacerated himself beside his daughter’s fish. Blood and tears and mucus from his nose dripped down [and] remained on a rock of stone from that day right on to this day. The fish of Kupe’s daughter have been living in the pool from that day on, right on to this day. If someone catches those fish or meddles with them, the sea will become dark and rough and the person will not be able to catch hāpuku and other fish of the sea. This land had no names. From Kupe’s day it was given the name Kupe’s-gazing-out-to-Kaikōura, to the place where Kupe’s daughter had gone. That is all to tell about the fish and the blood and the tears of Kupe.

Tūnuiārangi wrote his account on five tiny, numbered pages, but it is recognisably the work of an oral composer-narrator. He began in a typical way with a preliminary statement about the content, then gave the name and some details about the main character. By referring to Kupe as the first man to reach Aotearoa, he implicitly recalled his leaving Hawaiki. Then Tūnuiārangi the writer took his notional audience straight into the past with, as in so many narratives, a journey. Arriving at ‘te upoko o te motu nei’ (the head of this island) – a story in itself as a metaphorical reference to Māui’s catch of the fish-shaped North Island with its head pointing south – Kupe found a rock in the sea where fish were abundant; discovery plays a part in a number of narratives. This was an excellent find, a productive place to be remembered. Endearingly, Kupe assigned two fish (Tūnuiārangi using a numeral rather than a word, possibly writing in haste) as pets for his daughter;5 this 116

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had an implication, yet to be disclosed. By the end of this very short first section, the audience knew about Kupe the explorer, his daughter and the rock surrounded by abundant fish, and notably the two that were gifted to his daughter. Using a standard phrase, ‘I tētahi wā’ (At one time), Tūnuiārangi opened the next episode with a new event, another journey: Kupe’s daughter went to Kaikōura, in the South Island. Here Tūnuiārangi replaced the personal ‘tāna’ (his) with the impersonal ‘te’ (the daughter); it has the sense of her no longer being close to him. The local audience, knowing that she was a great distance across the water of Cook Strait, would have understood that Kupe missed her. Isolation – separation from, loss of, or rejection by family or kin or lovers – is a theme or motif in very many narratives and songs. And what Kupe did in this circumstance parallels imagery in waiata aroha (songs of love), in which composers look out from a hilltop in the direction of a loved one from whom they are separated.6 Back beside her fish, Kupe’s feeling for his daughter was intense. This is a key aspect of the story and there are two phrases that describe it: ‘Ka aroha te ngākau’, which has the plaintiveness of ‘heartfelt’ (more than the feeling suggested by the word aroha), and ‘Ka tangi haehae’, which signifies a great depth of emotion expressed by the custom of weeping and slashing the body. Farewells, homecomings and deaths are occasions for this behaviour in the oral narratives. The emotion is at once human, the love of a father for a daughter, and Māori, in its very physical manifestation. Tūnuiārangi then captured Kupe’s outpouring of grief realistically – and up close. He used repetition of ‘me’ (and) for emphasis: ‘blood and tears and mucus from his nose’. Each addition made it the more felt but also focussed attention on the evidence of the historical incident, which had remained on that rock – in the formulaic usage of narratives – ‘i taua rā tae noa mai ki tēnei rā’ (from that day right on to this day). The continuity made a pleasing conclusion to the incident, and a usual one of linking the past to the present and the ancestors to descendants. Now Tūnuiārangi added to the story – and this going back and adding more occurs often in the oral narratives. He returned to and told more about the daughter’s fish. He  had them still living in the pool; and by using almost exactly the same phrase for the duration, he impressed the audience with the very long time they had been there and, once more, connected past and present. Hearing the word ‘mōkaikai’ at the start of 117

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the recitation, listeners in the oral society might have been alert to something of the kind that follows, because pets (birds, animals, fish) in the traditions often have some unusual or mystical quality. And a particular word (or statement) used very early in (or during) a narrative can intimate or prefigure what is to come, help the audience keep up with the story or create suspense. Imbued with the spirit of the ancients, of Kupe and his daughter, the pet fish were special. This gave reason for the warning that anyone catching or disturbing them would face a stormy sea and fail to catch other fish. There is allusion here also to Kupe’s association with turbulent seas,7 and the ‘pō’ (dark, night, underworld) before ‘ngarungaru’ (rough waves) intensifies the danger; it is the dark of death or the unknown that anticipates trouble in narrative and song. In this cautionary conclusion, the events of a remote time are made relevant to contemporary practice. In rounding off, Tūnuiārangi added yet more. The land had no names at that very early time, but from Kupe’s experience there the place acquired a long, descriptive and mnemonic designation; and also here, in apposition, and for the memory, there is another reminder that Kupe’s daughter went to Kaikōura. In the oral society, the long name on its own would have been sufficient to recall Kupe, his daughter, the fish, her journey, the place and how to behave appropriately there.8 To end, Tūnuiārangi chose the well-established ‘Heoi ngā kōrero’ (That is all to tell), and, not to miss an opportunity to reinforce the memory, he repeated the central and lasting image of ‘the fish and the blood and the tears of Kupe’. The narrative is engaging; it has a decided charm and is various in its subject matter. It is the history of a man, his discovery and a place of plenty; it is also about family and tender feelings – and fishing. In addition, it is about respect for the ancestors and their diverse kin, in that place and in the present. And all that is conveyed in a few short paragraphs – or episodes, to think in terms of the oral style. The content is typical in blending the historical and mystical, and also in its compositional structure. It is briefly recounted. The sentences and phrases are short, running one after the other, making repeated use of the inceptive ‘ka’ phrase; there is little subordination, or explanation, and detail is scarce. It is formulaic or patterned in the phrasing of beginnings (‘Ko . . . te tangata’, ‘I tētahi wā’) and endings (‘i taua rā tae noa mai ki tēnei rā’, ‘Heoi ngā kōrero’). It is pointedly repetitive: in the words (and phrases) of 118

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key topics (ika, tamāhine) and in those vital markers of the past, names that bind person and place (Kupe, Kaikōura). And it sums up with a sentence that is emblematic of the story. There are other, and longer, versions of these events, with differences in detail. In one, Kupe, while standing on a flat rock, recited prayers to draw in fish for his daughters; he gazed at the great number of them and then looked out to Tapuaeuenuku Mountain in the South Island, which caused his daughter, Hineura, to name the rock ‘Mātakitaki’ (Gazing out).9 But this short text was Tūnuiārangi’s own rendering that he composed for his own time and purpose, which followed the practice of his ancestors when they had no writing.

Narratives and Prose in the Oral Tradition and Literature The kōrero or prose in the oral tradition can be broadly summarised as history, story and discourse on custom;10 it is rich with information for students of the language, oral compositions and culture. It goes directly – in the sense of being comparatively explicit, that is, more descriptive and less cryptic and metaphorical than the other genres – to the heart of what was important to Māori in the old world, what preoccupied the ancestors and what they believed and understood of behaviours and events, and also what they considered worth preserving of their history and knowledge. The Manuscript Record and Publication The manuscript stock has a wealth of prose in which Māori again showed their brilliant memories, adeptness at composition in the old style, astuteness about their new audiences and an eye to dissemination of their kōrero tuku iho. Some wrote their prose and others dictated it to a scribe; and many produced impressively long texts. The discourse about customs, knowledge and practices (about rituals, cultivating, food-gathering and -preparation, war and so on) makes fascinating reading. Some was prepared in answer to enquiries by interested Pākehā, but its provenance was very likely part of the oral inheritance as is indicated by the compositional style and the fact that Māori also wrote these kinds of accounts for themselves.11 In early exchanges, the challenge of describing their culture for others obviously appealed to some Māori, 119

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who became friends with their curious Pākehā acquaintances and at times acknowledged them as reason for their recitations. Piripi Matewhā, a chief of Ngāti Hauā, introduced one discussion of customs with: He tono nā Te Hōterene mō ngā tikanga Māori, kia mōhio ai ki te take o ā te Māori tikanga, i tupu ai te mōhiotanga o ngā tāngata o tēnei motu, tēnei ngā take i mōhio ai.12 In respect of Shortland’s request for Māori customs, in order to understand the origin of customs that Māori have, from which the peoples of this land developed their knowledge, these are the origins that are known.

The influential leader, Wiremu Tāmihana Tarapīpipi Te Waharoa, also of Ngāti Hauā, wrote cheerfully to Shortland in 1843: E hoa, e pātai ana koe ki ngā ritenga a te tangata Māori, kia mōhio ai koe, nē? E hoa, ka pai ai ki a koe, na, māku e kōrero atu ki a koe.13 Friend, you are asking for the practices of the Māori people so you can understand them, aren’t you? Friend, to please you, well, I will tell you.

And he went on to inform him about, for instance, customs relating to birth and fighting. Jenifer Curnow in documenting the considerable writing that Te Rangikāheke did for Sir George Grey also commented on their close working relationship and friendship. The dissertation Te Rangikāheke wrote about marriage for Grey is a fine example of a blend of the imaginative and the factual; it is a delight to read and would have made an engaging oration.14 The larger portion of prose in the manuscripts, however, consists of mythological, historical and storied narratives; and these are the kind that I will discuss in this chapter. Nineteenth-century literature gives a measure of them, such as are found in Grey’s Ko nga Mahinga a nga Tupuna Maori (‘Mythology and Traditions of the New Zealanders’) and White’s six-volume The Ancient History of the Maori.15 Both collectors were somewhat intrusive editors, and they only occasionally named their contributors and very rarely gave the name of an author to a specific text; studies of their work 120

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and extant manuscripts, however, have helped to reveal how they altered the writing and who wrote for them.16 Another valuable source of prose is the Journal of the Polynesian Society, to which Māori contributed either of their own accord or in association with Pākehā. The Society’s papers and those of its members offer a further repository of unpublished narratives; Elsdon Best in particular left a vast collection of manuscripts, in which there are very numerous narrative and prose accounts that Māori in many parts of the country gave to him.17 How Māori thought about and selected what they were to write (or recite) is often apparent. For instance, especially in histories, there may be a prefatory statement, with a brief or quite specific elaboration of what is intended. In addition, many writers acknowledged, occasionally by name, elders (kaumātua, mātua), grandparents (tūpuna) or experts (tohunga) as sources of their knowledge. In the 1850s Hoani Nahe of Ngāti Maru ‘began his life’s work, collecting and recording the traditions and genealogies of his people’, and some of his writing appeared in John White and S. Percy Smith’s publications. Nahe prefaced one historical account with: ‘He kōrero nō te haerenga mai o ngā tūpuna o te Māori i Hawaiki. Ka tīmata i tā ngā kaumātua Māori wāhi i mōhio ai’ (Accounts of the coming of the ancestors of the Māori from Hawaiki. Beginning from what the Māori elders know).18 It is interesting that, like Matewhā above, he used the phrase ‘i mōhio ai’ (that are known), perhaps to give recognition to a natural attrition in the records, that some of what had happened in the past was no longer known to the descendants in Aotearoa. Wiremu Naera Te Kanae of Ngāti Toa was another recorder of the tribal past. Writing in 1888, he defined one of his topics in this way: ‘Ka tīmata ināianei he kōrero mō te hekenga mai i raro i Kāwhia ki Kapiti nei, me ētehi wāhi atu o runga nei, arā, ngā iwi e toru a Ngāti Toarangatira, a Ngāti Awa-o-runga-i-te-rangi, a Ngāti Raukawa’ (Now beginning accounts about the migration from north at Kāwhia to Kapiti here, and other parts south, that is, of three tribes, Ngāti Toarangatira, Ngāti Awa-o-runga-i-te-rangi, Ngāti Raukawa). The preliminary statement (or title) ‘Ngā kōrero o mua a ngā kaumātua’ (The traditions about the past from the elders) suggests that the traditions would have come to Te Kanae in the oral style and he followed that style in his writing, but he also brought his history up to date when, in the later part, he added years (ranging from 1819 to 1853) for certain events.19 These kinds of introductions give a sense of the recorders’ thoughtfulness 121

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and clarity about what they were doing, and, in crediting their elders and ancestors, their respect and justification for the content. At the same time, their forward-looking view in tackling new ways and forms of conveying their traditional knowledge can be appreciated. A substantial manuscript corpus also advises that Māori in the old world had taken care to preserve and pass on their highly valued narrative histories, stories and descriptions of their past way of life. Subject Matter The historical narratives can be practically, but not exactly, categorised as of two eras, which are defined chronologically by genealogies. First, there are accounts about the origin and nature of the universe, and about the gods and godlike heroes, as well as those concerning the ancestors in Hawaiki, their reasons and preparations for leaving the homeland, and the circumstances of their voyages and arrival in Aotearoa.20 In this body of knowledge, there is the philosophical and moral: ideas and beliefs about human existence and the environment, and models and reasons for human behaviour.21 These traditions also speak of the extraordinary but were nevertheless regarded as truthful and authoritative, and are closely entwined with the sacred and with ritual.22 In addition, some record symbolically and allegorically what Māori thought about ‘observable but mysterious phenomena’, such as the sun and moon and the stars.23 A revealing source of Māori beliefs and understanding of the world, such accounts also evoke the ancestors of long ago personally, as kin and individuals. Despite being ancient and sometimes esoteric, the subject matter of these narratives was employed across time in many ways and in other genres, as is also noted in the case of sayings. Orbell has remarked on the great value of the mythic traditions to tribes, and the ‘complex and exceedingly serious uses’ made of, for example, the migration traditions ‘in ritual, song and oratory’. Examining one of his own tribal traditions, Tau found that ‘storytellers weave traditional imagery from mythologies into historical events’ and ‘[attempt] to make [an] event march to the beat of the timeless myth’. The ancient and contemporary events become as one, and this ‘closes the gap between the living and dead, the human and the divine’.24 In this way cultural mores were retained over generations. Second in the narrative chronology are histories of tribes from their formation in Aotearoa up to and sometimes including the arrival of and 122

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exchanges with Europeans.25 There is record of acquiring, expanding and maintaining territories, of wars, the formation of and changes to tribal groups, the acquisition and husbanding of land and resources, and the forging of family and tribal relationships and alliances through marriage and agreements. In  sum, such accounts give a portrait of the growth, development and status of tribes, as well as something of the personalities involved. The narrative histories rest on genealogy. As is the case too in the earlier period, they are centred on the lives and actions of named individuals – chiefs, the highborn, the heroic, the tragic or the successful – who represent the tribal group and contribute, for good or ill, to its history. The protagonists are frequently male, although women can take main roles in these, and the earlier, narratives.26 Other participants (male or female) may be named as opponent, transgressor or victim, or collectively by tribe or in a genealogy or a list, such as of those who came on a migratory canoe, went out with a war-party, or killed or were killed in fighting.27 However, unlike in novels or histories, the leading characters are very few and there is little concern with physical or mental characteristics or personal development. Actions can tangentially inform about their natures or skills; and very occasionally there is some reference to physical features, especially if strikingly good or bad (beauty, ugliness, extraordinary height or fine tattooing), or comment on or intimation of temperament (kind, humble, generous).28 The naming of land is also bound into tribal histories. Names describe and locate the lived environment in Aotearoa, and in a sense personify it. Together with those of main characters, place-names in narratives endorse tribal identity, authority and rights to land – and rights to the inherited words that are linked to these names and are passed down in the tradition. The tribal accounts are more like written history; they are closer in time to the narrators and listeners, and some events in them at least (and depending on beliefs) are likely to have actually taken place. But the composer-narrator’s point of view, rhetorical poetic style, and consideration of the face-to-face audience resulted in quite a different kind of history, one that was designed to impress rather than explain analytically or state verifiable facts. Leslie Kelly, in search of evidence-based history as to who discovered Aotearoa, frustrated a Tainui elder, Rōre Eruera, with his questions. Eruera’s response was that ‘Europeans were too prone to seek literal interpretations of such traditions, forgetting the love of the Maori for the 123

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metaphorical both in speech and legend.’ Or, as Te Rangihīroa put it, ‘The unconcern with which the Maori traditions brought the Fleet [migrating canoes] to New Zealand offers a contrast to the concerns expressed by European writers.’ It is wise to approach these texts with different expectations from those of the literature of histories.29 As remarked, tribal histories can reflect back to the lives and philosophy of the ancients. The sacred and supernatural may have a part in them too, as in exchanges between humans and the supernatural or recitation of prayers that determine the outcome of some action. As Tau concluded from his study of traditions, ‘Māori do not make a distinction between the human and godly realm’ and ‘see no chronological or strongly physical demarcation line between the dead and the living, human and atua . . . ’.30 In  narratives, ancestors meet, confront, kill, take warnings or benefit from fairy-like people (patupaiarehe or tūrehu), supernatural creatures (taniwha), reptiles (ngārara), and spirit birds and animals; they suffer the consequence of transgressing tapu or sacred restrictions, and journey to and return from other realms – the heavens, the underworld, Hawaiki.31 Such experiences made wonderfully absorbing stories but they could also be morally reflective and practically instructive (as in what to do when a patupaiarehe appears on the path). Some of those kinds of narratives were widely known (and elsewhere in Polynesia) but familiarised by local place and personal names. In both ancient and historical narratives, and entertaining stories, there is a wealth of information about the domestic, religious and everyday: about cultivation, preparation and consumption of food; the arts of war; the making of buildings and possessions (clothing, ornaments, tools, weapons); the customs of birth, marriage and death; and ritual practices. At another level there is reflection of social custom and opinion in shared topics, themes and motifs. There is a lot to learn from these narratives and this is because, to quote Ong, ‘Oral cultures . . . use stories of human action to store, organize, and communicate much of what they know.’32 Themes and Versions There are commonalities in the ancient and tribal histories and stories. Among themes, or the reasons for and action taken in oral histories, are the naming, taking and allocation of lands; response to attacks; or reply to curses or insults. Other narratives centre on emotions (jealousy, revenge, 124

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grief, love and shame) that drive contests between brothers or in-laws, send sons in search of fathers who left before their birth, have women choosing a lover unacceptable to elders, arise from an inability to provide food for guests, or make subject for love stories. In addition there are similarities in smaller elements or recurring motifs (for example, journeys, discoveries) and scenes (games and meetings at springs, for instance).33 Taken together, as more of the traditions are known, these elements combine to enlarge and enhance an understanding of the ancestral world. Thematic commonalities, however, are balanced – and made lively and interesting – by each composer’s art. Narratives too come in versions, the combination of the same and the different that are found in genealogies and sayings. Oral histories about Hawaiki or Aotearoa are of a tribe, without exception because of genealogy, and its communal experience and territory. But, as Binney recognised, ‘In the oral form of telling history, the narrative belongs to the narrator.’ Or, as Orbell said of the oral composer-narrators, they remained ‘faithful to [their] inheritance’ but ‘shaped their material in their own way’ and had ‘their own approach, their own artistry’.34 A skillful composer reinvigorated an old story by retelling rather than repeating it (although internal, that is, compositional, repetitions served the meaning, structure and recall of it). To find in manuscripts exactly the same wording by two writers, even from within the same tribe, would be strange; it would be the result of copying rather than the recreating of the oral tradition. In recitations about the past, an audience would have wanted a known story made into a lively performance, which engaged and kept their attention, and was meaningful to them in their time. This called for adaptation: some pointed innovation or different tone, or more (or less) detail or emphasis, that together were sufficient to make listeners want to hear what was essentially the same story again and again.35 In nineteenth-century manuscripts, the number of different versions of a particular narrative, such as about Māui or a canoe voyage or tribal war, is at first surprising. There are differences in names and detail within and across tribes and also between compositions by one person. (It is no doubt one of the reasons that Elsdon Best, S. Percy Smith and others had such difficulty making history in the written style out of the oral traditions.) On greater familiarity with the texts, this feels entirely normal; in fact it would be unusual to find an account that, in other than in a very general way, is very closely like another about the same subject. There is evidence 125

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too that the oral custom of a highly situational and personal composition was followed when Māori wrote their own versions for the page, and included new information. Asides and insertions were an integral part of a composition, and they made for good sense and appropriateness to the time, and created interest; in fact, they add to the appositeness and complexity of the writing (or reciting), rather than detract from the notion of a pure or original tradition.36 For example, comments of this kind suggest writers had their readers in mind (and not just those of their own tribe): ‘Ko te karakia here tēnei a Māui i te rā, ka kōrerotia ki raro nei, kia mārama ai te titiro a ngā kaikōrero i tēnei pukapuka’ (This is the incantation that Māui used to snare the sun, recorded here below, to inform the interest of readers of this book).37 They enjoyed comparison between their own and Pākehā customs and knowledge. Wiremu Kiriwehi of Whanganui made such a comment in his stylistically oral version of the story about Kapu and Uenukukōpako, written in 1909. Just before referring to a man working in his garden, he reflected on the individual Māori and Pākehā ways of naming the seasons, utilising a new word ‘kaute’ (for ‘count’) to do so: ‘Ākuanei ko te takiwā nei, ko te waru ki tā te Māori kaute mō ngā takiwā o te tau, arā, te waru; ki tā te Pākehā kaute ināianei, ko Noema, ko Tīhema taua takiwā te waru’ (Soon it would be this time, the eighth month according to the Māori calculation for the seasons of the year, that is, the eighth month; according to the Pākehā calculation of today, November [and] December are that time of the eighth [when food is scarce, before new crops are ready to be harvested]).38 Keen reading of and memorising from the Bible, which in its poetic, mystic, allusive style mirrored their own tradition, also led Māori to make comparisons in their histories with themes, actions, events or characters in the Scriptures.39 Curnow has shown that Te Rangikāheke wrote two distinct versions of his description of the evolution of the universe and origin of humans, one for the Governor and one for descendants of the people of Hawaiki, thoughtfully selecting the content for each.40 Versions are also a mark of a composer’s perspective. In her enlightening comparison of accounts about their ancestor, Te Tahi-o-te-rangi, by two Ngāti Awa elders, Hāmiora Pio and Tīmi Wāta Rīmini, Orbell revealed how, although very similar in content, they were ‘told from different viewpoints and in widely differing styles’, for particular audiences and in respect of immediate interests.41 Talent or roles can also have an effect on renditions. Ailsa Smith remarked 126

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of the writing by the two Taranaki brothers previously mentioned that Taurua Pororaiti Minarapa seemed to prefer ‘waiata and imaginative narrative’ as fitted to his ‘more carefree and poetic’ nature, while Te Kāhui Kararehe focussed on genealogies and tribal histories as was his responsibility as a chief and leader.42 However, although narrators took their own line, tradition retained its powerful hold and the essential knowledge and key events of the past were perpetuated. Kinds of Narratives The functional and situational aspect of versions had a bearing on the terms used to refer to the different narratives. As with whakataukī, it is not easy to define them – or necessarily useful. Words for them include: pakiwaitara, kōrero tara, pūrākau, kōrero o mua, kōrero tuku iho.43 Pakiwaitara are entertaining or amusing stories, such as those about encounters with strange creatures and inhabitants of other worlds, but it would be wrong to think that Māori did not believe what occurred in these stories or take them seriously. One Ngāti Rongou writer for Grey began his account about the patupaiarehe with: ‘E hoa, he pono anō tēnei hanga te patupaiarehe, mai anō i mua, i a Tama-te-kapua e ora ana’ (‘The fairies do exist, my friend, and they have done so since the early days, when Tama-te-kapua was alive’),44 bolstering his claim to their reality by the length of time they had been known. Pūrākau are ancient and mythic and are often about the extraordinary; and so this was a fitting label for an account of how ngārara (reptiles, lizards, insects) came to Aotearoa on the (suitably named) Māngārara canoe.45 As these phrases literally say, ‘kōrero o mua’ and ‘kōrero tuku iho’ are ‘about the past’ or ‘handed down’; but ‘kōrero’ appears to be the preferred word for a narrative in the manuscript corpus.46 One way of thinking about the differences might be taken from what Ngāpora said to Shortland after telling him about Rātā building his canoe for migration: ‘Ehara tēnei i te kōrero tara, engari he kōrero whaitake anō tēnei’ (This is not a fable, rather it is an account with a real basis to it). The Ngāti Porou tohunga (scholar), Pita Kāpiti, reciting traditions to his kinsman Mohi Tūrei around the 1870s, ended one of his narrative histories with: ‘Heoi, ko te kōrero tūturu tēnei o tēnei waka, o Tākitimu’ (‘So much for that. This is the most important part of the account concerning this waka [canoe], the Tākitimu’). Anaru Reedy, the translator, suggested this meant that Kāpiti had ‘given the basic facts’. By contrast, a slight version of how 127

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Rona became the woman in the moon begins, ‘Ko te kōrero tara tēnei mo Rona’ (‘This is the tale of Rona’).47 These qualifications give the impression that Māori in the old world distinguished accounts by the content, situation and purpose of the telling. In a certain form and circumstance, a narrative might be taken seriously and believed; in another, it might simply be for pleasure. Versions themselves support this interpretation. For instance, one historical episode may be told in a variety of ways: while one is short and plain and suitable for the young, another may be more lively and entertaining; yet another may be long and include genealogies and incantations such as an elder or tohunga (priest) might use for teaching; and some traditions had more than one form, with one widely known and another used restrictively.48 Narrative Style Narratives in Māori oral tradition, however, whatever their purposes or versions, and whether about life in Hawaiki or Aotearoa, share stylistic features.49 Three, for a start, are very obvious. One is that they are episodic or composed in short sections, as is evident in Tūnuiārangi’s account of Kupe. In  general, there is an introduction (however brief), a series of linked episodes, and a conclusion (however terse). Each episode concerns an event, large or small;50 but there can be a very long sequence of episodes. The event-focussed episode, the structure and the language all contribute to a second notable feature, that the narratives are compressed and tightly controlled. Statements are short and follow one after another in what is known as the ‘additive’ or ‘paratactic’ style, one feature of which (already noted) is the predominance of phrases beginning with ‘ka’ or ‘kātahi ka’, and another the use of ‘me’ (and) or ‘ā’ (and, in due course, then). There is little subordination in sentences, and indeed there is little explanation generally; if there is some, it is brief and important to the story. Similarly, any talking, thinking or expression of emotion by the characters is brief and never long-winded; it simply works for effect and helps the story along.51 The oral narrator was frugal with words, which was possible because the audience was primarily of kin and in the neighbourhood; the characters, the setting, the places and concerns were known to them. A third feature that marks these compositions as oral is, once again, the composer’s habit of working extensively with traditional, formulaic or 128

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patterned language, and of cleverly using all kinds of repetitions.52 At the level of language, there is repetition of words that drive the story or direct attention to the main subject or subjects, and which can serve rhythm in recitation. Phrases, sentences and syntax may also be repeated for similar reasons. Repetition of personal names emphasises a main or other character’s role (and memory of him or her), and reiteration of place-names affirms the location and the tribe.53 At thematic and structural levels, there may be repetition of motifs, scenes or actions.54 All of these characteristics are noticeable in Tūnuiārangi’s composition. It would be wrong, on the basis of those three features, to conclude that the oral narratives are short, simple and repetitive. Agathe Thornton put it perfectly when she wrote that what may appear ‘utterly simple and artless . . . on careful interpretation . . . turns out to be laden with meaning, deeply rooted in Māori values and very choice in its construction’.55 Her illuminating analyses of the style and art of Māori oral narrative, to which she brought her scholarship in Greek and Latin, are evidence of that, and foundational for the student of Māori oral literature. Knowing about life in the old world and the nature of the oral tradition supports an understanding of how narrative is ‘very choice in its construction’ and richly informative. For the compositional style and content together inform about meaning; and these are the focus of my discussion of the four narratives that follow.

A Narrative about Māui and Origins There is a very pointed example of the episodic, compressed and repetitive in narratives, in this amusing vignette recorded in the Reverend Richard Taylor’s 1849 manuscripts. He prefaced it with ‘Maui and the Birds sent to fetch him water’. Since I think there would have been an introductory statement in Māori, I have added the one that John White gave when he published it; he attributed the piece to Ngāti Porou.56 [Ngā manu i tarea e Māui ki te tiki wai] Tare(a) atu a Māui ki te tīeke kia haere ki te kawe wai mōna. Kīhai i rongo, pangā atu ki rō te wai. Tēnei tētahi manu, he hihi, tarea atu ana kia haere ki te kawe wai mōna. Kīhai i rongo, pangā atu ki rō te ahi, ka wera ngā huruhuru ki te ahi.

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mĀori oral tradition Tarea atu tētahi manu kē atu, he tōtōara, he pīhaua. Kā[ore] te rongo, hoatu te mea mā ki te ihu, hei tohu mō tērā. Ka tare atu ki te kōkako. Ka rongo taua manu. Te taenga atu ki te wai, ka utuhia te wai ki ōna taringa, ka kī, ka haere, ka whakainumia ki a Māui. Ka whakapaia tēnā manu e Māui. Ka kumea ngā waewae kia roroa, nā te mea i rongo tonu ia ki te kawe wai māna.57 [The birds instructed by Māui to fetch water] Māui instructed the saddleback to go and bring water for him. [It] did not obey [him], was thrown in the water [by Māui]. Then another bird, a stitchbird, was instructed [by Māui] to go and bring water for him. [It] did not obey, was thrown [by Māui] in the fire; its feathers were burnt in the fire. Yet another, different, bird was instructed [by Māui], a robin. [It] did not obey, [and] was given [by Māui] some white on its nose as a mark of that. Then [Māui] instructed the crow. That bird obeyed. When [it] got to the water, [it] dipped up water into its wattles; when full, [it] went off and let Māui drink [from them]. Māui rewarded that bird. [He] pulled on its legs to make them longer, because it immediately obeyed [his instruction] to bring water for him.

This is one of many narratives about the godlike Māui, the wily, jesting, impulsive inventor and hero. In Taylor’s manuscript version it is preceded by the episodes in which he steals fire from its guardian, Mahuika, and attempts to snare the sun – tasks that caused his thirst. Birds, which feature a good deal in stories, songs and, as mentioned, in sayings, take part here. Māui was able to turn himself into a bird and he was close kin to them, but in this instance he pesters them; it was perhaps an unwise move, given that his death, in some accounts, was brought about by birds. Nevertheless, he is the man in control on this occasion; his name alone appears. And, to draw attention to an interesting aspect of the structure and use of names in narratives, it is not in the part of the story where he fails: there he is either the deleted subject or unstated agent of the passive verb. When he succeeds, his name returns.58 The composer’s (assumed) introductory statement is typical, giving the name of the (only) character and something about the topic; the words ‘manu’ (birds), ‘tare’ (instruct) and ‘wai’ (water) are those that will recur. The story starts at once and skips along; the phrasing is short and sweet – and amusing. The repetition of ‘tare’ pictures the persistent, imperious, impatient Māui striving to win. In two taut phrases there is 130

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the tīeke’s refusal and dumping in the water. Here in the first phrase ([It] did not obey), there is another very prevalent practice of the language of narratives that supports brevity. It is the deletion of the subject, whether a name, pronoun or noun. As Pat Hohepa has argued of this ‘noun phrase’ deletion, it is also significant to meaning and structure in the oral narratives.59 There are like deletions, such as of the object or the agent of the passive. Examples of these kinds of excisions, found in abundance in narrative composition, are added here in square brackets in the English. Other kinds of truncation were also to the advantage of the oral composer, for example, shortened forms of words, as in this piece with the abbreviated ‘rō’ for ‘roto’. And, as speakers of English note, narratives have a certain brevity because there is no verb ‘to be’ in Māori. The formulaic ‘Tēnei tētahi (tangata/wahine/manu)’ introduces the next bird, the hihi, with almost identical phrasing to follow (but for the fire and burnt feathers). The rhythm, the beat, in oral performance comes on the phrases used for the birds’ refusals to cooperate (Kīhai i rongo, Kāore te rongo). The same abrupt formulaic phrase brings in the tōtōara or pīhaua, with a sense of Māui’s exasperation in the ‘atu’, ‘another’; for its refusal, it wears a white mark. When the active voice returns (having shifted from active to passive after the first sentence), there is success. The kōkako heeds Māui, and the narrator relaxes and is (relatively) expansive in picturing the success, spelling it out in (again) a series of ‘ka’ phrases with their own rhythm: dipping up the water, filling its wattles, going to Māui, letting him drink. Māui’s duality – his duplicity, which all the same can result in some good – is evident in his gratitude: the rather devilish pulling on the bird’s legs is to the kōkako’s advantage in gaining a longer step. For the concluding phrases, the composer returns to the initial problem of Māui’s thirst by reaffirming its solution in the kōkako’s obedient response. This episode adds a little to the biography of Māui, to the legacy of his character and deeds. But it explains why those birds came to have certain marks and habits. As Murdoch Riley has documented, Māori knew the tīeke as a water bird and made reference to it in prayers to bring rain; and it splashes itself with water. The hihi got its yellow feathers and timid nature from the fire. The yellow colouring is also in its name, ‘hihi’ meaning ‘rays of the sun’, while the male tihe wera or burnt stitchbird is also said to derive its physical characteristics from this story. The pihaua has a little white patch on its head, and of course the kōkako has its longer hop.60 131

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In the narrative genre, there are patterns and repetitions at work: in phrases, sentences and paragraphs; in themes, motifs and imagery; as well as in structural elements, such as the order of events and set scenes. Even in this small clipped piece, patterns are obvious at the level of words, sentences, imagery and event, and the language style is suggestive, makes a point and moves the story along with great rhythm; repetition was an aide-memoire but also pleasing to the ear. Thornton emphasised of narration that ‘the whole effect . . . rested on the sound of the voice’.61 But there may have been other entertainment in the telling too. Considering this for a moment, J. S. Polack from his observations in the 1830s wrote of the intense enjoyment Māori took in telling and hearing tales: . . . they are admirable adepts at mimicry . . . In relating any tale, they give imitations of the beings, animate and inanimate, that comprise the dramatis personae. If an enchanter is introduced, his pecularities in divination are represented. If a dog or a pig is added, the peculiar wags of the tail, peculiar to each animal, with the quick bark of the one, and the sonorous grunt of his ruminative companion, are given with singular fidelity.62

This little composition is colourful and zestful. It has Māui hopping mad as he tries, as always, to control his world in which birds hop about and are defiant. There is scope for gestures and actions by the narrator – in the birds’ refusals, Māui’s temper, the compliant kōkako and its dipping down for water so that Māui can drink from its wattles, and for the mimicking of sounds – the word ‘tīeke’ sounds like its loud cry.63 It seems very likely that a narrator, whether by shadow in the fire-lit dark of a house at night or when entertaining in daylight, would have made something of all that to the great delight of the listeners, and also because a lively performance stays in the mind.

A Narrative about Manaia and a People Migration canoe narratives in Māori oral tradition can be long, full of action, and elaborated with genealogies, prayers and songs.64 This one, which makes only a brief reference to the Tokomaru canoe itself, is short 132

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but it covers a lot of ground – and sea. It is the version of Arapata Haku of Te Āti Awa, who lived at Urenui around the early 1890s. It is lean but all the same informative, and it exhibits the kinds of events, compositional tactics and language that are found in other tribes’ histories of migration. It is focussed and clear, and deceptively plain. Ko te haerenga mai o Tokomaru Ka haere a Manaia ki te hī ika. Na, i te hokinga mai, ka rongo kua aitia tōna wahine e te tangata, e Mōtai. Na, ka riri a Manaia, ka kī atu ki ōna tāngata, ‘Me haere ki te tapahi rākau, me mou mai ki te kāinga, me tārai he tao, he taiaha, he pouwhenua, he tewhatewha.’ Kāti katoa ngā rākau, ka kī a Manaia, ‘Me tū ki te whawhai!’ Ka mate i a Manaia taua iwi. E, ka rongo a Manaia kei te huihui tētahi iwi, ka haere mai ki te whawhai ki a ia, ka mahara a Manaia me haere mai ia ki tēnei motu. Kātahi ka haere ki te tiki i te waka, i a Tokomaru. Ka tae mai te waka a Tokomaru, ka kī a Manaia me haere ki konei, ki tēnei motu. Haere mai i te moana, ā, ka tae mai ki Mōhakatino. Ka noho, kātahi ka haere, ka tae ki Tongapōrutu, ki Tāmurenui, ki Pukearuhe, ki Te Waiti, ki Mimi, ki Urenui, ki Waitara. I te taenga mai a Manaia ki Waitara, ka kite i ngā tāngata o tēnei motu. Ka patua, na, ka mate. Ka mate i a ia, ka riro katoa i a ia, i a Manaia rā, tēnei whenua. I te matenga o te iwi rā i [a] Manaia, kātahi i whakatinia e ia he tangata mō tēnei whenua, koia Te Āti Awa. Mehemea ka tangohia te punga o taua waka, ka hoki anō ki te wāhi i tangohia mai ai. Heoti.65 The coming here of Tokomaru Manaia went fishing. Now, on his return, he heard that his wife had been seduced by a man, by Mōtai. Now, Manaia was angry. He said to his men, ‘Go and cut wood, bring it here to the village, [then] fashion spears, long clubs, pointed staffs [and] axe clubs.’ When all the weapons were completed, Manaia said, ‘Stand to for the fight!’ That tribe was defeated by Manaia. But, when Manaia heard that another tribe were gathering and would come to fight him, Manaia thought that he should come to this island. So then he went to fetch the canoe, Tokomaru. When the Tokomaru canoe arrived, Manaia said that [they] should come here, to this island. Coming across the sea, in due course, [they] arrived at Mōhakatino. [They] stayed there, then went on, going to Tongapōrutu, to Tāmurenui,

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mĀori oral tradition to Pukearuhe, to Te Waiti, to Mimi, to Urenui, to Waitara. When Manaia arrived at Waitara, he found the people of this island. [They] were attacked, and were killed. [They] were killed by him; [then] he, Manaia, took all this land. On Manaia’s defeat of that tribe, then he peopled this land with many, and so there is Te Āti Awa. If the anchor of that canoe is taken away, it will return again to the place it was taken from. That’s all.

The prefatory statement (or title when written), as is usual, tips off something about the subject: here it is the canoe journey, which advises that the action will begin in Hawaiki and end in Aotearoa. The oral composer had a number of ways, some formulaic, in which to engage the audience at the start: for instance, using phrases such as ‘He kōrero tēnei mō Mea’ (This is a narrative about So-and-so) or ‘Tērā tētahi tangata ko Mea te ingoa’ (There was a man named So-and-so), or quotation of a line of genealogy. These mark a preference to state at the very beginning or soon after the name of the main character or characters; and that might well be followed by a place-name to locate the action, as occurs in the story about Kupe at the start of this chapter. Haku began his account by naming the protagonist too and he combined this with another standard option: he set the scene with an ordinary task, with a man going fishing, although it is Manaia, an extraordinary man. The listeners in the old world might have already felt some apprehension, knowing that in narratives when someone goes fishing, there is often trouble to come. And sure enough here, the good gives way to the bad in another narrative motif: while he is away fishing, a man’s wife is seduced.66 Haku picks up next with the useful ‘na’ particle (well, now, then); like ‘ā’ (and), ‘arā’ (that is) and ‘nā wai ā’ (after a time), it was helpful to narrators to mark a change of focus, direction or time or to allow them to hesitate – time for the teller to recall the next section or for the audience to catch up (working rather like punctuation). Manaia’s anger at the insult by Mōtai (the only other named, his disgrace on record) is voiced in an instruction to his people. Māori oral composers used direct speech to great effect in narrative (and song). As Thornton observed, because narratives were often told in a house at night in the dark, ‘the mutual involvement for the storyteller and his audience [was] close and intense’; narrators with ‘their audience right in front of them’ could sense the effect on them and they wanted ‘this effect to 134

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be as positive and strong as possible’.67 Direct speech helped this; it was as if the characters were present. And it was obviously popular because it takes many forms: single statements (commands, appeals, threats, promises) and dialogues (challenges and responses, curses and replies, greetings and farewells). As in this case, direct speech could also give direction to the story and intimate what was to come.68 Manaia’s instruction centres on how he will repay Mōtai’s treachery: it involves the major undertaking of procuring wood from the forest, carrying it in to the village and shaping it. But it is the list (that useful oral genre) of four kinds of weapons to be made that sparks interest; it predicts war. The emphatic ‘Kāti katoa ngā rākau’ (When all the weapons were completed) satisfyingly confirms that the necessary preparation is done.69 There is also the underlying thought here that something completed and done well will lead to success; and perhaps too that there is now a good chance that the required utu will follow with the equally necessary ea of requital. Manaia, whose name (ten times) controls (and endorses) everything that occurs in this history, launches his avenging attack with another imperative (a favourite amongst the uses of direct speech): ‘Me tū ki te whawhai!’ (Stand to for the fight!). For an audience accustomed to war, it must have brought a certain thrill. There is no description of the progress of the fight, as there can be in histories of fighting, only of its outcome. Manaia is in focus here and his successful avenging of ‘taua iwi’, Mōtai’s people being defeated. As Johansen realised from the old accounts, ‘revenge is the great subject in Maori tradition’.70 A narrative or episode may start with a task such as going fishing; a desire or a thought are other openers to action.71 The reason Manaia thought of leaving was that he had heard people were gathering to attack him (to make their reply); like others, he is said to have left Hawaiki because of fighting. What follows is a series of plain statements – cumulative and with simple syntax – initiated by the habitual ‘Kātahi ka’ and run on with the inevitable ‘ka’: Manaia acquired the (already named) Tokomaru canoe, gave the order that they come ‘ki konei, ki tēnei motu’ (here, to this island), crossed the sea and arrived (‘tae mai’) at Mōhakatino – here, before the audience, who knows this place. By use of the directional particle mai (towards us – the narrator and listeners), and in the ‘nei’ of ‘konei’ and ‘tēnei motu’ (here, this island – where the listeners are) that precede it, the narrator shifts the perspective 135

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to himself and the present audience and place. Hohepa has proposed that the oral narrators used the directional particles (nei, nā, rā, mai, atu, ake, iho) advisedly, and that they are ‘indicators of the position, movement and attitude of the storyteller or narrator’ or can speak of ‘the active participation of the person telling the story’.72 This seems to me to be so here. In addition, while Manaia remains the main character and the narration is still wholly about him, he no longer speaks. And perhaps this is because the narrator now shifts the focus, not from Manaia but towards (mai) another important factor – the creation of the tribe present (nei, konei, tēnei) on the land and in the audience. But that is getting ahead. As they went on with their recitations, the ancestral composer-narrators knew to keep the audience engaged by using tactics such as switching the action from the individual to the many, from one perspective to another, from calm to excitement, or from the everyday to the new. One example of this is a return home or a sojourn on a journey before something else happens; it is expressed by the phrase, or variants of it, ‘Ka noho’ and followed by ‘kātahi ka’.73 Haku used this before his next episode: ‘Ka noho’ ‘[They] stayed there’, and ‘kātahi ka haere’ ‘then went on’ – another journey. This prevalent motif in the narratives (evident too in lists, sayings and songs) is interesting and invites a study. Perhaps it is a reflection of the seafaring Polynesian ancestors, the migratory journey from Hawaiki and exploratory wandering in Aotearoa, or of the lines of genealogy or the path of discovery, of knowledge, created by the words of the oral tradition, which generations followed along. But in one sense it is certainly a reflection of life in the old world as it is portrayed in the oral narratives (and alluded to in songs).74 For people are constantly on the move, across the land, along the rivers and out on the sea: going fishing, birding, eeling or to their cultivations, exploring lands with an eye to acquisition, going to neighbouring kin to enlist warriors for a battle, or going in search of lovers or fathers. And all that could possibly happen along the way provides the potential for a thrilling story. Moreover, on the pathways old names on the landscape are recognised, recalling the ancestors, and new ones are written on to it, marking the descendants’ lives there too. On this journey there is a list of place-names (and there may have been another narrative of Manaia giving them as he explored) that traces the land known to the listeners and declares their influence over it; names that in every repetition (whatever the genre) ground the history. Arriving at 136

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Waitara there is a chance for another boost to Manaia’s fame and accomplishments: he attacks and kills the local or original people. The phrasing is standard for describing fighting. Here, in its threefold iteration, it forcefully proclaims the victory – his victory: ‘Ka patua, na, ka mate. Ka mate i a ia’ ([They] were attacked, and were killed. [They] were killed [or defeated – both meanings are at work here] by him). And then Manaia’s success is driven home in the statement that ‘this’ (‘our’ to the audience) land was taken by him. Moreover, stating his name in apposition here (‘i a Manaia rā’) makes it quite clear that he acquired that territory, and it is another instance of the meaningful positioning of names in narratives. Those subtle particles in the language, which are easy for the language learner to overlook but can convey a lot, are significant here, in the use of ‘rā’ (‘Manaia rā’, that Manaia, in that place, in the past) juxtaposed to ‘nei’ (‘tēnei whenua’, this land, here, in the present). After a restatement of Manaia’s conquest, Haku adds in the other great consequence of his journey, that he peopled the land and gave rise to Te Āti Awa. Composers also had ways to draw their narratives to a close. A saying might sum up a story, a  song or a portion of genealogy.75 The simple (already mentioned) ‘Ka mutu’ (The end) or ‘Ka mutu te kōrero mō Mea’ (This ends the account about So-and-so) was popular; it may seem trifling but it is in keeping with a tightly composed episode, and when used with a name as well it offered another opportunity to remember the protagonist. Another kind of ending takes the form of a reasoned statement, as in ‘Koia nei te take . . .’ (This is the reason why . . .), which very briefly summarises or rehearses what happened. Yet another is to conclude with a statement that brings the audience back from living imaginatively in the past to the reality of the present (from the ancestors to the present generation or from the supernatural to the human world), bringing them down to earth, so to speak, but without losing the link to the past. This might be by telling where an ancestor died or is buried, by making a connection to contemporaries of the composer76 or by making reference to where a migratory canoe lies. When Haku came to wrap up, he used such a link in a reference to the mystical in the present time, which derived from the historical episode just recounted (as Tūnuiārangi did in the Kupe story). He returned to the canoe, to its anchor which, if taken away, would return to where it was taken from. In this setting the audience turned from the romance of a great ancestor 137

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to the cautionary, to the reality of a present still imbued with the ancients and past history. ‘That’s all’, Haku said curtly – or rather, effectively and satisfyingly, from a listener’s point of view. There are longer and more elaborate versions of the history of Manaia and the Tokomaru canoe, but there are not many, which has raised questions for some about the authenticity of these stories.77 This oral tradition, however, was obviously known in Haku’s lifetime (and had been at least from Grey’s version of it published in 1854) and sufficiently well for him to compose this rendition with the same bare essentials and recognisably oral style. Haku’s rendition reached manuscript form in the following way. In a letter of 1894 to Edward Tregear, and in response to S. Percy Smith’s search for an account of the Tokomaru canoe, W. T. Morpeth wrote that he took the narrative down from the ‘old man’ (meaning Haku). He commented that it was difficult to understand him so the story was ‘imparted to me by a younger man in slow and distinct Maori’ (who in this case probably told it exactly as he heard it from his elder). And, Morpeth added, ‘It is very short and bare, and as far as I can see unimportant’, because there was a lack of detail, such as the names of the crew, incidents that occurred on the voyage or lists of genealogy.78 It may have been all that Haku knew or wanted to tell, but for those keen Pākehā members of the Polynesian Society it would have disappointed as history. Yet it had its own oral distinction and purpose, and detail and meaning that were highly relevant to Te Āti Awa as a record that helped define them. The narrative is very compact, singling out a key ancestor and a few events that led to the establishment of the tribe. It certainly fits Ballara’s suggestion in regard to histories of war that over time elders would ‘sift the accounts of the past’ to emphasise ‘aspects of campaigns which enhanced or protected the mana of their own people’.79 For there remains in the mind a very clear recollection of Manaia as a great man: not only a fisherman but also a man who properly took action against insult and redressed the balance of right and wrong, and a warrior chief with men who were skilled at making weapons and using them winningly at his command. Moreover, he was a man who led his people into the unknown, over a vast ocean to a new land, where he conquered the inhabitants and claimed (and named) the land; such are the triumphant acts of great chiefs in the oral narratives, which underpin the life and status of a tribe. The leaders of canoe voyages and founders of tribes are long remembered from such grand 138

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but condensed histories; their power and authority, or mana, was derived from the kind of successes attributed here to Manaia, which also brought pleasure and honour to their descendent generations.

A Narrative about Transmission of the Oral Traditions The oral histories can be about vivid, highly dramatic events or moving, heartfelt and tragic situations; some, however, particularly about very early life in Aotearoa, chronicle less exciting if nevertheless very significant activities, such as naming territories and assigning places for family and possessions on the land. This example is about bringing the ancestral words, the oral tradition, into the tribal territory and disseminating them to the people; and it beautifully conveys abiding cultural ideals such as the importance of kin, establishment on the land and inheritance of traditions. It features East Coast ancestors, Paikea and Ira, and is an excerpt from the long 1895 history by the Ngāti Porou writer quoted also in Chapters 1 and 2. Interestingly, in one section in this piece, which is entitled ‘Paikea’, and in keeping with his previous statements about variation in the ancestral accounts, the writer distinguishes his own version in this way: ‘E kī ana a Ngāti Porou . . . E kī ana te kaituhi i tēnei pukapuka . . .’ (Ngāti Porou says . . . The writer of this book says . . .). He may have been making a distinction between his own tribal group’s understanding and that of the larger iwi or grouping of tribes, or it was simply an assertion of his own rendition as he had learned it from his tribal elders. The episodes preceding this one describe Paikea’s ‘taunaha whenua’, his travelling in search of, naming and claiming land, and his decision to settle at Whāngārā, which he named after his home in Hawaiki because of a similar setting, a practice that ensured ties were kept. While living there a relative (brother or cousin), Ira, visits him and Paikea suggests that Ira bring his family and people to live close by at Pākarae. Ira does so, and, after one intervening episode, the story continues. Kātahi a Paikea ka whakaaro, ‘Me ako e au ngā kōrero ki a Ira.’ Kātahi a Paikea ka kī atu ki a Ira, ‘Me haere tāua ki Ūwawa; ki te tae tāua ki reira, ko koe e noho atu, ko au e hoki mai ki konei.’ Ka whakaae a Ira. Ka hara mai a Paikea me Ira me ōna tamariki me ōna wāhine me ōna tāngata, ā, ka tae mai ki Waimaunu.

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mĀori oral tradition Ka waihangatia te whare o Ira. Ka oti. Kātahi ka whākina e Paikea ngā kōrero i kīia mai rā [e] Haeora ki a ia. Kātahi anō ka kōrero a Ira i ngā kōrero i akona e Uenuku, kia nuku kē atu te mōhio o Ira i tō Paikea. Ka kī atu a Paikea ki a ia, ‘Ka rongo atu nei au ki te nui o ngā kōrero e kōrero mai nei koe, ina ētahi kua kōrerotia atu nei e au. Taku kupu ki a koe, whākina ngā kōrero ki te ao, kia kōrerotia ai ngā kōrero a ō tāua mātua.’ Ka tapa i te ingoa o te whare o Ira ko Te Matatūāhu. Ka akona e Ira ngā kōrero ki a Wharepātari. Ka riro i a Wharepātari ngā kōrero, ka tū tōna whare ki Whangaparāoa. Ka akona ngā kōrero ki a Putānga, ka riro i [a] Putānga ngā kōrero, ka hanga tōna whare ko Te Mangatawanui-o-rehu.80 Then Paikea thought, ‘I must teach the traditions to Ira.’ Paikea then said to Ira, ‘Let us go to Ūwawa [or Ūawa]; when we get there, you stay there and I will return here.’ Ira agreed. So Paikea came and Ira and his children and his wives and his people, and, in due course, [they] arrived at Waimaunu. Ira’s house was built. When completed, then Paikea revealed the traditions that Haeora had told him. Then for the first time, Ira spoke of the traditions that Uenuku had taught him so that Ira’s knowledge would be greater than Paikea’s. Paikea said to him, ‘I know most of the traditions you speak of here, and some I have spoken of [to others]. My word to you is to reveal the traditions to the world, so that the traditions of our elders can be spoken about.’ The name given to Ira’s house was Te Matatūāhu. Ira taught the traditions to Wharepātari. When Wharepātari acquired the traditions, he established his house at Whangaparāoa. The traditions were taught to Putānga; when Putānga acquired the traditions, he built his house, Te Mangatawanui-o-rehu.

Running on directly from the previous episode, this excerpt begins with a frequent prompt to action, ‘Kātahi . . . ka whakaaro’; Paikea’s thought is voiced by the narrator. Next is his spoken instruction to Ira (their two names sound throughout) that they both go to Ūawa. Brief phrases spell out what is to happen: the allocation of a place on the land to a family group, which is frequently a topic in the ancestral stories of arrival. There is balance in the image – one is to ‘stay there’ (‘noho atu’) and one is to ‘return here’ (‘hoki mai ki konei’), which anticipates the people spreading out over and populating the land, which in turn will enhance their ability to defend it. The bare statement of agreement by the one instructed is also typical: suggestions or injunctions are often complemented by consent, making it ‘tika’ or all in 140

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order in traditional terms. Then they are on their journey, and the size and nature of this party of travellers is depicted memorably by the stress on ‘me’: ‘Paikea me Ira me ōna tamariki me ōna wāhine me ōna tāngata’ (Paikea and Ira and his children and his wives and his people). (In the earlier episode when, at Paikea’s invitation, Ira went with his people to live at Pākarae, the phrasing used for their party is virtually the same.81) This enumeration sees them strung out along the route, and the ‘ā’ (and in due course) suggests some distance before the safe arrival at Waimaunu – without untoward incident, as an audience may have expected of a party on the move. Just as a house was built for Turi’s traditions (referred to in Chapter 1), so Ira’s house (whare wānanga) was built; it was a manifestation of the oral traditions (as carvings could be too) and the place where they were lodged and shared.82 When the house is completed, with the ‘ka oti’ denoting ‘properly’, the usual ‘kātahi ka’ introduces the important scene that is the crux of the episode. The exchange of traditions that follows forms another nicely balanced repetition – this was the life-sustaining recitation to imprint the words on minds and for the future – but with new and significant names. In due succession Paikea relates what his elder, Haeora, told him, then Ira relates what his elder, Uenuku, taught him, but here there is a slight elaboration, that Ira’s knowledge is greater than Paikea’s. No more is said about that but a reference in an earlier episode explains it. Ira’s decision to go and see Paikea was based on the fact that Paikea was a younger relative according to their lines of descent (‘Te take hei taina hoki a Paikea ki a Ira, i runga i ā rātou huarahi whakapapa’), and the writer noted here that this was documented in another book, presumably of genealogies that underpinned the narratives.83 Those higher in the line were more likely to have the greater knowledge of traditions. Despite this, Paikea is the one who is in focus here and it is he who speaks directly in this narrative episode; by comparison Ira’s part is passive. As in the Manaia narrative, direct speech can have a theatrical effect: here it gives the impression of these ancestors as being very much alive and their words instructive in the present. In this respect Johansen was correct when he wrote: ‘We cannot underline the literal meaning too much when we say that the Maori re-lives history.’84 The structure, style and public recitation of the historical narratives promoted that. What Paikea now says gives an idea of how traditions were transmitted and preserved – and it is critical to the narrative. First, he repeats what 141

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has happened (which kept the listeners up with the play), referring to their exchange of traditions. Then he advises Ira to reveal the traditions to the world ‘ki te ao’ (a phrase that recurs in episodes that follow), or, alternatively (or both), to bring them into the light of day (te ao) from the darkness of the repository of the mind and from the time of learning in the whare wānanga at night (it is a contrast reminiscent of the imagery of the cosmogonic genealogies). This was so that the words of the elders would be talked about (‘kōrerotia’) in such a way that the tradition bearers could be sure the teachings were heard and would survive.85 It is very apparent that the word dominating this episode, and indeed this whole excerpt, is ‘kōrero’; it is used for the texts themselves and for the communication of and talk about them, with ‘ako’ (teach) coming in for repetition too. Now, after Ira gives the name of his house, attention shifts to his passing on of what he has learned. This last section has the aspect of a genealogy; it is a slightly expanded listing of the names of the people, houses and places by means of which, and where, the words were disseminated. Here ‘whare’ (house) joins ‘kōrero’ as another key word, words that become resonant in their repetition and identify the main subjects; hearing them over and again plays to the memorability of the narrative. This same resonance occurs with all the names throughout the whole piece; those great reminders of the past in the oral tradition, whether of people, places, tribes, houses, battles, gardens, hills, streams, trees, personal possessions large or small – whatever is named reverberates and signifies in the oral narratives.86 In the excerpt quoted above, the transmission of traditions stops at Putānga. In the manuscript itself the record of the teaching to named descendants and the building and naming of their houses continues on, with accounts of some seven more descendants who were bearers of the tradition and a poignant episode in which a man’s kindness to an elder results in his acquisition of traditional knowledge. And, almost at the end of the Paikea piece, there is a statement that augurs well for the survival of all the knowledge imparted to those people: ‘Kātahi ka tino puta ēnei kōrero ki te ao kōrerotia ai’ (Then these traditions really emerged into the world to be spoken about). There is a little more to add in relation to this kind of restatement. Subsequent episodes in the manuscript feature Ira and his journey to Aotearoa, and, at the conclusion of them, the above episode about the transmission of the traditions between Paikea and Ira 142

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is summarised.87 Such repetition, in its various forms, was vital in the oral society for the inherited knowledge to endure. The action in this narrative piece is, to a large extent, progressive, clear and self-explanatory. But there is a lot more to know to fully understand it: the earlier and later episodes of this history, the places, the houses (and the meaning of their names), the people named and their place in the genealogy and, by extension, the tribal groups that are represented in relation to them. This is why an outsider’s or an isolated reader’s understanding is often compromised; the brevity, the lack of subordinating reasons or explanation, was possible because the narrators took for granted their audiences’ knowledge of the much larger and sometimes complex context and history. All the same this excerpt is a prime example of how simplicity, concision and repetition work to great effect, and in a pleasureable and highly instructive way. Even without the personal detail of or association with the people, places and land, this spare and elegant composition leaves a feeling that the traditions are safely housed, have been communicated to appropriate bearers, are widely disseminated and resonant across the land, and are accordingly assured for succeeding generations. And there is a measure of how that actually occurred in the oral society. The seriousness of purpose is communicated too, again as so often in the oral tradition by rhythmic repetitions. The reciting of names together with the formulaic phrasing that goes with them creates a purposeful, memorable beat (as with the sound of genealogies). The cumulative effect, as more people and places and dedicated houses are included, also speaks of something substantial, prestigious and precious: the prized treasury of words passed on from the ancestors.

A Narrative about Acquiring Land Chronologically, narratives of departure from Hawaiki, and arrival and settlement in the new land form one group that shares many thematic elements. There are also many accounts about kin groups, and these are relatively detailed as to the landscape and lives of the Māori ancestors in Aotearoa.88 Like the example that follows, these are unfailingly engaging and picturesque, often arresting and always aurally attractive. Among many writers who put pen to paper for histories and stories of 143

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this kind was Te Wheoro of Waikato. Active in tribal and government affairs from the 1860s to 1880s, his extant correspondence and papers show him as a man of letters. For one whose ‘lineage, character and intelligence clearly gave him mana among Waikato people’, it is not surprising that he should have had a good command of historical traditions and that he composed them in the classic style with flair.89 In one collection of John White’s papers, there are manuscripts by Te Wheoro in a clear and confident hand; some of his writing was published in The Ancient History of the Maori. This piece comes from some ninety-six pages dated 1871. Preceded and followed by other accounts of his tribal history, it is the first episode in a long and engrossing composition concerning his ancestors, Whare (or Wharetīpeti) and Tapaue. Ko Whare rāua ko Tapaue Ka noho a Whare rāua ko Tapaue i tō rāua pā i Te Uapata. Kāore ō rāua nei whenua hei tupunga kai, mā [ā] rāua kūmara, hei mahinga tuna. Ko tō rāua kāinga e noho nei, he iti, he repo katoa te nuinga. Kei roto atu o Taupiri taua kāinga; kei tētehi manga o te awa o Mangawara, kei Kōmakorau. Ko te kai o tō rāua kāinga, he kōwharawhara. Nō reira tēnei kupu āna. Ngangare ētehi tāngata i ngā uri o Whare rāua ko Tapaue, ka puta tēnei kupu i te tangata, ‘Haere ki Te Uapata, te kai a tō tupuna, he kōwharawhara.’ Mō reira anō tēnei oreore nā Ngāti Te Wehi, he ngangare whenua e whakatete mai ana ki a Ngāti Mahuta, ‘E Mahuta, e Mahuta, e hoki ki Te Uapata, he kōwharawhara te kai o tō whenua, e hinawa.’ Ka noho nei a Whare rāua ko Tapaue i tō rāua kāinga, kai atu he kōwharawhara, te ora i te kai, te aha. Ka puta he whakaaro mō ngā tāngata nei, kia haere rāua ki te ohu māra kūmara i Kaitotehe. Ka tukua te tangata a ngā tāngata nei. Ka tae ki te iwi e noho mai i Kaitotehe rā, ki a Iranui, ka kōrero, ‘I mea mai a Whare rāua ko Tapaue mā rāua e ohu ā koutou māra.’ Ka whakaae te iwi rā, ka mea mā rātou e mahi tētehi taha o te māra, mā Whare rāua ko Tapaue tētehi taha. Hoki mai ana te karere rā. Ka tae mai ki ngā tāngata nei, ka kōrero kua whakaae mai taua iwi. Kātahi ka karanga ngā tāngata nei ki tō rāua iwi kia tārai i te kō hei kō mō te māra. Ka tīkina rā, ka mahia me te ako atu anō ki tō rāua iwi kia koi a raro o te kō, kia koi a runga. Te hopukanga atu a te iwi rā, kotahi [rau] mā whitu, kotahi [rau]

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Kōrero mā whitu hoki ngā kō, whakakoi rawa a runga, a raro. Ko te take i pēneitia ai, hei patu i te iwi nōna te māra, ka mahia nei hei tango i te whenua; kia warea tērā ki te mahi, ka oho tata ai me ngā kō hei patu. Kātahi ka haere te rau mā whitu nei, ka tae ki te māra hei mahinga, ko Hoepō te ingoa o taua māra. I te atapō anō, ka tū te ohu nei; mahi atu ana tēnei i tētehi taha, mahi mai ana tērā i tētehi taha. Ka tautohetohe te mahi a tētehi a tētehi; nā wai i matara tētehi tētehi, ka piri tonu, ka taututetute tētehi me tētehi. Tahi tonu te aranga ake o te kō a te kotahi rau mā whitu nei. Ehara! Tangi ana te patu. Ka whati, tērā te tangata whenua ka patua haeretia. Hoi anō, ka riro te whenua nei te tango, arā, taua māra nei a Hoepō.90 Whare and Tapuae Whare and Tapaue lived in their fort at Te Uapata. They had no lands for cultivating food, for their kūmara, for procuring eels. The settlement they lived in was small; most of it was swamp. That settlement was inland of Taupiri, on a branch of the Mangawara River at Kōmakorau. The food from their settlement was kōwharawhara. And so there is this saying relating to them. When people quarrel with the descendants of Whare and Tapaue, someone will utter this saying, ‘Go to Te Uapata, where the food of your ancestor was kōwharawhara.’ In relation to this also there was this provocation chanted by Ngāti Te Wehi in a quarrel over land when they were goading Ngāti Mahuta, ‘Hey Mahuta, hey Mahuta, go back to Te Uapata, where kōwharawhara is the food from your land, ha ha.’ Whare and Tapaue lived in their settlement and ate kōwharawhara, surviving on that food, anything at all. An idea came to these men that they should go with workers to the kūmara gardens at Kaitotehe. So a worker of these men was sent off. When he got to the people living there at Kaitotehe, to Iranui, he said, ‘Whare and Tapaue suggest that they bring workers for your gardens.’ That tribe agreed, saying that they would work one side of the garden and Whare and Tapaue the other side. That messenger returned. When he got to these men, he told them that that tribe had agreed. Then these men called on their tribe to shape sticks for digging the garden. They set to and worked on them, the instruction to their tribe being also that the digging-sticks were to be sharp on the bottom and sharp on top. When that tribe, the hundred,91 took hold of them, there were a hundred digging-sticks too, very sharp on top

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mĀori oral tradition and bottom. The reason that was done was to kill the people who had the garden and so doing take the land; when the others were occupied in work, [they] would surprise them, with the digging-sticks to attack [and kill] them. Then this hundred went off and arrived at the garden to work, Hoepō being the name of that garden. Right on dawn, this company took up their places; this [group] working on one side, that [group] working on the other side. One argued with another in the work; for some time there was distance between one and other, but immediately they came close, one jostled another. Then suddenly together this hundred raised the digging-sticks. Behold! The clubbing resounded. They fled [but] the people of the land were attacked [or, killed] as they went. In the end, this land was acquired by seizing it, that is, that garden, Hoepō.

Te Wheoro may have been thinking of the published version that White would produce when he wrote his first sentence above the narrative as if giving it a title; alternatively, it may have been a prefatory statement of the old style. But he certainly began traditionally, with names: those of the main characters, Whare and Tapaue, and of their fort, Te Uapata, which the tribal audience would have once known. Typically also, Te Wheoro had his characters just living there (‘Ka noho a Whare rāua ko Tapaue’) before he went on to reveal what was at the heart of the story, the problem that needed solving.92 They had no land for cultivating kūmara or where they could catch eels, and, to emphasise that disadvantage, Te Wheoro added in apposition that most of the little land they had was swamp. Next he added a bit more information, describing the location of the land: on a branch of the Mangawara River, at Kōmakorau.93 Perhaps he gave the precise situation for the benefit of any Pākehā readers; alternatively he may have been thinking of descendants who might not know it. Now Te Wheoro goes back to that initial statement about the lack of good food and expands on it, weighting the problem by mentioning that all they had to eat was kōwharawhara which, it seems, was eaten as a snack and was neither a staple nor highly regarded food.94 This return to an initial statement and adding of information (in apposition) to complement it is known as ‘appositional expansion’; it is common in the oral narratives and will be discussed below. At this point, better informed, the seasoned listeners would have been dismayed at Whare and Tapaue’s situation, at the lack of good land and the prime foods of kūmara and eels, and the further 146

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misfortune of having to survive on kōwharawhara. This compromised their strength as a people and also their ability to provide the generous hospitality that was imperative for their reputation and standing (which explains themes and scenes in histories of provisioning for guests). The audience would have recognised this as a problem that required action and they would have been anxious to know the outcome. Te Wheoro then compounds the ignominy of their situation by reaching forward in time and revealing what had been recorded in words (those ‘tao kī’) about them. There is a saying that opponents quote to the descendants of Whare and Tapaue to cast a slur on their home, Te Uapata, and on their ancestors for having to eat this food. And there is a taunting chant that another tribe used to goad Ngāti Mahuta (one of Te Wheoro’s tribes). Narrators made use of different genres for effect – as a diversion, to inform or to keep the audience alert – by, for instance, quoting a line of genealogy, singing a song or reciting an incantation. Here Te Wheoro’s quotations are sufficient to bring the problem to prominence and to enhance his story. The difficult circumstances have been presented in three different ways: at the beginning of the story itself, which gives voice to the problem; in the saying and the chant, which alone and in association with each other help to magnify the problem (and also point to and anticipate an exciting story); and in the repetitive telling that was sure to imprint the historical situation on the minds of the descendent listeners. Up to this point, and tellingly, the prominent words are ‘kai’ (food) and ‘kāinga’ (settlement), so very important to life and to this story. Next Te Wheoro goes back to the conventional image of the characters simply living at home (‘Ka noho . . . i tō rāua kāinga’), with its suggestion of calm and normality. He speaks again of their eating kōwharawhara and their lack of good food; something must be done. The real action also begins with the formulaic, with Whare and Tapaue’s idea (‘ka puta he whakaaro’) that they go and contribute to a kūmara garden at Kaitotehe. Cooperation between groups over major tasks was usual in the old world but it had to be negotiated. First in the plan, therefore, is to send a messenger to put the proposal; this creates delay and anticipation for the listeners. It is also a real picture of the society in which, to judge by the oral narratives, messengers were always busy people. The intermediary, arrived at Kaitotehe, rehearses Whare and Tapaue’s proposal to Iranui (the only other named character); repetition in the oral 147

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narratives is always significant, whether for emphasising, clarifying, poeticising or assisting the memory. It is a useful proposal and the agreement is given in the splendidly symmetrical phrasing that pictures how the two groups would work on each side of the garden: ‘mā rātou e mahi tētehi taha o te māra, mā Whare rāua ko Tapaue tētehi taha’ (they would work one side of the garden and Whare and Tapaue the other side).95 Things seem to bode well. The messenger returns and reports the agreement, reiterating it a second time. The two protagonists, now referred to as ‘ngā tāngata nei’ rather than by name (implying ‘these wily men’), in seeming innocence call on their tribe to fashion ‘kō’, long-handled digging-sticks sharpened to a point that were used for gardening.96 This is taking very practical action. Frequently in the old accounts there is something to be made (as with the weapons Manaia called for) – for instance, snares, nets or canoes – which gives some idea of how people made things and what they possessed that was vital to them; in narratives, however, such work is usually preparation for some extraordinary event. Here, as in other stories of gardens and digging-sticks, there is a ruse within the task;97 Whare and Tapaue were emulating their crafty ancestor Māui, signified in the epithet of Māui-tinihanga or Cunning-Māui. It is prefigured in the instruction to sharpen the bottom and top of the sticks, ‘kia koi a raro o te kō, kia koi a runga’. What seems to be another balanced image is really out of kilter with the benign purpose of gardening; it presages attack. Moreover, so does the number of people present: ‘rau mā whitu’ can mean a large number of men but also a war-party. Matching them with an equal number of digging-sticks which, Te  Wheoro now repeats but with the intensifier ‘rawa’, were ‘whakakoi rawa’ (very sharp), makes the scene altogether threatening. The slow build up in the preparation of the kō was surely deliberate in this telling, and no doubt effective; an audience would have been on edge about the purpose and may have anticipated an attack. Polack’s quaintly phrased observation of early nineteenth-century storytelling depicts the concentrated attention that listeners gave to their narrators: . . . the company sitting around the hearth in the native cabin, listen with breathless anxiety to all the horrors that the invention of the reciter can conjure to his mind. This feeling becomes so intense, even during a supersititious fear that imperceptibly creeps over the whole auditory, that the fall of a

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Kōrero rotten branch of a tree in an adjoining forest, would scare the most fearless of warriors.98

But in this instance they are not left long to worry about what is afoot, for Te Wheoro at once reveals the plot: they intend to kill the owners of the garden and take the land. He gives away their strategy but not all the suspense, for it is not yet known how this will transpire. In many oral narratives, outcomes and endings are told at certain points in the story that in a literary work could be regarded as being out of sequence. Many composers followed a practice of stating what happened (or is to happen) in which an ending or proposed action precedes the account of how it happened.99 This tendency to ‘give away’ the ending can be perplexing, particularly for translators and especially since verbal markers of tense in Māori are not as definitive as they are in English. With fine insight, Thornton explained and exemplified this practice in her article ‘Two Features of Oral Style in Maori Narrative’: The oral story-teller’s intense eagerness responds to the intensity of listening which surrounds him, and he immediately indicates the whole of the story by telling the beginning and end of it in order to satisfy at once the desire of his audience to know what they are going to hear about. Then he elaborates ‘appositionally’ . . . on the detail of how all this came about. It is the participation in the intriguing or emotionally stirring detail in its full intensity that the listeners enjoy . . .100

Te Wheoro’s composition, although recorded in writing, has all the hallmarks of the oral tradition. Note was made above of simple examples of his adding, in apposition, a little more information about an earlier statement. This can occur progressively, or sometimes well after an initial statement, and it concludes by going back to the first or ‘initial’ statement, as Thornton described in her article. Of this narrative practice she wrote: ‘It is plain that “chronology”, in the strict sense of time flowing evenly from past to present to future, is irrelevant to this kind of story-telling.’101 In a later article that carefully explained this ‘chronological looseness’ (and in which she compared Māori and Greek notions of time), Thornton added another reason for this style of narration to that of the intense engagement between narrator and audience. She described the Māori view 149

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of time as ‘qualitative’ (rather than quantitative) and ‘inherent in events’; and (as often remarked) the Māori view of the past as being in front of them (‘ngā rā o mua’, ‘the days before’) and the future behind them (‘kei muri’). By extension, she asserted, what came first was most important, for example, what lay in myths, genealogies and ancestral histories. And this led to a characteristic of one narrative style: ‘For in an appositional expansion . . . the storyteller “faces the past” by relating each new piece of description back to the initial object of his description, or by giving the “pre-history” or perhaps better “pre-story” of an event or a person or an object by starting from that event, moving to its source-event in the far past, and returning to the starting-point.’102 In effect Thornton recognised that how Māori thought about time and described their past had implications for understanding the shape of and action in some oral narratives. Now to return to Te Wheoro describing how their plan was carried out. He has the hundred set off for the garden, Hoepō – named as were all productive patches and resources in the tribal territory. At dawn – suggestively, being the time when attacks in war were launched  – the company of workers are ready. It is another ordinary scene (like fishing): early in the morning people are at work in the gardens. The word ‘māra’ takes the repetition now (earlier it was kō); it is the immediate setting – and the goal. The even beat of the wording (a measured flow of words drew, held and pleased the audience’s ear) and the balanced image is in keeping with a peaceful scene: ‘mahi atu ana tēnei i tētehi taha, mahi mai ana tērā i tētehi taha’ (this [group] working on one side, that [group] working on the other side). But the balance shifts. There is contention between one and other, although for some time they are well apart; when they come very close in the work, there is jostling. The contention and jostling, and the two sides at odds, are well expressed in the alliterative ‘tautohetohe’ and ‘taututetute’ (with the prefix ‘tau’ denoting reciprocal action and emphasising those exchanges) and in the repetitions of ‘tētehi’. Things are now out of balance and this sparks the (intended) attack by (repeated again) ‘te kotahi rau mā whitu’ (the hundred). The short, sharp phrasing ‘Tahi tonu te aranga ake o te kō a te kotahi rau mā whitu nei’ brings the formidable, fearful, image of the sudden raising in unison by the hundred of their – doubly sharpened – digging-sticks, ready to attack. Then, after that favourite exclamation of the oral stories, as if narrator and audience were right there, ‘Ehara!’ ‘Behold!’ (this old-fashioned English word seems right here), there is the phrase that 150

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recurs in records of battles, ‘Tangi ana te patu’; it has the powerful crack of the clubs striking skulls ringing in the ears of an audience transfixed by the action. This brief episode is now rounded off: there is fleeing, there is pursuit and killing, in the same words, phrasing, action and image (‘ka whati . . . ka patua haeretia’) found in histories of fighting across tribes. The simple ‘Hoi anō’ closes off the action, but the final words are ones of celebration of the success, of productive land acquired, of the problem solved. This new possession is roundly affirmed by the use of both ‘riro’ and ‘tango’ (take, acquire) and by the name of the garden, Hoepō, which is now ‘written into’ Whare and Tapaue’s ‘kōrero tuku iho’. It is remarkable how much can be relayed and vividly pictured in the short space of some tersely described scenes (or written paragraphs), which yet have energy and a driving pace. There is a story – and history – and picture: of chiefly strategists and their people, a fort and settlement on poor land, miserable food, an idea, a messenger, preparation of tools (at once of peace and war), a crafty plan, the meeting of gardeners at dawn, two sides at work, sparring, jostling, a sudden attack, pursuit and victory. And, consequently, Whare and Tapaue’s provision of good land for their people. The brevity is vigorous, graphic and memorable, the picture of the old world vivid. The oral narratives are beguiling; they are highly patterned in terms of the compositional style but all the same are compelling to read (or hear) and, being finely wrought, bear telling and retelling. On the surface some can seem ordinary or plain, yet they attract and maintain interest and inform by the point, charm and vision brought to narration and performance. It is surprising too how very often when one of these narratives is read or heard again, something becomes apparent that first went unnoticed: the intended double meanings in one word, the value and implication of a repetition, counterpointed ideas or images, an allusion that suddenly becomes clear, or the shaft of something poetic – and it may be that on further study, the narratives will be found to be as much, or more, poetry than prose. The poetry of the oral tradition, however, although evident in all the genres discussed so far, finds greatest expression in the waiata, the songs and chants.

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5. Songs and Chants Waiata

Rā te haeata Tākiri ana Ki Tauwara rā, Pae tauārai ki a koe, E Amo, e aroha nei au. Waiho rā, mātā, Kia mihi au, Kia roa te mihinga, Ka tuku tēnei, Ki te tai pōuri, Ki taku makau mate.1 There the dawn Is unfurling Over distant Tauwara, Peak that conceals you, O Amo, while here I long for you. But with you there, dear one, Let me salute you, With a long salutation, For this one is to descend To the dark sea, To my departed love.

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In Te Ika a Maui (1855), Richard Taylor wrote of the composer and setting for this waiata, as well as the reason for its composition: Te Uira was a lady of great rank, and mother of the celebrated warrior and renowned orator, Te Maniapoto, chief of the tribe of Ngatimaniapoto, living on the banks of the Waikato river, near the borders of the Taupo Lake. At the time of her decease, he was at Tauwara [Tauhara], a high mountain near Waipaihi [Waipāhīhī], digging red ochre with his principal warriors. The dying mother could see the mountain from her death bed, and remarked that it came between her and the spot where her son, sometimes called Te Amo, was at work. She desired her weeping friends not to try to console her; that she had but a short time to live, and wished thus to show her love for her son, as she was now about to join her departed husband.2

The scene conjures up the old world of tribal life: noble men and women, orators, warriors decorated with a paint of red ochre, villages by rivers and customs at death. In that world, as this and other songs tell, emotion was freely and publicly expressed, and poetic responses to death were realistic but also dignified and ceremonious. The circumstance in which Te Uira sang is not singular. Narrative and song capture occasions when a dying person, or one condemned to die, sings (or orates) a farewell message of love for an individual, family or tribe. In her composing Te Uira was quite conservative. She used phrases, imagery and a compositional structure that can be found, in the same or similar forms, in many other songs of this kind. And yet she made it intimately her own and for those around her by use of names, references to family and her own moving circumstances. The song is, therefore, at the same time particular to Te Uira and her kin, characteristic of the culture and recognisably human in its feelings. In structure, form and expression, it is a waiata tangi (lament), but it shares features with waiata aroha or songs of love and longing; the two kinds can be very alike. It begins with reference to an aspect of the natural world; in this case it is the dawn, in other songs it might be the sun setting or wind blowing. There is a mountain that obscures or bars the view towards the distant loved one; mist or clouds form similar barriers. Addressed by name (epithet or endearment), there is then allusion to the situation of the beloved (or personal qualities are recalled). Finally, there is declaration of 153

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the emotion that drove the composer: here it is Te Uira lamenting that her son is away when she is dying. Well-defined elements such as these gave the composer-singers a ready base from which to build the particulars and artistry of their own songs, and, of course, assisted their memory while composing and singing. In the first lines Te Uira chooses the formulaic phrasing ‘Rā te haeata,/ Tākiri ana/Ki . . .’ to describe the light of dawn coming up and over Tauwara (or Tauhara) Mountain; it is a lovely image and hopeful. She then adopts an equally common expression, in her own variation (‘Pae tauārai ki a koe’), to lament that the mountain blocks her view towards her son; it symbolises her separation from him and introduces an air of loneliness. In direct speech (a favourite of songs as well as narratives), Te Uira expresses her love and longing for (‘aroha’ having both meanings) Te Amo by other popular expressions: ‘e aroha nei au’ and ‘Waiho rā, mātā’ (or mōtā). These phrases can be found, in the same or slightly different form, in other songs of love and grief. Te Uira’s mihi to her son is a reminder of the custom of oratory: formal acknowledgements in welcomes and farewells. It is a ritual tribute, a salute in the senses of respect and love for him, and a farewell. Such positive, retrospective regard for the living (Te Amo) is also common to these kinds of song, as is the return to the present that follows in her greeting to him. To conclude, Te Uira shifts the focus back to herself but she uses the impersonal ‘tēnei’ (this one), as if it is her fate to advise her imminent death. The mood is one of great sadness as she accepts and contemplates her own last journey ‘Ki te tai pōuri’ (to the dark sea, intensified by ‘pōuri’, that also means ‘sad’), which symbolises the swirling tide at Te Rēinga, the entrance to Te Pō or the Underworld. And the depth of emotion is increased by mention of her husband, already gone from her in death. Te Uira also draws on the symbolic imagery and key motifs of many songs. Contrasts are drawn. The rising dawn brings light and joy but the mountain obscures and darkens her view. The greeting to her son speaks of life, while her journey speaks of death. And the standard journeys and separations of laments and love songs are twofold here. Te Amo’s departure took him away from her, her separation from him will come with death; and the path her wairua or spirit will take to the Underworld (an established route described in song and narrative) is the one taken earlier by her husband, when death separated him from her. Te Uira also exemplifies 154

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another tendency of the composer-singers to move back and forth between the private and reflective, the public and expressive, and the personal and impersonal by alternate use of the vocative, and first, second and third persons. In the oral society, one benefit of following patterns of structure, phraseology and imagery was that it made composing and recall easier, but composers put their own stamp on their work by word and name. A song such as this is autobiographical and, to an extent, biographical: Te Uira speaks of herself as well as her family, and so of her tribe, and territory familiar to her listeners. While very emotional and personal, Te Uira’s singing was also pragmatic. Accepting that she was dying and considering the deepest human feelings about family and death, she wanted to leave a message of love for her son and of her sadness at leaving him when he was away; so she sang her song to her people and they very likely sang it to Te Amo when he returned home. For readers, the words alone are moving; rendered into song they would have been deeply affecting to listeners. Such an expression of love and acceptance of death, and of an individual’s emotions revealed frankly in a song that was sung to others was not at all unusual for Māori in the old world.

Songs in the Oral Tradition and Literature The Manuscript Record and Publication To judge by the number of songs in nineteenth-century manuscripts and their diverse forms, subjects and uses, there was always someone singing or chanting in the old world. In the public domain there are countless pages of songs written out one after another, occasional ones dotted through personal books, and many that are part of narratives or descriptions of custom. And there is an unknown quantity held privately. Take, for example, those in Sir George Grey’s Māori manuscript collection. From the late 1840s Māori wrote out songs for him. At this early time they wrote them along the page in the form used for prose, sometimes numbering, ruling a line or leaving a break between verses (upoko, whiti). And they often ran words together in keeping with the sound when sung.3 Later, when more conversant with literary usage, they set them down the 155

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page in the way of written poetry. Some have the composer’s name, the subject of or reason for a song, and explanation of archaic words or phrases. Others might simply have a heading of this kind: ‘He waiata’, ‘He waiata o mua’ or ‘He waiata tawhito noa atu tēnei’ (A song, A song of old, This is a very ancient song). The recorders may have sung softly out loud as they wrote or had others singing to them; but they could not transcribe the music to the songs.4 In Grey’s collection, many of the writers are named. For instance, there are around one hundred and thirty foolscap pages of songs in the manuscripts attributed to Hāmi Hōne Rōpiha of Ngāti Kahungunu. Hōri Pātara of Ngāti Toa wrote over eighty quarto pages ‘from the dictation of old Chiefs, at Porirua . . . in the early part of 1851’; surely they sang them to him. There are two exercise books, mainly of songs, totalling some hundred pages written by Tīmoti Taha, ‘a native living on the shores of Cook’s Straits . . . in 1853’. As well as the whakataukī that Jowett wrote out (mentioned in Chapter 3), he made a collection of waiata, at the end of which is a note by Grey: ‘Written by Jowett a native of the Ngatihaua tribe in the first months of 1849, on the Waikato at Kaitotehe, at Pa Tukupoto.’ And, in addition to some one hundred and sixty five song texts, Te Rangikāheke wrote a two-hundred-and-thirty-four-page commentary on many that had been published by Grey.5 The popularity of this genre across tribes can be ascertained from these few writers alone. They were keen to inform Grey – and others – about the songs; and no doubt enjoyed appreciation of them. Taha started one of his notebooks with: ‘Hānuere 10 1853. Nō te tekau o ngā rā o Hānuere ka tīmataia taku tuhituhi i (a) te waiata mā Kāwhana’ (January 10, 1853. On the 10th day of January I began my writing of songs for the Governor); and concluded it with ‘Ka mutu ēnei waiata i te tekau mā whitu o ngā rā o Hānuere; kei a te Kāwana anō te tikanga ki tētehi atu pukapuka hei tuhituhi i mua iho i tēnei’ (These songs were completed on the 17th day of January; it is up to the Governor himself as to another book to write in after this one). The Governor was obviously forthcoming, for Taha began the second on 10 February 1853. An unknown contributor wrote: ‘E tā, Nō te tau 1851 tēnei pukapuka waiata, Hepetema nō te 6 o ngā rā. E tā, ko ngā waiata o tēnei pukapuka 9 ōna upoko mutu tonu, hei ako māhau’ (Sir, This book of songs is of the year 1851, the 6th day of September. Sir, the songs in this book, nine texts in all, are for you to learn). And Rōpiha at least had a wider audience in mind: ‘He pukapuka 156

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whakamātau, kia mōhiotia ai ngā tūpuna o ngā tāngata Māori, kia kitea ai ngā ngahautanga o te tangata Māori i āna karakia me āna waiata me ngā haka anō’ (A book to inform, so that the ancestors of the Māori tribes may be known about and the great pleasure of the Māori people in their prayers and songs and dance chants revealed).6 The prevalence of the sung and recited poetry and its great beauty and cultural interest attracted other collectors in the nineteenth century and led to an early published literature. The first books of songs in Māori, sometimes with a little information as to composers and context, were Grey’s Ko nga Moteatea me nga Hakirara o nga Maori (‘Poems, Traditions, and Chaunts of the Maories’, 1853) and Ko nga Waiata Maori (Maori Songs, 1857). He collated them ‘i tera kaumatua, i tera kuia; no ona haerenga, e maha, ki nga pito katoa, o enei motu’ (from this and that older man and woman, on his many journeys to all corners of these islands), and as he heard them, so he noted alongside one text: ‘Sung by the crew at night Jan.25th [1853] on my arriving in a large canoe with a large party at the Pah of Hikurangi on the Whanganui.’7 Grey is also said to have composed his own songs to sing to Māori when on his travels, which Piri Kawau translated for him.8 The origin of John McGregor’s later Popular Maori Songs (1893-1908) is very moving – and a mark of how very much a part of life songs were. In December 1863, on board the Marion, he was guarding Waikato Māori taken prisoner after fighting against the British at Rangiriri. As he described it: . . . I asked one of the Maoris if he would write out a few Maori love songs, as I wished to see some of their songs in writing. He was willing to do so if I supplied the materials. This I did, and in a day or so I received eight pages of Maori songs, and was told that if I gave more paper some others would like to write songs. I did so and in a short time I received some twenty-four more pages. I then told them that if I got more I would endeavour to have the songs printed when the war was over. I thus obtained more songs for publication, and by February 16th, 1864, the prisoners had written all the songs in this volume.9

It must have been consoling for the lonely prisoners to write out songs reminiscent of home. The feelings of one contributor, Eruera, may have been like those of others, when, in 1864, he wrote before his six songs: ‘Ka 157

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tuhia (t)ēnei waiata hei mātakitaki mā rau o te iwi, koia tēnei ka tīmataria nei, he aroha hoki nōku ki te iwi’ (These songs, beginning here, are written for many people to look at, and also out of love for my tribe); and after his signature he wrote: ‘I hoatu ēnei waiata ki[a] tāia ki te perehi’ (I gave these songs to be printed on the press).10 Taylor, Shortland, Colenso and White collected in like ways, as is evident from their manuscripts and publications. Best, S. Percy Smith and their colleagues in the Polynesian Society, recognising the great value of the information in the songs to understanding the culture and history, also recorded hundreds of them. These can be found in their books or the Society’s Journal, and many remain in their collected papers. Māori writers worked alongside them; among them were Kārepa Te Whetū of Ngāti Koata and Ngāti Toa, Tūtangē Waionui of Taranaki, and Kerehoma Tūwhawhakia of Whanganui, and songs in their handwriting remain in library collections.11 Māori also made manuscript copies of songs for themselves and, from the 1840s, published them contextually or as a selection in Māori-language newspapers.12 The manuscripts and early published works comprise an enormous number of texts; some have information about the language, composers or reasons for songs and are occasionally translated into English. This literature (and current practice from the 1920s to 1960s) was one source for the superb four-volume bilingual anthology and study by Āpirana Ngata and Pei Te Hurinui Jones, Ngā Mōteatea.13 With close to four hundred traditional songs that have introductory notes and extensive annotations, as well as analysis of song types, poetry and language, this work is prime evidence of the pervasive and influential habit of singing. In addition it connects the composers and people named in the songs to their genealogy, tribal history and geography. And, because Ngata and Jones also explained metaphors and allusions to philosophical thinking, beliefs and ancient practices, their collection contains a wealth of knowledge about the culture. Music sets this genre apart. Māori in the oral society knew the tunes (rangi) of their songs only by memorising and singing them: there was no way of writing down the tunes. Mervyn McLean was the first to document the music systematically and, together with Margaret Orbell, study it in relation to the words – and to performance, which they found (like Ngata) was also integral to meaning.14 All these scholars have brought great insight to the language, compositional techniques and meanings of the songs. 158

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Their, and others’, work that informs what follows makes this the most well described of the oral genres. Kinds of Songs For the title of this chapter I chose the word ‘waiata’ to refer generally to all the poetic songs.15 But as a term it obscures their great variety. Music is one marker of the different classes of song. McLean placed the songs in two categories, the recited and the sung, which also relate to the texts and performance.16 The recited songs were chanted rapidly and rhythmically and have no melody. They were performed, some with gestures, actions or dance, by one or more persons and often by a group. The sung songs are melodic and ‘more personal and contemplative than the recited ones’;17 and they are characterised by highly poetic language. They were frequently sung by one person but might involve others. There are many terms in Māori for songs. They describe their purpose or content (some are rather like titles), and illustrate that singing was very much about expression of feelings: of love, hate and jealousy; of hopes and desires; of sadness, grief and anger; of humour, wit and pleasure; of fears and worries; and of shame and pain. For instance, the recited forms include karakia (prayers, incantations, spells), pātere (abusive songs or replies to gossip or complaint), kaioraora (cursing or deriding songs), whakaaraara pā (watch-songs to warn and to allay fears), and haka (chants of defiance and challenge with actions and dance). Among the sung forms there are waiata tangi (songs of grief, complaint or distress), waiata aroha (songs of love, feeling, longing or compassion), waiata whakautu (songs of reply to insult, accusation or offer), and pao (witty, topical or jesting songs). There are many more kinds of sung songs, and there are sub-genres of some recited songs, for example, different kinds of dances with chant in the haka style, and ‘at least 130 terms representing different forms of karakia’.18 The abundant terms are additional evidence of the importance of this genre and of the many-purposed singing in the old world. Use and Subject Matter When surveying the great collections of poetic songs, whether manuscript or published, it is at once apparent from their subject matter and reasons given for composing and singing them that there was scarcely a circumstance for which there might not be a song. They were sung for personal, 159

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family, group, tribal, ritual, ceremonial, casual and pleasureable reasons. Colenso, from his long observation of Māori life and the oral arts wrote: ‘It may truly be said that with the New Zealander poetry is, or was, part of their daily life. Whatever differences in taste may have existed among the various ancient tribes (iwi) composing the Maori people, in this matter they were pre-eminently as one – all used it, all were moved by it, all enjoyed it.’ Then he gave a long summation of many circumstances in which singing occurred.19 Later in the nineteenth century it was the same, to go by Ngata’s experience when he was at home on the East Coast from 1887 to 1888, where he learnt ‘to love the songs which my people sang to suit any and every occasion of their social life’.20 If singing in ancient Māori society was popular, it also had an object, which was often instructive or even authoritative – and very public. Songs were composed (or adapted) because of a specific event or experience, or for a certain occasion.21 And they were performed in front of diverse audiences: family, kin groups, visitors, war-parties. Songs were ‘an essential means of expression and communication’,22 and an effective way of making a public statement, which explains why so many are rhetorical: persuasive, argumentative, challenging. And they were personally revealing, ranging from the simplest declarations of love to the most frank and sometimes virulent outpourings of rage and hate. Terms for songs, which are often descriptive, also attest that people sang to tell others of their personal concerns and experiences, with objectives as various as gaining relief from pain, declaring love, seeking to amuse, answering an accusation, asking for compassion, or parrying some ‘tao kī’ or shaft of words. A small sample from one manuscript and one published collection is sufficient to illustrate the great variety in this genre and how much it can tell about the ancestral world. Rōpiha’s writing includes songs about an accusation of adultery, an illness, the loss of crops, a prophecy, a lover, a bird, chiefs killed in battle, easing the pain of tattooing and a wife subject to spells. The potential for a kind of conversation (and teaching) by song is intimated in the caption to one: ‘He waiata tautitotito anō nā Mākere rāua ko Te Ikaherengutu, he whakapapa tupuna te take, he whakahē nā Mākere ki a Te Ikaherengutu, nō konei ka titoa e Ikaherengutu’ (Another song composed by Mākere and Te Ikaherengutu in response to each other, the reason being an ancestral genealogy, in which Mākere made an error in regard to Te Ikaherengutu, and so Ikaherengutu composed [this song]).23 160

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Among those in Grey’s published collection (1853), there are songs about a canoe lost, hunger, having no clothes, an eel weir destroyed in a flood and a tribal migration; and songs in reply to children laughing at the grey hair of an elder, and by a woman whose relations have come to take her away from her lover. In both collections there are also many oriori, songs rich with references to tribal history and genealogy, which are often addressed directly, and instructively, to children. And very numerous in these and other collections are songs about lovers (waiata aroha) and elegies for those who have died (waiata tangi) – notably for those who were victims of war, which Ngata considered generated some of the best poetry.24 A striking aspect of the manuscript record is the great number of karakia, of prayers, spells and incantations; these too represent people’s hopes and desires and are another means for exploring the old world. Taylor wrote that ‘The Maori . . . never undertook any work, whether hunting, fishing, planting, or war, without first uttering a karakia; he would not even take a journey without repeating a spell to secure his safety.’25 Taylor’s notebooks of the 1840s to 1850s bear him out. He recorded prayers to bring in pigeons, to keep peace in the land, to keep the sun shining, to avert bad dreams, for rain, for strangers, for planting and harvesting, for weapons, for illness, for fishing, for a new house, for a dog lost in the forest, to embolden warriors for war, to rouse a chief, and a prayer to be used ‘before a child was permitted to taste human flesh’. As well, he added, ‘they have spells suited for all circumstances’, so there are also in his notebooks ātahu or love charms (which bring lovers together in narratives) and texts composed with malicious intent or for magical purposes, such as mākutu and hoahoa.26 And these in no way cover all that he alone wrote out. The value to individuals and the society of the songs is evident from these countless texts, but other uses were made of them too. They were essential to the ‘eloquent orator’.27 Grey observed of great meetings and the orations by chiefs (and the delight in veiled language that was referred to earlier): On those occasions . . . the most effective speeches were invariably principally made up from recitation of portions of ancient poems. In this case, the art of the orator was shewn by his selection of a quotation from an ancient poem which figuratively but dimly shadowed forth his intentions and opinions; as he spoke the people were pleased at the beauty of the poetry, and at his knowledge of their ancient poets, whilst their ingenuity was

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mĀori oral tradition excited to endeavour to detect from his figurative language what were his intentions and design . . .28

Songs were also part of ritual practices. And if they were often performed to work on the emotions, they were also designed for the intellect. Composers used them in historical narratives and in association with genealogies; they delivered lines from songs as aphorisms and sayings. This was not just for their performative qualities but because they were a source of information, encyclopedic of the culture. Knowledge in the oral society – of tribe, history, custom or the physical world – did not come from one kind of text alone, unlike in the literary world, in which it is primarily contained in the prose of history, biography and scientific tracts. The songs, couched in their own deeply felt and carefully wrought words, are therefore rich testimony to the Māori ancestors’ lives, occupations, emotions and beliefs.29 They are also witness to their first personal engagement with Europeans and what they brought with them: religion, writing and literature, goods and technology. Nineteenth-century Māori composers alluded to the new in their songs (as they did in the other genres): they used words transliterated or coined from English; referred to Christian doctrine; addressed governors, church ministers and Pākehā friends; and commented on introduced goods, and local and international politics. They sang old songs in (and about) new settings: in the Native Land Court to validate claims to land, at public meetings with government officials, in parliamentary debates and in newspapers.30 They incorporated them in personal and public letters (bringing the sound of voice and music to the silent media of writing and print), beginning, quoting contextually or rounding off with lines from songs – with ‘a classical Polynesian rhetorical flourish’, as Michael Reilly aptly wrote of this practice. Sometimes they wrote only a portion followed by the appealing injunction ‘Māu e whakamutu atu’ (You can finish it off).31 As with the other genres discussed, adaptation was a habit of the oral composer and this was very much the case with the songs. Composers and Composition Songs were composed by individuals or by more than one person. Best refers to a man and his wife spending forty-five minutes preparing a lament for a neighbour’s child. There were also group compositions.32 However 162

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they were composed, the songs closely concerned those to whom they were sung; in that respect waiata were personal and part of a tribe’s oral heritage, the reason Ngata spoke of ‘the song complex of my kith and kin’.33 Because of the oral tradition, composers could make the oblique poetic references to their history or land or genealogy that are frequent, knowing that these would stir the memories of, appeal to and be understood by their audience. The very local connection between the text, the occasion of singing, and the people and place can make it difficult for an outsider to understand some of the songs, or even for those belonging to the tribe or living at a later time.34 The extant manuscripts suggest that individuals remembered an astonishing number of songs, and not only those of their own people but of other tribes as well. Best experienced one Tūhoe elder’s recitation of ‘406 songs to him from memory’, along with explanations relating to them.35 If writing them down was largely the work of men, it does not necessarily mean that women did not have as capacious memories for song. It cannot be known for sure if those in a manuscript were solely from the writer’s own memory; some are noted as having been dictated. And women may have sung to male scribes. But what is clear from the written legacy is that both men and women composed songs; anyone might be a composer, even gods and spirit people such as patupaiarehe. Not all composers were remembered but some were and some were renowned.36 One manuscript gives some idea of how people composed songs.37 Pātara’s written record of many, well set out and in an assured hand, was entitled: ‘He wakakitenga mō ngā waiata, mō ngā haka, mō ngā tangi, mō ngā karakia, mō ngā pātere’ (An illustration of the songs, of the dance chants, of the laments, of the prayers, [and] of the abusive songs). After several pātere texts, there is an explanatory account (whether Pātara’s own or as dictated to him is not clear) of how a woman composed pātere and haka pana (offensive chants). Ko te tikanga o ngā pātere e rite ana ki ngā karakia. E kore hoki e mōhio noa te wahine ki te tito pana. Kāo, erangi ka wakaaro te wahine ki te tito haka pana, he ware motuhake ki tahaki; e kore e kai te wahine i te titonga pana, kāore, he tapu. Kāpā anō te kai ai, ā, kia takoto rā nō te rangi o te pana, kātahi anō ka puta ki waho o te whare, ka horohoro mārire i ngā ringaringa, poupou atu ki te aruhe, i pono atu he aruhe, ā, i pono he taewa. Heoi anō, makā atu mā te atua, heoi anō, kātahi ka noa, ka kai ai i te kai māna, ka takoto hoki te rangi o te pātere.38

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mĀori oral tradition The custom with pātere is the same as for karakia. A woman would not spontaneously know how to compose an offensive song. No, but if a woman intended to compose an offensive haka chant, she would [retire to] a separate house elsewhere, and the woman would not eat while composing an offensive song, no, for she would be sacred. She would only eat when it came to the time to set down the tune of the offensive song, only then would she come out of the house [and] carefully remove the sacredness from her hands, putting them into fernroot, fernroot could effect that, and potatoes could effect it. And, when that was cast aside for the god, then finally she was free from sacredness and she could take food for herself, and also prepare the tune of the pātere.

The tapu, the sacredness or ritual restriction that the woman was under, in this case may have been because of the content: pātere could threaten, curse or intend harm to others. The comparison of these special circumstances with the practice for prayers was perhaps a reference to texts with highly sacred, esoteric or potentially damaging content. Given the very numerous prayer chants and the ordinary topics of many songs, however, it seems unlikely that such ritual applied to all compositions. Nevertheless, other aspects of this description are elsewhere on record: for instance, the idea that a person went away from other people and into a private space such as climbing a hill or going into a house to compose (even if it was not a sacred song). One writer for McGregor specifically recorded how a particular song was made up by a woman who wished to rebut gossip about her indiscretion with a man: ‘Ka nui te whakama o tau[a] wahine, katahi ka hoki ki tona whare. Ka tito i tana waiata’ (That woman was very embarrassed, so she went back to her house and composed her song).39 McLean also concluded that ‘most songs were carefully crafted compositions’, suggesting that they were composed prior to performance or recording, with only a few (for example, pao) being improvised.40 Two things about the compositional practice are clear and commensurate with the other genres: firstly, that composers drew from and re-worked each other’s compositions to their own purpose; and, secondly, that they worked to highly structured models. Versions and Formulaic Language Grey wrote of one lament: ‘It is the custom of the natives to compose their poetry rather by combining materials drawn from ancient poems, than by 164

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inventing original matter. An apparently recent poem is thus sometimes really of very ancient origin.’41 Different versions of one composition are also the norm with this genre. It was acceptable for a composer to alter an existing song to fit his or her own situation and point. This is very evident in the manuscript stock.42 Songs moved around between individuals and tribes throughout the country. McGregor noted that although some in his collection had already been published by Grey (1853) and Davis (1855), ‘in these there are many points of difference from the versions I now publish’ (from the 1850s and 1860s).43 Again, as with the other genres, in adapting an existing song or composing a new one, the oral poet had the benefit of established usage, and indeed the necessity of it for memorising. There were some well-used models for such ‘combining’ of vocabulary, phraseology, imagery and settings. The patterning in songs has been remarked on by scholars since Grey’s time,44 but it was Orbell who documented this in detail in respect of waiata aroha. From analysis of one hundred texts, she made apparent just how conventional composers were in their use of language, vocabulary and structure, and identified the kinds of images, themes and formulae that they used in their own way. While this practice is typical of oral traditions, Orbell also considered the distinctiveness of the Māori formulaic style.45 Her work revealed the kinds of stylistic features, language and phraseology that I drew attention to in Te Uira’s song above and will refer to in the songs below.46 The formulaic and patterned are not a feature of waiata aroha alone, however, but of other song types too. The manuscript of 1857 about birds, previously mentioned in Chapter 3, might be evidence that this factor was recognised in the old world, for it concerns expressions in songs and sayings about birds and other creatures. One part begins: ‘He kōrero tēnei mō ngā manu o mua, mō ngā waiata nā ngā tāngata mō ngā manu’ (This is an account concerning birds of the past [and] songs [created] by people about birds). Here are two examples from what follows: Mō te toroa tēnei, mō te manu nui o te moana, arā, ko te waiata tēnei mō te toroa: He toroa whakakoko Nō runga o ngā hiwi,

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mĀori oral tradition Ka paku ki tawhiti Te pū ki Tararua. Kei hoki mai, e te tau, te moenga i ahau; Taku manu kōrero, Tiu ana ki te uru, ē. .... He waiata tēnei mō te hōkioi: He hōkioi i runga, Ngā manu hunahuna, Kāore i kitea e te tini, e te mano.47 This relates to the albatross, to the large seabird, that is, this is a song relating to the albatross: An albatross soaring Over the ridges, As there sounds far off A war trumpet at Tararua. O my love, that you would return to my bed; My distinguished orator Flown to the west.48 .... This is a song relating to the hōkioi: A hōkioi on high, Elusive birds, Unseen by the many, by the thousands.

These sets of lines, with a little adaptation, can be found in two songs at least. The first is in a waiata tangi for Hihitaua, a chief of Ngāti Raukawa and Ngāti Tamaterā, composed by his wife, in which she compared him with the mighty and prized albatross. And the second is in an oriori by Te Hākeke of Ngāti Apa for his son, Te Rara-o-te-rangi, referring to the precious plumes from the mythical hōkioi bird as proper adornment for the child, and so 166

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proposing his future as a warrior.49 The writer of the manuscript listed other lines about birds, ending the long passage with: ‘Ka mutu ngā waiata mō ngā manu, arā, nā ngā tāngata ēnei waiata mō ngā manu, waiho iho hei waiata mō ngā tāngata’ (That ends the songs about birds, that is, these songs [poetic lines] about birds [created] by people, which remained to be sung in relation to people). Conventional usage and a certain formality of structure did not limit the song composers’ art. Orbell reported from her studies that ‘there was constant innovation in the content and language of the songs’, and that ‘the poets could extend existing patterns without impediment, creating subtle and intricate songs and sometimes themselves adding to the common stock of traditional components’. Moreover, frequent use of ‘formulaic expressions gained authority and a further weight of emotion from their occurrence in earlier songs’.50 This specialised language is not tediously repetitive and nor is it simple; it ranges from the clearly expressed to the opaque and it is invariably condensed, so it is often challenging to understand; familiarity with its forms and vocabulary helps with that. Poetry Poetic usage has been evident in all the genres discussed so far, but in the songs it is at its most concentrated. Māori employed the usual artifices of poetry: metaphors, similes, and other kinds of figurative and symbolic language. The composers also took licence with grammar and the form of words (for example, making use of ellipsis, contraction of words and meaningless words for rhythm) and used a special vocabulary. Rhyme is not used but, as with genealogies and narratives, there is evident and impressive rhythm.51 The rich imagery of the songs, the pictures that their words bring to mind, is very often stylised but can also be innovative. Many images (as is the case with the sayings) are drawn from the natural world or make comparison with the human mind, body and life. Birds, fish, plants, clouds, winds, the land, the sea and the elements are all subject of this poetry – and inform about how Māori viewed nature. For example, chiefs are likened to taniwha (powerful, supernatural creatures) or great tōtara trees, orators to song birds, grief to a flood, loss to an ebbing tide, and desolation to a castaway or broken canoe. The representation, resemblance or association of symbolism is also often of the natural world, such as lightning signalling 167

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death; clouds or mist intimating war, sorrow or trouble; and wind as messenger from those loved. Personification also plays its part.52 Although there are no epics or long, poetic histories among the songs, since they are, as is usual in poetry, highly allusive, many refer to, draw on or even quote from narratives. This presupposes a knowledge of myth, history, and individual and tribal lives, which is why Taylor’s note was needed to allow full appreciation of Te Uira’s song. The compressed figurative language of the songs and the range and depth of references can be very complex.53 Major publications have been referred to which illustrate the great range and types of the waiata genre and contain analysis of their kind and content. In selecting examples of recited and sung songs, I have preferred those that depict how songs and chants were thought about and actively used in the oral society, in personal singing and as part of other genres, and which also help to define their oral character.54

Recited Songs Prayers and Incantations: Karakia Among his responses to Shortland’s questions about the origin of their practices and knowledge (referred to in Chapter 4), Matewhā gave this explanation of the derivation of karakia: Ehara ināianei te mōhiotanga o ngā tāngata, nā Tiki, nā Papa, nā Rangi, nā rātou i wehewehe ngā tikanga o ngā mahi o te kōhuru, o te kai tangata, o ngā karakia. I muri mai, ka nui haere te tupu o te mōhiotanga o ngā Māori. Ko te tauira mai nā ngā ingoa kua oti nei te tuhi ki runga, arā, nā Tiki, nā Papa, nā Rangi; nā rātou i whakatakoto, i wehewehe, koia i mōhio ai ngā tāngata ki te whakahaere i ngā tikanga mō ia mea, mō ia mea. Ka pakaru haere i konei, ko te pure mō ngā tūpāpaku, ko te karakia mō te tuna, ko te karakia mō ngā tamariki whānau-hou, ko te karakia mō ngā kaumātua, ko te karakia mō te parekura, ko te karakia mō te pā horo, ko te karakia mō te manu, ko te karakia mō te kiore, ko te karakia mō te hue, ko te karakia mō te mākutu. Ka takoto mai ki te tini o ngā karakia. Ko te tauira nā Tiki, ka heke mai ki ngā tūpuna, ki ngā pūkenga, ki ngā wānanga, ki ngā tauira. Ko ngā tāngata o mua kua waiho hei take mai, hei karangatanga mā ngā tauira.

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Waiata Koia i tika ai te karakia, mau tonu iho i ngā whakatupuranga. Nā reira, ka mana tonu ngā karakia. Koia tōna waiata: E tama tapu nui, tapu whakahirahira, He mauri wehewehe nā ō tūpuna, Nā Tiki, nā Rangi, nā Papa. Ko te take o tēnei waiata, he whakataurekarekatanga i te tamaiti a Tū-te-rangiānini.55 The knowledge that people have is not recent, it is from Tiki, from Papa, from Rangi; they allocated the rituals for practices in relation to murder, eating people [and] prayers. From then on, the knowledge of the Māori developed [and] increased. [But] the exemplars came from those named and written above, that is, from Tiki, from Papa, from Rangi; they laid them down [and] allocated them, and that is how people knew how to carry out the rituals for each circumstance. From this time, there were apportioned the pure [rites] for the dead, the prayers for eels, the prayers for newborn children, the prayers for elders, the prayers for battles, the prayers for taking a fort, the prayers for birds, the prayers for rats, the prayers for gourds, the prayers for spells. From then on very many prayers were laid down. The exemplars from Tiki came down to the ancestors, to the learned [repositories], to the scholars [of ancient knowledge], to the pupils. The people of the past left them as models for pupils to recite. And this is how the prayers were kept correct and maintained on down the generations. As a result, the prayers continued to retain their power. Here is a song in relation to this: O child of great sacredness, highly sacred, Living essence bestowed by your ancestors, By Tiki, by Rangi, by Papa. The reason for this song was a slur cast on the nobility of the son of Tū-te-rangi-ānini.

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Matewhā succinctly linked the origin, knowledge and application of karakia (and ritual) to the earliest ancients: to Tiki, the progenitor of humans, and the primal parents, Rangi and Papa. And he accentuated this by restatement of their names when acknowledging that Māori had maintained and built on the knowledge from their models. Then, illustrating – by a list – the kinds of prayers handed down, he advised how over time scholars and teachers transmitted them to their pupils, ensuring that they were correct and therefore efficacious.56 The gods and ancestors were ever present with the recitation of prayers, recalling again the sense of the living descendants and past ancestors being in communion. Taylor wrote: ‘Their ancestors were addressed as powerful familiar friends; they gave them offerings, and if it can be said that any prayers were offered up, it was to them they were made.’ Shortland noticed the different kinds of appeal in these texts: ‘It will be seen that a karakia is in some cases very like a prayer, – in other cases for the most part an invocation of spirits of ancestors in genealogical order, – in other cases a combination of prayer and invocation.’57 In concluding his explanation – and to make a point in a different form – Matewhā quoted lines from a song, which, he said, was composed because of an insult to a child of high rank.58 The poetic reply put things right and restored the balance by proclaiming the boy’s sacredness because of his descent from those same highest gods. The lines are of a kind found in oriori, in which the child sung to or about is often addressed directly; and, in a modified form, they occur in at least one lament.59 Even in this explanatory prose, song had a place; it is informative and pertinent – and provides another example of how the inherited knowledge was knitted together out of different genres.60 Mythic narratives played a part, along with discourse, in teaching how prayers were to be used. There are many examples of the ancients (or chiefs and priests in the later tribal histories) reciting them in an effort to ‘overcome obstacles and succeed in their undertakings’, and no doubt to impress with what they could achieve.61 Te Ngārara described such a situation to Shortland, in which Tangaroa showed his mastery through prayer: Ka moe anō a Rangipōtiki, ka moe i a Papa. Nā Rangipōtiki i whakapae a Tangaroa ki te hara pūremu ki tāna wahine, ki a Papa. Kātahi ka haere mai a Rangi ki te wero i a Tangaroa. Rokohanga mai e noho ana i te whatitoka o

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Waiata tōna whare. Ka mahara a Tangaroa ka mate ia. Kātahi a Tangaroa ka wetiweti [wetewete] i te hara i a ia, ka papaki te ringaringa mauī ki te pakihiwi katau, ka tīmata i tāna karakia: Tangaroa, Tangaroa, Tangaroa, wetea. Wetea mai te whiwhi, Wetea mai te hara, Wetea kia mātaratara. Tawhiti te rangi Ko te taea. Hei runga nei tētehi pō, Kei raro nei tētehi ao. Tukua, manea, Hei ao mārama. Kāore i āta mutu te karakia a Tangaroa, ka werohia mai e Rangi tāna tokotoko. Ka karohia e Tangaroa, ka hemo. Kātahi ka werohia tā Tangaroa, ka tū ki a Rangi; tuia atu i tētehi papa, puta atu i tētehi papa. Ka hinga kūpapa tonu iho.62 Rangipōtiki married again, married Papa. Rangipōtiki accused Tangaroa of adultery with his wife, with Papa. Then Rangi came to spear Tangaroa. He found him sitting at the door of his house. Tangaroa thought he would die. [But] then Tangaroa released himself from his impropriety. He slapped his left hand on his right shoulder and began his prayer: Tangaroa, Tangaroa, Tangaroa, release him. Release the bond, Release the offence, Release him to be free. Though far distant the sky, It can be reached. Let there be darkness above, And light here below. Let [him] go, step free, Into the world of light.

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mĀori oral tradition Tangaroa had not completely finished his prayer when Rangi hurled his staff at him. It was deflected by Tangaroa, missed him. Then Tangaroa’s was hurled, it struck Rangi; it pierced one buttock, came out the other buttock. [And] he immediately fell down flat.

In its compositional style Tangaroa’s plea is consistent with Michael Shirres’ finding that karakia also follow convention, in language, symbols, metaphors, content and structure.63 Here, as in many of these texts, there are short phrases of injunctions, repetitions, a rhythmic beat and a recognisable structure, which moves from the plea to the problem to the hoped-for outcome. The importance of rapid pace, intensity and dedication in recitation is caught in Johansen’s liberal translation of the statement, ‘Ka tara te karakia ka ngahau, he tohu ora tenei’: ‘When the karakia is recited with a quick rhythm, is learnt well, and comes straight from the heart, it is an omen of life’ (and, in the formulaic way, this same phrasing is applied to war).64 The repetition of Tangaroa’s name and the taut phrases of the plea declare his will to succeed. The difficulty of the task is communicated by words and imagery that are found in other karakia: ‘whiwhi’ can mean ‘entangled’ and ‘wete’ ‘untangle’. Tangaroa is in a bind, it might be said, because of his offence – ‘hara’ – the word occurring twice. And it was considered possible, although quite a feat and requiring proficiency in prayers, to go up to the heavens (ngā rangi). However, another meaning might be read, and intended: that Rangipōtiki (Te Rangi) ‘can be overcome’ (te taea): ‘Tawhiti Te Rangi,/Ko te taea’ (Though Rangi is matchless,/He can be overcome). Paired opposites are another feature of prayers:65 in this one, entangled and free, sky and earth, and the very frequent dark of failure and death and light of success and life. Tangaroa asked for darkness above in the sky (rangi) (or, alternatively, for Rangipōtiki) and light down below for him, so he could step out of the shadow of his bond and into the formulaic ‘ao mārama’ – with its nod to the escape by Rangi and Papa’s children into the light. In his recitation Tangaroa tried to take control by his command of ritual and words; his success is depicted by the final startling image of Rangipōtiki speared and prostrate, his power subdued.66 The words and phrases of this prayer continued down through the generations, being put to use in comparable versions and other circumstances.67 According to Shortland: ‘This karakia is the most antient [sic] example 172

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of the kind. It is now applied as suggestive of a peaceable settlement of a quarrel.’68 In describing the ritual for a difficult birth, Pukuatua gave Shortland one prayer with virtually the same ‘Wetea’ phrases. They also occur in another for a sufferer of madness; and in both instances they are in relation to a ‘hara’ or wrong.69 Prayers could assist a rousing performance, as would have been the case with Te Ngārara’s composition. In addition, as Tremewan observed of those used in myths, they ‘advance the story, as well as being of great religious significance’.70 In narrative, reference to their productive use alone, without recitation of the text, would have impressed listeners, for it was a sure sign of the knowledge and capability of the tribal hero using them. Here are two instances. Among other traditions that Te Rangihaeata dictated to Te Whiwhi in 1851 was an episode of history in which Manaia went in pursuit of his brother-in-law, Ngātoroirangi. This was to avenge an earlier fight when, although Ngātoro defeated his war-party, Manaia escaped. At this point in the account, Manaia’s fleet of canoes has landed below the fort, Matarehua, on Mōtiti Island, near Maketū. Ngātoro and his wife are there and vulnerable (as in the frequent storyline), with most of the people away. He proposes to Manaia that they wait for daylight to fight, as was considered appropriate, and that he and his fleet anchor at sea. This they do, while Ngātoro sets about his strategy for overcoming the enemy at the gate – by the use of karakia. Ka noho Ngātoro i tana pā. Ka ahiahi, ka noho Ngātoro ki te tūāhu karakia ai. I te pō ka tomo ki roto i tō rāua whare ko te ruahine. Ko te mahi tonu tērā he karakia, e kumekume ana i ngā hau o te rangi. Ko te ope e mahi ana tērā i te tākaro, i te haka, i te waiata, i te ngahau. Tā te ope whaihanga, he ngahau, kāore e mōhio ka mate rātou. Ki tā rātou nei mahara, ko Ngātoro e mate, ko te kotahi.71 Ngātoro remained in his fort. When it was evening, Ngātoro sat at the altar to pray. At night he and his wife [the use of ‘ruahine’ is suggestive of her role as older woman in the prayer ritual] went into their house. His constant occupation there was prayer, drawing in the winds of heaven. As for the [invading] party, they were engaged in games, dances with chants, songs, entertainment. The party, preoccupied with entertainment, were not aware that they would die. To their mind it was Ngātoro who would die, just the one.

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The length of time that Ngātoro spent reciting to invoke the winds testified to his knowledge, discipline and memory.72 In fine narrative style, Te Rangihaeata then provided a telling contrast – and an illustration of singing in the old society. The enemy was unwittingly relaxed, enjoying performances of dance and song. But Ngātoro’s skill with ritual words brought in the winds that destroyed Manaia and his fleet. The second example is equally indicative of the mana or power of an ancestor; it is less dramatic but the outcome was beneficial. In their roving, tribal ancestors used prayer to transform the landscape (as it is said Kupe did to bring in fish). To return to Īhenga’s exploration (referred to in Chapter 3), in this instance his efficacious plea was for water because he was thirsty: Ka haere atu, ka tae ki runga ki te hiwi, ka mate i te wai. Kātahi ka karakiatia, ka takahia ki te waewae, na, tere ana te hōpua. Tana popōtanga o te manu ki te inu, huaina iho ko Te Waikererū.73 Going on he came up on to a ridge and was thirsty. So then he prayed, stamped with his foot, and there flowed a pool of water. With his ushering in birds to drink, it was named from then on Te Waikererū [Pigeon pool].

From the ritual of chant and stamp (Tangaroa used a slap), Īhenga gained immediate relief and also sustenance for his descendants in the pigeons that flocked to the pool. The name, the story and his knowledge of suitable prayer remained as record of his influence; and of his reviving what had been learnt from his ancestors. Tangaroa’s prayer illustrates that these compositions were suited to rapid chanting or intoning. The brisk phrasing, the repetitions, the poetry and rhythm all worked for the memory. This was as well because many prayers were very long. And some, it is said, had to be repeated without error or break, for failure to do so could result in harm or even death; this is a lesson in the story of Māui’s father making a slip in recitation of a rite, which caused the early death of his son.74 The prayers referred to so far were used by individuals to avoid, achieve or create something. Another use for them was in ceremonies and rituals led by tohunga or priests and learned chiefs; there are many instances of these in the nineteenth-century manuscripts, some of which are of great 174

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length and enigmatic.75 For practical purposes there were yet others, some quite short, such as this one used when planting kūmara. Ka ngakia te kai, ka kōia. Kua tīmata te tapu i reira. Ka oti te kō, ka hāpainga ngā auau, arā, ngā kete purapura. Ka tapu te tangata kotahi hei hāpai i ngā auau, me te tangata hei whakatō i ngā puke e whā. Ko reira ka tīmata te kārangaranga, he karakia, koia tēnei: Torona, torona tō kākano, Ruru mai anō te paenga, Haere anō te kākano. Mō te kōanga, mō te whakatōkanga tēnei.76 When the crop is to be planted, dug in, the sacredness begins from that time. When the digging is finished, the seed kūmara are carried in, that is, the kits of seed; the one person to carry the seed is sacred and the person to plant the four mounds. It is then that the reciting begins, a prayer, and this is it: Spread out, spread out your seed, Plant even to the edge, And go on again with the seed. This is for spring; this is for the planting.

To have a chant for a specific time and stage of the planting suggests that there were very many different chants for everyday tasks.77 In swift and clear phrasing, the reciter urges the worker, who might be spurred by the beat, to be liberal and to plant to the limits of the garden, in anticipation of an abundant crop. There are very many prayers on record for planting, fishing and birding – for all food production. There were likewise those for ordinary needs and wishes, put earnestly or urgently. One in Grey’s song collection asks for the sun to shine when children go swimming.78 This one asks the rain to stop: E ua, tō rikiriki! E ua, tō maomao! Ka mate ōu mokopuna i te ua! E ua! Ē! 79

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mĀori oral tradition O rain, you are unceasing! O rain, you might leave off! Your grandchildren will die from the rain! O rain! Oh!

Speaking directly to the personified rain – or ancestor – the reciter implores it to stop. The barb that it will kill its own grandchildren – plants and people – is followed and made compelling by a final entreaty and cry. Watch-Songs: Whakaaraara Pā In explanation of a song recited by watchmen in forts, Pātara’s manuscript has that it was ‘mō te pā i te wehi kei tomokia pōtia te pā e te taua; ka mataaratia, ka ora te pā, ka kore, ā, ka pāhorotia te pā e te taua. Tēnā, ka mataara, e kore e horo’ (for a fort, out of fear that a fort be invaded at night by a war-party; if [they] were kept alert, the fort would be safe, if not, well then the fort could be stormed by a war-party. But, if they kept alert, it would not fall).80 Such chants were practical in the context of the old society. They kept sentries awake, assured people that they were guarded, warned off possible invaders or gave alarm when attack was imminent. Some are very long and would have kept the mind sharply engaged; others are short and terse and can attractively portray the setting.81 Watchmen were attentive to all around them – the land, sea, forest and creatures – and forts were high on hills with commanding views. Kei te pito whakauta, Kei te pito whakatai, Kei waenganui a au e tū ana. Ē ē, ā aha!82 At the end to the land, At the end to the sea, And then I am standing in between, Eh, ah, ha ha!

This sentry paced to the beat of ‘kei te’ and ‘whaka’; and no doubt drew out the third line before ending with forceful exclamations. The rhythmic and balanced wording fitted his stride as he circled the ramparts looking out over country and sea, repeating the chant as he went. The use of the 176

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first person brings a human quality to the scene; the listener is with him on his lonely task. It also creates immediacy. Some texts tell of sentries’ fears and suspicions, making these compositions poignant and even amusing; others envisage the bloodshed if the people are invaded; among others are those used as a ruse by invaders to enter a fort.83 The night sky was also to be watched. Around 1849 Taylor recorded this text and explanation in his notebook: E te marama i runga ē! Ka pau tāua te kōwhikohiko e te w[h]etū! Tēnei te tini o te tangata te ngoi mai nei, Roto mai te otaota nei, Kai te miri rawa, ngau tara nei. Kia mau te pupuri, kia pupuri! 84 O moon above! You and I are encircled by the twinkling of stars! Numbers of men are crawling towards us, Through the vegetation here, Smoothing bare [their weapons], for the barbs to bite. Hold fast, keep hold!

Addressing the moon, the watchman looks up at a shimmering sky, but the light of the stars is intimidating. As Taylor learned: ‘It is supposed by the Native priests that if, when a pa is surrounded by enemies, a star is seen above it, it is a sure sign that the pa will be taken; if, on the contrary, the star is seen below, the beseiged take courage, being fully [assured?] that they shall be able to drive off the enemy.’ The stars are now men on the ground snaking their way through the undergrowth; this is a vision conjured up in other watch-cries. Moreover, as Taylor explained, they are polishing their clubs and spears to make them more effective at killing, which is a sufficient image to keep a sentry on his mettle. As to performance of the text, he added: ‘This song is generally sung when a large party is seen approaching a pa, to warn the people to be on their guard. It is always sung by the principal warrior, in the presence of his troops, that they may be ready for a sudden attack.’85

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Dance Chants: Haka The recited haka – a term for various dances performed with chant, gesture, action and facial grimaces – made loud, fearsome performances. Early eye-witness accounts, the parts they play in historical narratives and their boldly phrased content all confirm that. Take Wakefield’s description of one war-dance or peruperu. The leader, with greenstone mere (club) in hand, was among his party who were seated in ranks, when . . . suddenly [he] rose from the ground and leaped high into the air with a tremendous yell. He was instantly imitated by his party, who sprang out of their clothes as if by magic, and left them in bundles on the ground. They then joined in a measured guttural song recited by their chief, keeping exact time by leaping high at each louder intonation, brandishing their weapons with the right hand, and slapping the thigh with the left as they came heavily upon the ground.

Wakefield went on to admire how the chant and actions proceeded ‘in perfect unison’ with increasing vigour and noise until ‘the final spring . . . accompanied by a concluding whoop which seemed to penetrate one’s marrow’.86 In narratives there may be references to or full versions of these kinds of chants, for which there are terms such as puha, ngeri and tūtū ngārahu.87 They may occur as entertainment, competition (suitors vying for a woman), challenge (war-parties facing off each other), strategy to distract attention while making an escape, or ritually as a prelude or end to fighting.88 In one section of his 1857 tribal history, referred to in Chapter 1, Raumoa described a meeting between tribal groups and the puha each performed. A party of Te Āti Awa from Taranaki arrived at Waikanae. Canoes went off to Kapiti with message of their arrival for Te Rauparaha and other Te Āti Awa there; then they set out for Waikanae. The next evening when they met the Taranaki party, this was the chant they chose: Tū tonu atu te waewae a Te Āti Awa, a Ngāti Toa. Ko te puha tēnei: Ka tito au, ka tito au, ka tito au ki a Kupe, Te tangata nāna i topetope te whenua. Tū kē a Kapiti, tū kē Mana, tau kē Arapaoa. Na! ko ngā tohu tēnā a taku tupuna a Kupe,

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Waiata Nāna i whakatōmene Tītapua, Ka tōmene i a au te whenua ē!89 At once there was the war-dance by Te Āti Awa [and] Ngāti Toa. This was the puha chant: I relate, I relate, I relate of Kupe, The man who travelled [and] portioned the land. So Kapiti stands apart, Mana stands apart, Arapaoa remains apart. Ha! Those are the marks of my ancestor, Kupe, He who made exploration of Tītapua, As I will explore the land, eh!90

This text (in manuscripts and publications variously called a puha, ngeri or haka) has the driving rhythms, repetitions, declaratory statements and bravado that epitomise these chants. Here is another story, related obliquely, about Kupe which lauds his discoveries and impact on the landscape. And, also allusively, it brings memory of the great Māui, for it is said that when he drew up the fish of the land, Kupe sliced it up, creating hills, valleys and islands.91 His setting apart of the four islands is forcefully conveyed by repetition, by the sharp, cutting sounds of ‘Tū kē . . . tū kē . . . tau kē’ (in other versions, ‘tū kē’), phrases that, in this or slightly modified form, are found in song and saying, perhaps because they also recall the pulling apart of the sky and earth, Rangi and Papa.92 There might be an underlying warning here, too, that the performers could likewise sever others from their lands. Kupe’s feats are further commended and substantiated in the next phrase, the evidence lying in these island ‘tohu’, a word that can imply supernatural, special or ancient signs. The final statement with its ‘concluding whoop’ is one of sheer boldness. The first person singular, used throughout (‘au’, ‘taku’, ‘au’), at once speaks for the chief and tribal performers, and for their living descendants who will follow in Kupe’s footsteps, ranging over lands and putting their mark on them; it is a provocative, warlike, boast. Kupe the man and the islands in their locality were well known to the performers in this narrative. According to Grey, the chant (which he labelled a ‘ngeri’) was composed by Tamairangi ‘of ancient days’, and ‘used by Te Rauparaha as his war song’.93 It is a prime example of the revising of songs for new settings. It was widely known in modified forms and with 179

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different interpretations, for example, it was sung, in one version, by a Te Arawa war-party as part of a ritual of prediction. And, as Tremewan discovered, in a contemporary twist, Māori of Wharekahika in 1865 took it as a template for their chant of allegiance to the Governor and Queen.94

Sung Songs Songs of Love and Feeling: Waiata Aroha The sung songs are very personal, even if designed to be performed in public, and also very local and cultural in their references. This is so of Te Uira’s waiata tangi at the start of the chapter; and it is the same with waiata aroha, the very many songs that women (and sometimes men) composed for reasons such as missing, quarrelling with, or being parted from or rejected by a lover. Both kinds ‘lament and comment upon the experiences of separation through death, and separation in life’, and there is much to compare in their structure, style and language,95 as will be apparent when looking at the next song in the light of Te Uira’s. Grey gave this preface to the song (presumably as written for or told to him): ‘Na Rangitane tenei waiata. He waiata aroha, i waiatatia, ki Puke Tawa, kei te taha o te huarahi, e maro mai ana i Whakatu ki Motuweka’ (This song is from [the] Rangitāne [tribe]. It is a love song, which was sung at Puketawa [Tawa Hill], which is beside the road that runs from Whakatū to Motuweka [Motueka]). Ka piki au ki runga ki Te Tawa, Kia mārama au te titiro Ki Wharekahokaho, Ki te tahu i rāngia, O te haramaitanga, O Te Kairākau, Tauāraitia atu ana.96 I climb up Te Tawa, So my view is clear Out to Wharekahokaho, Towards the loved husband, Of the time

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Waiata When Te Kairākau came to me, He who is now parted from me.

This gently pensive, melancholy song conveys its feeling in few words but effective imagery. Even without the music of singing it is touching. When sung to others it would surely have brought sympathy, although the audience would undoubtedly have heard it or another very like it in imagery, reported experience and phrasing. For, although it has its own personal purpose, it exhibits conventions that Orbell has demonstrated as common to many waiata aroha: the composer’s lonely climb to the top of a hill, her hopeful gazing out to where the lover is or was, memory of past times together, and a final doleful phrase which explains the reason for the song and her mood.97 The song is recorded as from the Rangitāne people and with a specific location, but the composer and her particular situation are not known. A longer version, of which this is the second part, is said to have arisen because the composer’s husband had left her.98 This seems plausible from the content, but in a world of versions it is often difficult to be definitive about the detail of a particular rendition: the name of the composer or the origin or situation of the singing; each can be easily lost. Despite that, the schema and language found time and again in shorter and longer songs of love, which allowed people in the oral society to compose and remember so many songs, at a later time allow at least something of the meaning to be understood, and also the emotions and responses to them in the day. Feeling for family members at a distance is subject for songs too. In this one, a woman sings out her longing for her absent son (recalling Kupe’s expression of feeling for his daughter). Rōpiha wrote before it in his manuscript: ‘Ka tīmata i te tangi a te wahine, a Panehārete, mō tāna tamaiti, mō Neri, i ngaro ia ki Ākarana’ (Now beginning with the lament by a woman, Panehārete, for her son, for Neri, who had gone to Auckland). E hi[ka] mā nei, Whakarongotia ake, Te rōria e tangi mai nei, Runga rā kai Motukōkako. E hika, ē ia,

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mĀori oral tradition Hoki mai rā Ki a au, ki te ūkaipō O tama i kuhu Ko raro tangata kē, Ko au he[i] muri nei.99 O friends, Listen out to The sound of the rōria, coming in From on high at Motukōkako. O son, oh Return home To me, the nurturing mother, Of a son gone in With strangers in the north, While I am left to grieve.

Although it is slight, it too is traditional: in the address to listeners, in the statement of the problem and in the disconsolate ending. Panehārete (a transliteration of Fanny Harris) used the vocative ‘E hika mā nei’ found in other songs to ask for her listeners’ attention. And she paralleled it, in the singular form, when directly appealing to her son.100 The sound of the rōria, either the Māori instrument or the introduced Jew’s harp,101 may reflect her sadness, or perhaps she anticipated that it would ‘speak’ of the arrival of her son; but the music comes towards her (as in other songs, clouds or wind come from the direction of a loved one) as if there is some sort of communication with him. By asking her son to return to her and using the expressive ‘ūkaipō’ or ‘nursed at the breast at night’, Panehārete made the song a moving statement of a mother’s love; one imagines she composed and sang it to assuage her longing for her son and perhaps also to seek the sympathy of others. And she added depth to the sense of her loneliness and concern with the idea not only of Neri being away from her but also among strangers – away from kin. A plangent concluding line is also typical, reiterating the unhappiness that gave reason for her singing. This song raises intriguing questions of the kind that can complicate a reading of the manuscript corpus (and early publications). In another manuscript, and other hand, in the Grey collection there is a version of this 182

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song. It is first in what is either a three-verse song or three separate compositions. And there is a note with it: ‘Nā Tūkura ēnei waiata mō tāna tamaiti, mō Neri Eruera Pene [sic] Hārete’ (These songs are by Tūkura for her son, for Neri Eruera Pane Hārete).102 This explained the transliterated name of the composer. Tūkura-a-rangi from the East Coast married, in the early 1830s, J. W. Harris (Hārete) who had a boat named ‘Fanny’ (Pane). They had two sons, Edward Francis and Henry.103 ‘Eruera’ (Edward) in the note seems to be an error, because although in the second version he is player of the rōria, he was the older son. Neri, a shortened Māori form of Henry, was the younger, the ‘pōtiki’ (youngest), as he is referred to in the second verse (or song) of the second version; and he is the one she is missing – away in Auckland, according to the quite specific detail in Rōpiha’s manuscript. A slightly different version has been published as one song of three verses, with the order of them reversed from those in the second manuscript. Questions remain. Did Rōpiha only know one verse? Does ‘ēnei waiata’ (these songs) indicate separate compositions, since the transcriber also put lines between them? Did Tūkura-a-rangi compose two or three songs for her absent son (or even sons) or sing one or more verses at any one time? It may not be possible for answers to be found. But if both sources for the song quoted here were correctly transcribed, the comparison provides a very nice example of how composers made considerable and clever play on words and meaning from one song to another. Songs of Response: Waiata Whakautu In the oral society, song could be as effective as speech, for example, at revealing identity,104 or communicating opinions, decisions or offers. Among the many episodes in Te Ātahīkoia’s Ngāti Kahungunu history, one tells of Te Wera Hauraki of Ngāpuhi bringing Te Whareumu, who had been taken prisoner in earlier fighting, back to his Ngāti Kahungunu home. When they were staying at the Tāne-nui-a-Rangi fort at Waimārama with Te Waikōpiro and his taua or war-party, the Ngāti Whatuiāpiti chief, Pareihe, arrived there because of news of Te Waikōpiro having killed people of Heretaunga. The situation was tense and the encounter was played out with the formalities of war-dance, oratory and song. E haere atu ana te taua rā, e whitu tekau tōpū. Ka puta mai te taua rā ki waho o te pā, kātahi ka werohia te taua a Pareihe. Ka karapiti ki te taua a Te Whareumu

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mĀori oral tradition rāua ko Te Wera. Ka tūtū ngārehu. Te taunga tonutanga ki raro, ko te tūtū ngārehutanga, kua tū a Pareihe ki runga. Ko tērā haere atu, he hohou i te rongo ki a Te Wera rāua ko Te Whareumu, o Te Waikōpiro. Ka tū rā a Pareihe ki runga, kāore i maha ōna kupu mihi, ka whakahuatia te waiata: Kāore te pō nei te kaikai nunui, ē Ko Te Whareumu rawa, I konei māua, ē. Māku e iri atu Ki te awhe nei i Tukituki, Papa ki tēnei awhe pūmahuru, Ki tēnei awhe. Māku anake koe e au. Kātahi rā ka karanga mai a Te Wera, te rangatira o Ngāpuhi, ‘E mara, Pareihe, whakahokia, whakahokia.’ Kātahi ka tīmatatia te waiata anō.105 That war-party went on, a large number [lit. ‘twice seventy’] of them. When that party appeared outside the fort, then Pareihe’s war-party was challenged. They came alongside the war-party of Te Whareumu and Te Wera. There was a war-dance. As soon as they dropped down, the war-dancers, Pareihe stood up. And he went over to make peace with Te Wera and Te Whareumu, and for Te Waikōpiro. When Pareihe stood up, he said few words of greeting, then gave voice to a song: It was indeed a night of great import, For it was really Te Whareumu, Right here we were. I will accompany This plume at Tukituki, Join in with this plume of true peace, With this plume. And I indeed will be constant to you. Then Te Wera, the Ngāpuhi chief, called out to him, ‘Friend, Pareihe, repeat it, repeat it.’ Then the song was begun again.

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The scene, first of bold, stirring dance and then of courteous song, is theatrical: the two sides meet, there is a challenge and then the war-dance begins (tūtū ngārehu/ngārahu).106 The outcome might have been attack but Te Pareihe forestalled that when he at once stood up and went over to make peace. And, in this version of the incident, he chose song over lengthy oratory to convey his intention; it may have seemed more heartfelt and genuine, even more honourable, but it also, although metaphorical, swiftly conveyed his meaning. The first line is again phrased in words of common usage, using the definitive ‘Kāore’ in the senses of ‘how great’ or ‘it was certainly’.107 It refers to Pareihe having foreseen the meeting with Te Whareumu (in another version the peace-making was foretold by a priest),108 and intimates that his offer of peace has merit since such signs were taken seriously. He then offers his allegiance to Te Whareumu poetically, and therefore also formally and ceremonially. In a graceful and tactful recognition of his status, he refers to Te Whareumu metaphorically as ‘te awhe’ or ‘awe’, the prized feathers of an albatross or white heron; both birds were used to symbolise chiefs and their feathers made chiefly adornments, but the word can also mean ‘strength’ or ‘power’. By using the image three times (the second time with emphasis by the use of the intensive ‘pū’ before ‘mahuru’), he confirms his intention and shows respect for Te Whareumu. And, in the last line, he reaffirms the offer of allegiance by his assurance of fidelity. Te Wera then calls for Pareihe to sing the song again. He does so, replacing Te Whareumu’s name with Te Wera’s, and so includes him in the bond of peace. It was a dignified and customary way of bringing – singing – the parties together. Scenes of peace-making in the oral narratives are some of the finest, and are also witness to why and how fighting was brought to an end.109 Songs of Tribal History: Oriori In the class of songs termed oriori, many are addressed by name to children or begin with lines that attempt to soothe them, and this is why the word is often translated as ‘lullaby’. But that was only a small part of their purpose. For they are, if allusively, very informative about life and kin history in the old world, and they must have been regarded as an important repository of traditions. For composers would quote (in abbreviated form) from genealogies; cite names of distinguished ancestors in Hawaiki and Aotearoa; refer to incidents and victories in battle; identify sacred landmarks or abundant 185

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food sources in the tribal territory; name precious, inherited possessions; or record an insult or defeat that the child should reply to in future. Those references served to bolster the mana of kin and teach children their rightful place in what was usually an aristocratic lineage.110 An oriori may be very long and range over aspects of tribal history, genealogy and life, or it may be quite specific, focussing on one event in the past or certain lines in a genealogy. One kind has the purpose of asserting a child’s superior lineage to rebut an implied claim to the contrary (as in the song lines quoted above relating to Tū-te-rangi-ānini). This was the intention of an oriori that Parehuitao, who from the content was of Te Arawa, composed for ‘his infant grandchild’. It was published by C. O. B. Davis, together with his elaborate translation and a few notes on meaning, in his valuable collection of Māori letters and addresses to Grey (1855), which also has an appendix of songs and narratives. Uia mai rā, tō koroua hamu, ‘I tipu ki hea, te kāwai o te hue?’ Ko Moromuha [Maromuka], nāna Te Aohinga, ē. Ka toro te kāwai ki tawhiti, ē Ki rā runga i Waitohi, tēnā te rākau Tango mua nā Paea, ka mutu kei i a koe, ē. Aha te iti, e hine? Tirohia atu Ki a Te Mataku, ko Te Potikai, ē, Ko Te Huruhuru, tere ana mai Parawhenuamea. Ō tikanga e huna iho nei e Te Tāwera, Kia ngaro? He ahakoa, e hine, I tōu ingoa, i te tokoroa nā Māui. Kei titiro te kanohi ki ngā maunga Utu hinu a tō tupuna, A Uenukukōpako, ki Maro-nui-a-Tia ē, Ki Te Whakamaru e tangi ana te hikihiki, Ki Paterere-nui-i-a-Hopo Kei Horohoro te otinga ē.111 Ask your forgotten elder there, ‘Where did this shoot of the gourd grow from?’ From Maromuka,112 who had Te Aohinga.

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Waiata The shoot spread from afar, And on high from Waitohi, who was descendant Of Paea, a line that ends with you. What is this of lowliness, O daughter? Look to Te Mataku, Te Potikai, And Te Huruhuru, when Great Deluge came sweeping in. Your origins are concealed by Te Tāwera, But disappear? How possible, O daughter, With your name from the dividing up by Māui. Direct your eyes to the mountains, Gourd of precious fat, of your ancestor, Of Uenukukōpako, at Maro-nui-a-Tia, At Te Whakamaru, where chants rang out, At Patetere-nui-a-Hopo, And out to Horohoro.

Parehuitao chose one standard beginning for an oriori: a question in which a child is exhorted to ask information of an elder, in this case with an intimation that elders should not be ignored. And here the question is couched in the metaphor of shoots from a gourd representing the lines of family, which prompts the genealogical thread of the song. Parehuitao immediately calls up prestigious ancestral names; the length and influence of their ‘kāwai’ or line is emphasised by ‘ki tawhiti’, with its senses of ‘in the very distant past’ and ‘great’ or ‘supreme’. Taking this allusion to high lineage further by use of ‘rā runga i’ (on high from), Waitohi is also notably ‘te rākau tango mua’. Literally ‘the first branch’ (or simply ‘descendant’) of Paea, this phrase, however, also occurs in the form ‘Ngā rākau tango mua a Manaia’ (the advance weapons of Manaia) and quite likely hints at a warrior line down to the grandchild.113 In that there is something of a declaration of their ‘great strength in battle etc.’, as Davis had it. A second rhetorical question mocks Te Tāwera’s attempt to conceal the granddaughter’s true and noble lineage by asserting she came of a lowly (iti) line. Parehuitao dismisses this by naming other celebrated forebears: Te Mataku, Te Potikai and Te Huruhuru who, it appears, was associated with the formidable ‘Parawhenuamea’, personification of a destructive flood that sweeps everything away.114 The girl’s nobility is then further enhanced by her connection to the magnificent Māui; as Davis explained, 187

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he apportioned land to ‘Uenuku-Kopako, the great root of this family’. Leaving that most ancient past, the composer comes forward in time and place to the local history, grounded again by place-names. Addressing the child, Parehuitao directs her, again in formulaic phrasing, to tribal lands and mountain ranges that have fed her people well; ‘utu hinu’ refers to the most prestigious of foods, gourds of birds preserved in their own fat.115 Those were tributes to her aristocratic chief, as the Ngāti Whakaue chief Hāmuera Pango told Stafford: ‘All the preserved birds from Maroanui, Patetere, Whakamaru and Horohoro were supplied to Uenukukopako.’116 Parehuitao then triumphantly reinforces the lofty status of the child by ending  – figuratively and actually  – on a high note with the name of Horohoro which, according to Davis, was ‘a  celebrated mountain at Rotorua’. In this poetic list, Parehuitao relied on the powerful effect of names (of genealogy, individual and place) to answer Te Tāwera; at the same time he was familiarising the child with the very sounds of them to help her in future recognise and memorise them. Songs of Grief and Distress: Waiata Tangi Among the writings in the Grey collection is the work of Tāmihana Te Rauparaha of Ngāti Toa at Ōtaki. Son of the great chief, Te Rauparaha – an account of whose life he wrote  – he was a dedicated exponent of Christianity and Pākehā custom, and a man who also wrote many letters.117 In this instance he explained to Shortland why people began eating other people (‘te take i tīmata ai te kai tangata’) by telling the story in which the treacherous Kae killed and ate the pet whale that the good Tinirau had kindly offered to carry him home over the sea. At  this point in Te Rauparaha’s accomplished version, Tinirau realised his loss. Ka whanga a Tinirau kia hoki mai tāna mōkai. Kāhore i hohoro te hoki mai. Karanga noa, kīhai hoki i hohoro te hoki mai. Kātahi a Tinirau ka puta ki waho o tōna whare, ka puta mai te kakara o te tohorā rā ki tōna ihu. Koia rā te whakataukī, ‘Ka puta rā te kakara o Tutunui’ mō te kakara o te kai pai. Ka mōhio a Tinirau kua mate te patu e Kae. Ka aroha tōna ngākau ki taua ika, ka mihi a Tinirau mō Tutunui, koia tēnei: Tērā ia te kakara o Tutunui-a-rangi, E patua mai e te muri waho

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Waiata Mā runga mai o te moana. He aroha ki au, Mā wai rā au e kawe Kia kite i te ngarahu I ngā kōhatu i taona ai Taku mōkai? Ka waiho tēnei hei tangi mō te tangata.118 Tinirau waited for his pet to come back. [But] it did not quickly come back. He called it in vain, [but] it did not quickly come back. Then when Tinirau came out of his house, the scent of that whale came to his nose. And so there is the saying, ‘There’s the scent of Tutunui’ for the smell of good food. Tinirau knew that it had been killed by Kae. His heart longed for that fish, and Tinirau paid tribute to Tutunui, in this way: There is the sweet scent of Tutunui-a-rangi, Killed by the outsider When taken over the sea. In feeling for me, Who will take me To see the ashes On the stones on which it was cooked, My dear pet? This remains as a lament for people.

The stylistic features of narratives discussed in the last chapter are easily discerned in this excerpt, including the use of a saying, either coined during or quoted in or to conclude a story. In this case Te Rauparaha reveals that although in the historical tale the saying was coined in relation to a great sense of loss, from his time at least it also came to have an upbeat implication in relation to good food;119 in such ways the oral texts bore changes. The story must be known to fully understand the saying, just as in the song it is alluded to but not told. Tinirau felt for his cherished pet as if for a human; after all it was a relation. Kae’s disgrace was that as a friend he ate it. Tinirau’s song follows – and perhaps even sets – one pattern of laments. 189

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He begins with a standard phrase, ‘Tērā ia’,120 and reference to something in the air (the scent) that carried with it sadness (in other songs it can be mist or cold or another manifestation of nature). The terrible cause of grief is then stated clearly and Kae, once known and received into Tinirau’s village, is isolated; he is without name, a ‘muri waho’ (outsider) and, by implication, a slave.121 Then the composer-singer turns to his audience, seeking their sympathy and compassion in his wish to see where his ‘mōkai’, beloved pet, met its end. However, since the killing and cooking of Tutunui were a terrible insult, there is every indication that the gathering of a war-party is inevitable. The key structural elements of waiata tangi are here, and the well-used themes of a journey and separation. Inevitably the next sentence is ‘Kātahi ka rewa tana taua hei patu i a Kae’ (Then his war-party set out to kill Kae). ‘Maori poetry’, wrote Orbell, ‘was generally inspired not by success and happiness but by sorrow and loss.’122 Any cause for unhappiness could be the subject of a song. Food was one such reason, and there are many songs of distress that tell about crops failing, that reply to accusations about taking or being stingy with food, that deny an accusation of stealing food123 or that express remorse at the lack of it. When food was scarce and guests could not be invited to stay, it was a matter of great shame, as songs and narratives tell. In his notebook of 1849 Taylor recorded where he could the provenance or feelings behind songs. About one he wrote: ‘A song applying to a chief who hides himself in his house from shame when visitors arrive at his pa because he has no food to give them.’124 The example that follows arose from a similar cause: ‘A song by the wife of Taraia of Hauraki lamenting her inability to exercise hospitality on account of the scarcity of food.’ E noho ana i tōku whanga, Ka wakamau ki waho rā. Pānga reo mai nō Taharōku, Peka mai ki konei. E kore koe e karangatia, Kei kite i te kai kore o te kāinga. Kei kī koe nōku te kaiponu; Nō te kai anō, te kore noa. Tē whai au te tira haere Nō Te Tātara, ki Mokoia,

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Waiata Te whare kura i a Kahawai? Kei ruarua, e te ngākau, ki a Tāraia.125 I am sitting in my bay, Gazing out to sea. Word came in from Taharōku To branch off here. But for you there could be no calling in, In case you saw the lack of food at home. Don’t say that I am mean; Food itself was cause, there being none at all. Why did I not follow the company of travellers With Te Tātara to Mokoia, And Kahawai’s fine house? So that, O heart, Tāraia would not have doubts.

To help envisage the situation of the song text, there are notes by Taylor and Te Rangikāheke, and a translation by Grey. Taharōku, a Ngāti Paoa chief, sent word that he and his party might stop off at the composer’s village. Not wanting them to know there was no food, she refused him, saying he could not be invited in – ‘karangatia’ with its sense of being formally ‘called’ in. She sings to forestall (or answer) accusation that she is mean, explaining that there is no food at all; the repetition of this fact reveals that it is at the heart of her dismay. That was the public avowal; then she shifts to her personal feelings. She wishes, so very understandably, that she had not been there at all to confront such embarrassment, but had gone off with Te Tātara’s party to Mokoia, to Kahawai’s fine house where food was plentiful; this pleasing prospect contrasts sharply with her misery. But, she concludes, that would have caused concern for her husband, the Ngāti Tamaterā chief Tāraia Ngākuti who was away fighting. The song is bound to its locality and tribe, but it also makes clear the obligations of those times in regard to food, visitors, family and war. Doubly defeated by her situation, the shame at having no food, and the missed chance of company and travelling, Tāraia’s wife gazes out to sea in order to restore her equilibrium. This may have been indeed what she did but such a scene of contemplation is conventional, as are the opening lines depicting it, both in the wording (with slight variations) ‘E noho ana . . . ’, 191

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and in the place (at other times a house, a porch or corner). ‘Whanga’ also has the meaning of a shelter or a nook, and if in this case the setting was not by the sea, a translation would be ‘I am sitting in my nook,/Gazing at the world’; all the settings, however, suggest somewhere one might go for protection, to hide for shame.126 She sang the song for solace, to deal with her own discomfort and unhappiness but also to give others her justification for seeming inhospitable and to avoid reports of meanness, the unacceptable ‘kaiponu’, subject of the saying in Chapter 3. At least some of the song phrases were well, and widely, known. In a letter to Sir George Grey, possibly of the 1850s, Īhāia Pōrutu, a Te Āti Awa chief of Pipitea, Wellington, wrote that he had heard Grey was asking for kūmara but that he had none and had not grown any. He concluded: He waiata tēnei nāku ki a koe: Kei kī koe nōku te kaiponu, nō te kai, nō te taputapu, Te kore rawa me huna iho ki roto rā.127 Here is a song of mine for you: Don’t say that I am mean, food [and] goods are cause, There being none at all that I should have to conceal.

At the time when Tāraia’s wife sang out her shame and regret, Māori were living alongside Pākehā. And, since singing about the topical was their habit, when they met these foreigners, learned about their beliefs and habits, used their products and experienced far-reaching changes to their lives because of them, they sang about all that too. Emotions drove references in those songs as well: friendly and passionate feelings for individuals, longing for and excitement about new goods, intellectual response to religious beliefs, and both welcoming and vehement words about change.

The New and Continuity in Songs Response to and reflection on governors and government, both the good and bad of them, created songs throughout (and beyond) the nineteenth century. Sir George Grey as Governor was the reason for or subject of many. 192

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For instance, the Ngāti Tūwharetoa high chief, Iwikau Te Heuheu of Taupō, himself known as a great composer, sang this one in 1850 when he was sent a British flag as a present from Grey. Tēnei ka noho ki te take o te kara, Whakatau rawa iho taku noho ki raro rā, Whakamau te titiro te ao ka riaki, Nā runga ana mai, te hiwi ki Takapuna, I raro rā Kāwana, e aroha nei (i) au, ē. Toro mai tō ringa kia harirūia, Ka tika mauru te aroha i au, ē.128 Here I sit at the base of the flag, Looking out intently as I sit beneath it, With my gaze fixed on high clouds From over the ridge at Takapuna, Where beneath them is the Governor, for whom I long here. Hold out your hand to be shaken, And ease the feeling I have in me for you.

The song in Grey’s book is prefaced by ‘Tangi hou, na Te Heuheu’ (A new song of yearning, by Te Heuheu). Although it was new in terms of its time and content, Te Heuheu followed the old way of composition. He began with the formulaic ‘Tēnei ka noho’, although he was not sitting in his house or on his porch as in other songs. He was sitting below the new ‘kara’ or flag (a transliteration from the term ‘colours’) that represented his friend, yet the phrase still served him. In accord with a now recognisable pattern, his gaze went to the clouds coming from the direction of the one whose absence is regretted. And here there is a neat doubling of imagery, to judge by a note Grey wrote beside a copy of the waiata: ‘Takapuna the land near the Flagstaff hill in Auckland.’ Te Heuheu’s phrase of affection and feeling for his absent friend, ‘e aroha nei au’, was also as expected, but then he chose a modern word to acknowledge Grey and referred to a contemporary European practice: he asked for a handshake, ‘harirū’ (a transliteration of ‘how do you do’), the idea of such proximity alleviating his lamenting the distance between them.129 In addition to government, Christianity was a source of interest to 193

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composer-singers. There was much about the religion that attracted and engaged the Māori of an oral society, not least the reciting of prayers, singing of hymns, and the narrative and genealogical style of the Bible. As composers they exhibited their knowledge and interest by allusions to the faith and its practices, the Bible and its characters and stories, and the rituals of service.130 Introduced goods were also inspiration – the pain and pleasure of them. Guns, sometimes referred to metaphorically as ‘te ahi tupua’ or ‘the demon’s fire’ in an acerbic reference to the Pākehā who brought them, were the subject of pride, or were admired, desired or blamed for the death of kin. Alcohol was cause for many a mournful or witty song.131 Tobacco attracted composers too. In McGregor’s collection there is a haka composed by a woman ‘i mate i te hiakai Tupeka’ (suffering from a desire for tobacco). The introductory note tells that she had asked people for tobacco as she had no money to buy it, but without result, and since her husband was away fighting in Taranaki, she was feeling very low. The salve for her feelings, the way she could vent them, was by composing and chanting a haka: ‘Na, katahi ka puta te whakaaro ki roto ki te ngakau, o te wahine nei; kia rapu i tetahi Haka mana, hei putanga mo tona matenga i te hiakai o te Tupeka’ (So then the thought came to this woman’s mind that she find herself a haka as release for her longing for tobacco).132 And it was not just small, portable objects that provided inspiration, to judge by this example: ‘He waiata wawata, na Ngatikahungunu i te kitenga ai i te steamer tuatahi’ (A song of desire by Ngāti Kahungunu on seeing the first steamship).133 Then there was land. Attempts to retain possession of it; dishonest sale, purchase and acquisition of it; and the trials of the Native Land Court and laws relating to it all provided grounds for complaint voiced in passionate songs. An example is the Ngāti Wai song of love for their land published in Te Waka o te Iwi (referred to in Chapter 2), which they used to emphasise their determination to keep the area of land defined. This song of refusal encapsulates a long, historical grievance – of past and present: I te ture tahi a Kawana, Kua oho [o] matou Maori, Whakahoro atu ki tai, Ki te kai pari, Ki te kai maunga,

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Waiata E ki te kuraruraru noa iho. Whiua te pirikahu, Whiua te nanenane, Whiua te hoiho, Hei tukuku i te kai a te Maori, Hei ao wairua atu ki tawhiti.134 From the first law of the Governor, Our Māori were roused, At the loss from the sea, Of food in abundance Of food from the mountains, Ah, leading to endless contention. When sheep were driven in, When goats were driven in, When horses were driven in To plunder Māori food, To consign us to the spirit world, far away.

In the (now expected) rhythmic, repetitive phrasing, the song expresses the shock Māori felt as they watched their world reduced by the law. It laments the loss of their homelands, which had been plentiful with foods from the sea, country and forest. It portrays introduced animals devouring and ruining their crops and cultivations. And it concludes tragically, with the image of themselves as if ghosts divorced from their cherished lands and in some far distant place. Grey noted after the text, which he published in Ko nga Waiata Maori (1857): ‘This song was sung to me at Matanehunehu, on the sea coast, between Wellington and Wairarapa, August 28th, 1853, by the natives, who did not wish me to buy a tract of country.’ As Orbell recognised, ‘Words had power for the Maori; they were a kind of action . . . When they were faced with separation and defeat, and no other form of action was open to them, poetry provided an outlet and a means of assertion, and their song became a kind of triumph over their circumstances.’135 In that regard the old world plays out in the new.

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Māori Oral Tradition in the Old World In this study I have considered Māori oral tradition in the light of its origin in the old world because its distinctness arises from the way of life in that world and the fact that it was a time without writing. In the context of the Māori ancestors in te ao tawhito, their preference for the genres of whakapapa, whakataukī, kōrero and waiata is understandable. The foundational place of tribe and hierarchy explains the prevalence of whakapapa; and the reason for those and many other lists lies in their usefully compact capture of information at a time when the memorising of knowledge was essential. Similarly, it made sense to have an abundance of the economical forms of whakataukī: proverbs, mnemonic quotations from mythology or tribal history, and formulaic phrasing. The world-view gives reason for the mystical, sacred, fabulous and real in kōrero, the discourse on philosophy, history and cultural practice. And the extraordinary number and kinds of waiata are explicable in a society that publicly and freely gave voice to emotion, reasoning and learning by song, and invoked and communicated with atua by chant. While it is evident that each genre has its own form and purpose, examples show that they could contribute variously: to daily talk, oratory, entertainment, ritual, education and knowledge. Composers drew parts or all of one text into another or brought different genres together to make an impression or to inform. In intricate and inter-connected ways, concepts or events or messages from mythological, tribal and personal history, and 196

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explanatory discourse were  – repeatedly  – woven through the genres, which worked to instil principles and beliefs and to secure the great store of history and cultural knowledge. Moreover, every such repetition assisted the next composer or recorder and, for vital received wisdom, gave a greater chance that it would survive and reach the next generations. If there was much that was stylistically alike about the genres, it was again due to the oral society, in which composers were concerned with sound and performance, with making an impression on the ear and mind for theatrical effect, and for the archive of memory. For this same reason the hallmarks of poetry predominated in the exemplar texts: attractive, rhythmic language; allusiveness; precision and brevity with words; and incisive imagery. These compositional devices enabled a great deal to be signified in a few words and, again, were of advantage for influencing others and for memorising. Equally remarkable, and useful, in the examples of genres were the patterned, formulaic language and conventions of structure, which played to the same ends. In addition, the impact and concentrated meaning of single words, and especially of names, also spelled out the deep and ‘echoic’ in language to the Māori ancestors. While patterning, repetition and convention were readily apparent in the sample texts, there was individuality too in thoughtful, subtle, pertinent adaptation. Composers worked from models and precedent, from what they knew from their elders or heard publicly. But their freedom to speak to their own time, situation or understanding enlivened the formulaic and led to the very striking feature (to those accustomed to literature) of different versions of texts, and to the perfectly acceptable habit of using and adapting others’ words for their own individual renditions. If, on the basis of the examples in this book (which are a very few from a very large corpus), it cannot be said absolutely that all texts always display all of those characteristics, there is a notably high frequency of them across the genres. Clearly, these features were of great advantage to composers and their audiences; they explain how so much could be internalised and passed on in the old world, and at the same time assist an understanding and appreciation of the processes of composing and performance. While the oral compositions are best understood in the context of the society in which they were delivered, they in turn – despite their succinct, poetic mode – reveal a startlingly close and vivid impression of life in the ancestral world. Through them it is possible to enter into that society at least 197

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imaginatively, if not at times into its reality, to gain a sense of familiarity with individuals and tribes and to share in the Māori ancestors’ views about living and people. The quotidian and domestic, personal and emotional, tribal and social, and religious and ritual can all be teased out from the texts. However, it is also the case that gaining insight from these mea ngaro can require, as scholars have agreed, ‘intensive study’ and ‘patient and respectful attention to what is actually said’;1 for although some are plain and explicit, many texts are oblique, even cryptic and multi-faceted in meaning. Often, their beauty lies in this but also their mystery. Scholarly interpretative works of the songs and narratives in particular have demonstrated just how much can be learned from and about them. Even this general survey of the genres points to their great possibilities for opening up the cultural world, and the great scope in them for further inquiry. The oral tradition is extensive. The student with literary interests has the chance of original discoveries about the stylistics, poetry and art of Māori oral texts. There is prodigious work for translators. And published collections – by genre, history or subject – offer prime readers for language learners, and, if with translation to English, wider knowledge of this classical literature. Māori oral tradition has rich rewards for the student of tribal or personal history. But  it is also illuminating as to what constitutes the culture, including what Māori do and want to do today. Of the continued relevance of the retrospective record of ancestral life, Reedy wrote: ‘There are so many connections still between our world now and the world of Pita Kāpiti and Mohi Tūrei.’ And the old texts keep teaching. In his reflection on the value of the language, Wayne Ngata of Ngāti Porou pointed to mōteatea as a way of discovering what it means to be Māori, and as a way of entering the Māori world (‘mā te mātau ki ngā tikanga me ngā kōrero o te whare mōteatea ka tomokia e koe te ao Māori’). And, in a thoughtful reading of karakia, Poia Rewi of Ngāi Tūhoe proposed ‘the evolutionary potential’ of those ancient oral compositions to be interpreted and reinterpreted over time with relevance for each generation – and preserved by voice.2 To take a broader view, the student of the oral literature, whether by comparison or not, can build a contribution to local knowledge as well as the history of humanity. The benefit to Aotearoa of learning about ‘early Maori society . . . entirely within matauranga Maori (Maori knowledge 198

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and world-views)’ has been eloquently argued by Pita Sharples of Ngāti Kahungunu. Reedy advocated publication of Ngāti Porou’s written heritage for his own and all people, referring to it as ‘part of the literature of Aotearoa . . . [and] along with other Māori writings . . . part of world literature’. And Mead saw value in the bilingual volume of the ancestors’ proverbial knowledge made ‘accessible to a public far wider than they dared to dream’, and as a contribution to the universal wisdom that is ‘the legacy of humankind’.3 In their nineteenth-century writing, Māori show interest in and curiosity about discovering and sharing heritages of Aotearoa and beyond. They wrote for themselves with real purpose but they thought of other readers too, and when they made comparison with European thinking and literature they were both enlarging their own world and inviting others into it. The oral literature, therefore, also speaks of that larger world; it carries the very present of the writers, and the beginnings of a time Māori would come to term ‘te ao hou’, the new world.

The Manuscript Legacy My description of Māori oral tradition has been based around the substantial evidence of it in manuscripts: ngā kōrero tuhi iho. I incorporated a little about that paper history and some of the writers who created it because it is intrinsically tied up with the tradition. Moreover, it is a rich source for a history that is little recorded. As I have tried to demonstrate here, if you go to the manuscripts you will find te ao tawhito, but other interests too, which might attract students. As physical objects the manuscripts are alluring – and not just for the excitement of holding and reading the very page written or dictated by a famous warrior or leader or the personal thrill of finding an ancestor’s notebook. The history of production and product invites interest: the kinds of paper and writing tools Māori used and how they were acquired, their writing styles (from confident and elegant to diffident and scrawling), and the ways in which they laid out the voiced texts on the page and (if occasionally) used illustrations. This is also an archive for a student of the transition of an oral to a literary society and for a linguist following Māori language usage and change. 199

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More engagingly, what of the people of the manuscripts? There has been brief mention in the book of Pākehā whose study and collection of traditions helped to secure the manuscript legacy and Māori who worked with them. Least explored, however, is the history of Māori who did the recording, or dictating, who took up the pen and looked to print. Talented composers, orators, chiefs and others: who were they? The compositional artistry of the few quoted in this book is sufficient to propose collections of such writing, which would acknowledge their learning and acumen. Besides the treasures of culture and tribe, embedded in their texts (in titles, conclusions, asides, notes in margins, accompanying letters) is a sense of the people themselves, and clues as to how they viewed the exacting copying out from memory of their share of the oral repertoire; how they exercised their intelligence over, worried about, enjoyed and promoted the new way of recording and disseminating their traditions; and how they thought about readers and the possibility of publication. If nineteenth-century Māori writers were acutely aware of their new audiences and world, they were nevertheless principally, and customarily, recording what their ancestors had handed down to them in versions relevant to the next generations. In their time, in their distinctly oral way, they might be said to have been engaged in producing, to use a phrase of one of their writer descendants, Patricia Grace of Ngāti Toa and Ngāti Raukawa, ‘stories that show them who they are’.4 The oral literature is much more than that, one might say, but it is that at heart.

Māori Oral Tradition in the Modern World In reflecting on the oral tradition in te ao tawhito, I constantly found close parallels and continuities between ancient and modern practice, some of which I referred to in endnotes. Although it has been the focus of this book, it is not the case that the oral tradition belongs in that remote past, for it has continued as a real and influential part of the Māori world. From the time of the nineteenth-century recorders of tradition to writers in the twentieth century, Māori were deeply affected by and grappling with the effects of colonisation: with losses of land, tribal and cultural ways of life, their language as a first language and, relatedly, their habit of keeping records and telling stories. The next generation of Māori writers would 200

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almost all pen in a different language, English, and other genres – poetry, plays, novels, histories. But even in this very different writing by descendants, the oral tradition very often plays a part.5 To take Grace’s work as an example, and the same could be said of other Māori writers, in particular, Witi Ihimaera of Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki. In her fiction that is set in the contemporary Māori world, there are thematic, contextual and stylistic features of the kind that have been noted here of the oral tradition. For instance: small worlds of past and present generations (gods, ancestors and elders playing parts); concern with individuals separated from family, community or land; reference to the metaphysical and ritual in life; and incorporation of songs, chants and oblique ways of telling. At times the connection is very close: the mystical and unpredictable Māuipōtiki is shadowed in her novel Potiki (The Youngest), which tells of a rural Māori community who rediscover themselves through the telling (and carving) of old and new stories.6 The oral heritage manifests itself in the new writing because it is vibrantly present in life. The most evident of long-held practices of orality are, as I noted at the start of the book, carried out in rituals and formalities when Māori meet, whether on marae, at a business or political gathering, or when visitors come to a home. On those occasions they, like their ancestors (as Servant and Wakefield remarked and Hīpango revealed), take great enjoyment in talk (in repartee, witticism, argument and apt quotation of whakataukī) and prefer it ‘face to face’ (as the proverbial ‘kanohi ki kanohi’ expresses).7 In formal gatherings on tribal marae, the karanga (welcoming calls), whaikōrero (oratory), waiata and karakia all hark back in words and ideas to the old world and oral tradition; they are formulaic and, at their best, of the moment (like Te Uira’s waiata tangi for her son). And no speaker, singer or reciter would have notes in front of them.8 Moreover, the meeting-house on a marae is the same whare kōrero, representative of traditions embodied in it by speeches and talk, that it was for Turi, Paikea and Ira when they bound their kōrero into their houses.9 Formalities apart, composition and performance of haka and waiata are highly popular and competitive (like the contests of old). And, as the Matanehunehu people in their waiata to Grey and Tāwhai in his whakapapa did, modern composers of song often bring the trenchant and emotional to immediate concerns: politics, culture or sports.10 One could say that singing continues to be, as Orbell put it of the traditional society, ‘a part of the fabric of life’.11 201

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The oral arts of the marae are derived from the kinds of texts examined in this book that came from the manuscript stock. In many ways this is an untapped stock, but it is not the only one: there are books and journals, sound and film recordings – and also people’s minds and memories. The kin descent, whakapapa and land on which the oral compositions in the old world were based remain highly significant to Māori. Just as some manuscript writers acknowledged elders and experts who taught them, so today it is very often an elder who instructs in traditions, individually or in wānanga and sometimes using methods of old: karakia and ritual, memorising and recitation. And when Māori go to their own pūkōrero (scholars) to ask about the intricacies of an incident in tribal history or the meaning of an archaic phrase in a waiata or for a line of whakapapa, they will very likely have to listen to and remember what their elder tells them – and perhaps at another time they will be shown a manuscript book in which those traditions are recorded. Moreover, listening in formal or informal forums, whether to storytelling, speeches or talk, is encouraged as a way of learning about the old and new society.12 Less so than it was in the time of the oral society, human memory is yet a vital repository. To walk with a kaumātua across his tribal land and hear him relate how sites or trees or hills got their names, where a taniwha comes up in the river or a whare wānanga stood (after the style of Te Ao’s description of Īhenga’s naming of the land), is to realise the very real part that memory still plays – as does the voice. Very often when an elder discovers a manuscript about his people or written by an ancestor, he will be delighted and often moved. He may give a mihi – a formal, spoken greeting – to the writer or ancestors, and then, at least at the start, read it out loud. Reading on, silently or aloud, he will stop from time to time to talk about what he knows, his version, ‘what my elder told me’. Perhaps, as much as manuscripts and other media have played a part, Māori have tenaciously retained their kōrero tuku iho down to the present day (tae noa mai ki tēnei rā) because of the voiced, visceral, emotional tie of words kept at and by heart, or, in the phrasing of Te Rangikāheke and Te Mātorohanga, ‘o roto o te hinengaro, o te ngākau’.

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Abbreviations

AJHR Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives AL Auckland Libraries, Sir George Grey Special Collections AML Auckland Museum Library ATL Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington AUL Auckland University Library E English G Grey, Sir G., 1857. Ko nga Whakapepeha me nga Whakaahuareka a nga Tipuna o Aotea-roa, Cape Town: Saul Solomon. (Sayings cited by page number, e.g., G12.) HL Hocken Library, Dunedin M Māori MG Mead, H. M. and N. Grove, 2001. Ngā Pēpeha a ngā Tīpuna, Wellington: Victoria University Press. (Sayings cited by item number, e.g., MG120.) NM Ngata, A. T. and P. Te H. Jones, 2004. Ngā Mōteatea, Part I, Auckland: Auckland University Press. ___ , 2005. Ngā Mōteatea, Part II, Auckland: Auckland University Press. ___ , 2006. Ngā Mōteatea, Part III, Auckland: Auckland University Press. Ngata, A. T. and H. M. Mead, 2007. Ngā Mōteatea, Part IV, Auckland: Auckland University Press. (Songs cited by part and song number, e.g., NM I, Song 42; text cited by part and page number, e.g., NM I: p. xxiv.)

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Notes

Chapter 1 Māori Oral Tradition / Kōrero Tuku Iho 1. I use hapū (meaning ‘kin group’, ‘tribe’ or ‘tribal group’) to refer to the descent group that acted in common in the old world. The larger iwi or tribe of related hapū is suggested to be a later term; see Orbell, 1995: p. 8 (Note); Ballara, 1998: Parts III and IV; Tau and Anderson (eds), 2008: pp. 20–21, 29–30. 2. A definition of ‘text’ as ‘the original words of an author or document’ (Concise Oxford Dictionary, 1991: p. 1263) implies a written form. In the book I use the word in the generally accepted sense of the words of either an oral or written composition; but see Ong on the good and bad of the meaning and use of this word in relation to oral performance (1982: p. 13). 3. As he pertinently continued: ‘The old man telling his tribe’s stories under the oak tree is establishing that tribe’s link with the past, and passing down the learning accumulated over the years’ (Carrière and Eco, 2012: p. 312). 4. Exemplified by Johansen, 1954; Hanson and Hanson, 1983. 5. As today, see Salmond, 1975; Stirling and Salmond, 1980; Metge, 1995; Keenan (ed.), 2012; Sadler, 2014. 6. See McKenzie, 1985, about early writing by Māori; also Garlick, 1998; Haami, 2004, 2012; A. Jones and Jenkins, 2011; Loader, 2016. 7. Quoted in Kerr, 2006: p. 90. 8. The majority of original manuscripts collected by Grey and Taylor are held at the Auckland City Library, by Shortland at the Hocken Library, and by John White at the Alexander Turnbull Library. On collecting by Grey, see Curnow, 1983, 1985; and Kerr, 2006; and by White, see Reilly, 1985, 1989, 1990. 9. It is very rare to find women writers in the manuscript stock; a few, however, are represented as source of traditions, as Thornton’s reference to Hariata of the Waikato and her ‘exquisite example of storytelling’ (recorded in Taylor’s manuscripts) (1984: p. 299). 10. For a list of Māori writers and location of their manuscripts (and transcription and translation of some of their work), see Simmons, 1976: pp. 427–71; and for notes on some manuscript sources, writers and collectors, see Orbell, 1968: pp. 107–16. When referring to Māori writers I have given a tribal or regional affiliation where known and as either documented in the source material or authorities such as the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. 11. Refer Simmons and Biggs, 1970; Simmons, 1994; Thornton, 2004: Ch. 1 on the Wairarapa writing (many of the manuscripts are in the Alexander Turnbull Library); also Tau regarding Ngāi Tahu recording from the 1880s to 1920s for tribal and personal reasons (2003: pp. 20–29, 185–86), and Haami concerning a manuscript tradition in one family (2004). 12. Ngati Porou cosmology . . . , MSX-4872 (1890s), p. 1; Ngati Porou traditions,

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notes to pages 14–17 MSY-4565 (1895), p. 141, ATL. It is not obvious from the manuscripts who the writers or composers were; I have assumed they were men. The library catalogue lists some names as ‘contributors’; but see Ch. 4, Note 80. 13. Kaikōrero can also mean ‘speaker’ or ‘reciter’, but in this case, and judging by other usage in the manuscript, I take it to mean ‘readers’. I have translated pūtake kōrero as ‘ancestral accounts’; it might also mean ‘accounts of origins’ or ‘history’. The writer uses the form kōrero pūtake in another passage (see quotation, Chapter 2, p. 52), which I take to have the same meaning. 14. Te Rangikāheke, Grey, GNZMMSS 51, pp. 88–89, AL; there is a translation of part of the manuscript in Curnow, 1992. 15. Mātorohanga, in S.  P. Smith, 1913, I, p. 2 (M), p. 85 (translation quoted); echoed also by Pōtatau Te Wherowhero of Waikato (Riley, 2013: verso title page). 16. To translate tapu when used in the context of ritual and belief, I use ‘sacred’, in the sense of ‘safeguarded or required by religion, reverence, or tradition’ (Concise Oxford, 1991: p. 1060). It can have many other meanings; see discussion in Johansen, 1954: Ch. 6. 17. See, for example, R.  Taylor’s comment on an unwillingness to repeat karakia for strangers (1855: p. 73). For Māori responses to writing, collecting and publishing, see comments by Hoani Nahe to White (Nahe, NZMS 713, p. 73, AL); Reilly in relation to White’s collecting (1990) and to Best’s (1995: pp. 26–28); also reference to Pita Kāpiti, an old man in the 1870s, being reluctant to pass on certain knowledge ‘to his protégé Mohi Tūrei’ because it was too tapu (H. W.  Williams quoted in Reedy, 1997: p. 13). For a contemporary view in regard to songs, see McLean, 1996: pp. 223–27. 18. Regarding publishing of traditions by Māori, see Garlick, 1998; McRae, 1998; in the twenty-first century various media are employed: pen, print, film and internet. Useful guides to literature of the oral tradition are C.  R. H.  Taylor, 1972; Parkinson and Griffith, 2004. 19. Kōhere in Kaa and Kaa (eds), 1994: p. 7; A.  T. Ngata quoted in Haami, 2004: p. 13. 20. On editing by Grey, see Biggs, 1952: pp. 180–82; Simmons, 1966; Thornton, 1999: Ch. III; on White as editor and censor, see Orbell, 1968: pp. 113–16; Reilly, 1989. See also Metge on collectors and editing ([1981]: pp. 3–14); and Johansen on sources, writers and editors (1954: pp. 269–77). 21. R. Taylor, 1855: p. 41. 22. Another means is current practice: oratory and singing at hui (meetings) and on marae (tribal meeting-grounds) and elders teaching their kin or in tribal wānanga (schools). Refer to Tau on limitations of the manuscripts for understanding Māori history and world-view (2001: pp. 68 ff). 23. Biggs, 2006: p. 29; see also Orbell, 1995a: p. 32 (Note 2). 24. There has been suggestion that some Māori provided false or fanciful information to Pākehā collectors (Tau, 2001: pp. 69–70); given their otherwise careful recording, this was perhaps not common. 25. Comparisons are noted in, for example, Tremewan, 2002; Reilly, 2009. 26. As in Elsdon Best’s publications and Te Rangi Hiroa, 1949. 27. Biggs, 2006: p. 30. 28. Stothard, 2010: p. 269.

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notes to pages 18–33 29. For an illustrated portrayal of early Māori life in Aotearoa with liberal quotation from oral compositions, see Orbell, 1985. 30. I translate atua as ‘god’; it is a workable equivalent, which fits the (modified) Concise Oxford definition of ‘a superhuman being or spirit . . . having power over nature, human fortunes etc’ (1991: p. 506). Atua have special powers and roles, which are different from those of humans, as the categorisation of them by a word suggests. Note, however, Tau’s suggestion that the translation ‘god’ ‘implies something completely different’ from how Māori viewed them (2001: p. 224, Note 7; 2011); and Tremewan’s point that there is no clear-cut division in the traditions between atua and humans, all being considered ancestors (2002: pp. xvi–xvii). 31. I use ‘prayer’ for karakia in the sense of an entreaty or request addressed to or associated with the gods and ritual. For more specific usage, I use terms such as ‘spell’, ‘charm’, ‘incantation’. Rewi captures the varied nature of these texts in his translated terms (2010a: p. 15). 32. Tregear, 1904: p. 34. 33. For suggestion of identity and history in tattooing, see Neich, 1993: pp. 75–76. Mead discusses the relationship of words to the landscape and art objects (1984: pp. 20–36) and Walker similarly in regard to place-names (1969). 34. Johansen (1954, Ch. V) explores the importance of and meanings in personal names; see also Walker, 1969. 35. Servant, 1973: pp. 21–22. Wakefield also observed that Māori related everything in ‘minute detail’ (1845, I: p. 84; 1845, II: p. 61), which contrasts with the brevity and lack of detail in the memorised oral texts. 36. Hīpango, Taylor, GNZMSS 297/29, p. 66, AL. 37. Wakefield, 1845, I: pp. 285–86; Nicholas, 1852, II: pp. 93–98; Shortland, 1856: pp. 186–88. 38. See examples quoted in Thornton, 1992: p. 17; 1999: pp. 44–45; Mokena, 2005: p. 35. 39. Wakefield, 1845, I: pp. 242–43; 1845, II: p. 106. 40. S. P.  Smith quoted in Broughton, 1979: p. 3. 41. Tautahi, MS-2121 (typescript), pp. 71, 75, ATL. See Tautahi and Taipuhi, 1900, for a longer version about the Aotea canoe. 42. Houston refers to valuables deposited in this house at the time (2006: p. 27); see also Te Kāhui Kararehe on the subject (in Broughton [ed.], 1984: p. 7); also on the establishment of houses, W. Ngata, 2009: pp. 18-24, 43-48. For Matangirei remembered in song, see Sole, 2005: pp. 51, 61, 357. 43. Tau, 2003: p. 123; see also Curnow on Te Rangikāheke’s Te Arawa point of view in his histories (1985: pp. 136–39). 44. Binney, 1987: p. 18; see also Ballara, 2003: pp. 313–14; Tau, 2003: p. 86. 45. Edwards and Sienkewicz, 1990: p. 37; and see Ong, 1982: pp. 57–68 on memorisation. 46. Ngati Porou traditions, MSY-4565, p. 51, ATL; the writer made like comments throughout. 47. For other examples, see Salmond, 1985: p. 248. 48. Ngati Porou traditions, MSY-4565, p. 105, ATL. 49. On regional variation in the language, see Harlow, 2007: Ch. 3. 50. Raumoa, Spragg, MS 96/17/3 (MS II), p. 8, AML (the note with the manuscript is not entirely clear as to whether he gave the account as well as the accompanying genealogy); there is a transcription and translation by E.  Spragg with a copy of the

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notes to pages 34–38 manuscript. I am grateful to the Trustee for permission to quote this and following passages from the Spragg collection. Regarding the use of the first person singular au (I) to represent the kin group, see Johansen, who refers to it as the ‘kinship I’, which ‘reaches beyond the present . . . into the past, including all the ancestors, but into the future as well’ (1954: pp. 35–39); also Binney, 1987: pp. 24–25; and example in Ballara, 1998: p. 48. 51. A. Smith, 1993: p. xiii; 2001: pp. 94–95. 52. On differences between oral traditions and literature, see Ong, 1982; Thornton, 1999; Finnegan, 2007: Ch. 6 esp.; and on the recency of written languages and literature, Ong, 1982: p. 7. 53. On the genres – form, stylistics and comparison with literature – see Metge [1981]. 54. Such debates are referred to in A. T. Ngata, 1972 (6): p. 10; Salmond, 1985: pp. 249–54; see also Broughton’s argument for the origin of his own tribe (1979), and reference below to an agreed version of a genealogy in Ch. 2, p. 49. 55. The importance of the distinctive Māori world-view to understanding the oral tradition is the tenor of Orbell, 1985a, and stressed by Tau, 2003: pp. 9–10; 2011. See also Biggs’s reflection on the nature of history and knowledge in the oral tradition and how it differs from the ‘Western concept of knowledge’ (2006: pp. 54–71). 56. See, for example, practices relating to the forest in Best, 1977: pp. 388–408, and birding by Pita Kāpiti in Reedy, 1997; Te Rangikāheke on marriage (Te Rangikāheke, Grey, GNZMMSS 92, AL, with translation in Biggs, 1960: pp. 85–97); and Wiremu Tāmihana Tarapīpipi on war (Tarapīpipi, Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 2b, pp. 87–90, AL, in translation Shortland, 1856: pp. 247–51). 57. As proposed by Ong (1982: Ch. 4); also Simms (1991) who posited the moving from a rhetorical self as oral performer to a central self as writer (esp. pp. 105–205); see also Lord, 1960: Ch. 6 on writing and oral tradition. 58. Biggs, 2006: p. 54; and see Tau and Anderson (eds), 2008: p. 17. 59. For another list of genres, which reflects contemporary practice of whaikōrero (oratory) and current popularity, see Metge, 2004: p. 266. 60. It may be argued that some are whakapapa and others rārangi (lit. ‘line’, ‘rank’, ‘row’), although that is not a word that prefaces or is used in relation to lists; in regard to the oral tradition I see them working in the same way and to the same ends. 61. My discussion of the compositional style of Māori oral tradition throughout is informed by studies of comparative oral tradition and the theory of oral composition, by Lord, 1960; Ong, 1982; Edwards and Sienkewicz, 1990; Foley, 1991; Finnegan, 2007. 62. Biggs, 1973: p. 3. 63. Foley uses the expression to refer to the complexity of the oral context, and the layers of meaning that accrue around and are called up by words, phrases and compositional structure (1991: pp. 6–8, and esp. Ch. 2 ). 64. Quoted in Iyer, 2012: p. 183. 65. Evident today in Māori oratory and the highly affecting recitation of genealogies and singing and chanting of songs. 66. These and other oral characteristics referred to are derived from (and elaborated on by) Ong, 1982: pp. 31–57, and Ch. 3.

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notes to pages 38–42 67. White thought the grandeur of the songs equal to English poets (Reilly, 1985: p. 166); Shortland made comparative reference to Greek and classical literatures (1882: pp. 1–9); and in the next century Thornton made the comparison explicit by example (1988, 1999). 68. Colenso, 1869: p. 338; see also comments quoted in A. Smith, 1993: p. xiv. 69. Ong, 1982: pp. 43–45. 70. Tau proposed considering the community as author of the oral tradition (2003: p. 87). 71. When their view of the world was made larger after the arrival of Europeans, Māori wrote with delight in nineteenth-century newspapers about the far reach of their words, using phrases such as ‘ki ngā pito e whā o te ao nei’ (to the four corners of this world). 72. Quoted in Krupat, 1989: p. 47. 73. Finnegan, 2007: p. 78, pp. 78–85. 74. See discussion in Johansen regarding history and the relationship between the ancestors and the living (1954: Ch. VII). 75. In using ‘formulaic’, I mean notably patterned or more or less fixed language usage, but not under ‘the same metrical conditions’, as in the definition of oral formulaic theory (see Lord, 1960: Ch. 3; Finnegan, 2007: Ch. 7 esp.). Māori oral tradition is clearly formulaic in its own way, as Orbell demonstrated of waiata aroha (1977) and Harlow (2000) and Mokena (2005) of the narratives. In regard to the songs, the applicability of the theory has been considered by Orbell (1995a: pp. 30–31), and the formulaic questioned by Roa (2008, 2014). It is interesting that some oral compositions do not appear to be formulaic; although this, like the whole topic, is an observation wanting further study. 76. On examination, despite a stated aversion to it, literature shows a surprising amount of repetitive language use. And there are clearly repetitions of many kinds in speech; see Bakker’s consideration of oral poetry in the light of ordinary speech (1997). 77. Refer Ong, 1982: pp. 33–34; also Foley positing the ‘traditional structures’ of an oral text as more than props to help compositions but ‘the very cognitive categories that underlie the artistic act’ (1991: p. 51, pp. 48–53). 78. See comparison of structure in oral composition and repetition in performance in Edwards and Sienkewicz, 1990: pp. 39–48, 147–58. 79. Edwards and Sienkewicz, 1990: p. 61. Lord wrote of the relation between the tradition and creative artist in epic song as ‘one of the preservation of tradition by the constant re-creation of it’ (1960: pp. 29, 100); as Orbell found of waiata (1977; 1995a: p. 46). 80. Binney, 1987: pp. 16–17. Of nineteenth-century writing by Māori, Head observed their ‘ability to integrate the thought world of the past with the goals of the modern­ ised future’ (2002: p. 142); in a modern context Metge noted myths ‘continually being re-expressed and reinterpreted in contemporary idiom’ (2010: p. 40).

chapter 2 Genealogies and Lists / Whakapapa 1.

Regarding Taonui’s life and views about the writing and collecting of traditions, see Reilly, 1990: pp. 48–50; Binney, 1993. His statement reported by Smith

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notes to pages 43–49

2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

(probably T. H. Smith, Judge of the Native Land Court, 1865–1876) to Shortland in 1887 (NZMS 998, MS 3 (c), p. 46, AL). Taonui, Graham, MS 120/M100, pp. 1, 2, AML; there is a translation of the manuscript in Simmons, 1975. An example of the variation that can occur. In some genealogies, they are both daughters, see Orbell, 1995: p. 92. For other accounts about Kupe and of the genealogy, across and within tribes, see Simmons, 1976: Ch. III. Titles such as ‘He whakapapa tupuna’ (Ancestral genealogies) or ‘He kōrero mō . . .’ (An account concerning . . .) may refer to genealogies alone or in combination with narratives and other genres. Compare Mohi Ruatapu’s ‘He pukapuka whakapapa no ngā tīpuna Māori’ (Reedy, 1993: p. 17); he also dated his writing (ibid.: pp. 17, 69). Today Māori refer to their ‘whakapapa books’ meaning (usually manuscript) records of genealogy and other oral traditions. Taonui, Graham, MS 120/M100, p. 9, AML. In translating moe I use ‘marry’ where there is suggestion of a relationship as husband and wife. Compare a fuller version of this episode written in 1935 by Wiremu Wi Hongi and termed ‘He wānanga’ ‘Some tribal history’ (Sissons, Wi Hongi and Hohepa, 1987: pp. 61–71). It is an example of how narrative histories with genealogy as a basis, whether referred to sparely or in detail, have many versions (which in turn can be very short or long), and also of the oral style leaving its mark well into the twentieth century. Ong, 1982: pp. 98–101; he goes on to explain the rather different perception of lists in oral narration, remarking that they are ‘not an objective tally’; see also Edwards and Sienkewicz, 1990: pp. 152–54. As Foley’s ‘traditional referentiality’ and ‘inherent meaning’ (1991: pp. 6–8). On the deeply significant in Māori names, see Thornton, 1984: pp. 309–11; Paul, 2000; also Walker, 1969. Salmond, 1991: p. 346. And, reflective of oral traditions, ‘Everything is potentially connected in the web of the oral community’ (Edwards and Sienkewicz, 1990: p. 159). Wi Hongi quoted in Sissons et al., 1987: p. 54; P. Te H. Jones and Biggs, 1995: p. 2; and refer Tau in regard to time in genealogies (2003: p. 259). Binney, 1987: p. 21; Tau, 2003: p. 262, and see his extensive examination of whakapapa in Ch. 2 and throughout, and in Tau and Anderson (eds), 2008. Definitions from H. W. Williams, 1971. For discussion of vocabulary, see A. T. Ngata, 1972 (1): pp. 5–7; Tau, 2003: p. 35; Haami, 2004: p. 16. Metge, 1995: p. 48. On imagery of the gourd, see Neich, 1993: pp. 38–39. On teaching and kinds of genealogies, see Best, 1959; S. P. Smith, 1913, 1915; Thornton, 2004. Best, 1959: p. 5; 1976, I: p. 48. Broughton (ed.), 1984: p. 8, a transcribed collection of some of Kararehe’s letters and writing. Grey, GNZMMSS 102, pp. 91–92, AL; there is a likely sketch of that stick and a note by Grey that he deposited it in the British Museum at Grey, GNZMMSS 13, pp. 23–24, AL. On ‘the whakapapa board’, see also Taylor, GNZMSS 297/33 (Part 1), p. 115, AL, and R. Taylor, 1855: pp. 155, 159 (illustration); and reference to a rākau whakapapa (‘genealogical staff ’) given to Grey in 1866 by Pango Ngāwene of Ngāti

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notes to pages 49–57 Whakaue, along with a written form of the genealogy made by Hāmuera Pango (Neich, 2001: pp. 46–47). 19. On women versed in traditions, refer Broughton, 1979: p. 47; Tau, 2003: p. 21; Haami, 2004: pp. 44–51. 20. Tau has commented on recitation in relation to writing and the development to diagrammatic form in Ngāi Tahu compilations (2003: pp. 41–44); see also Haami, 2004: pp. 108–13. 21. Ngāpora, Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 2b, p. 24, AL; there is a translation of his account in Simmons, 1976: pp. 171–74. About his life, see S. Oliver, 1990a. 22. Ngati Porou traditions, MSY-4565, p. 171, ATL. 23. Genealogies are quoted in speeches on marae, taught by tribal elders, heard in casual talk about family, and lists of tribal boundaries do duty in the Māori Land Court (see Metge, 2004: pp. 127–38). And they remain a matter for devoted study: Haami refers to his grandfather’s ‘greatest love’ of whakapapa and constant and methodical noting of lines he heard and read, which traced to his family and people he knew (2004: p. 108). 24. Johansen, 1954: p. 9; see also Tau, 2003: p. 33. 25. Ngati Porou traditions, MSY-4565, p. 5, ATL. 26. R. Taylor has explanation of these names (1855: p. 22); and see use in an oriori (McEwen, 1986: p. 197). 27. Ngati Porou traditions, MSY-4565, p. 62, ATL. 28. Broughton, 1979: pp. 12, 24; an example of such descent is in Best, 1976, I: p. 170. 29. Kawau, Grey, GNZMMSS 91, pp. 489 ff, AL. 30. Johansen, 1954: pp. 147, 152. 31. Reedy, 1993: p. 33 (M), p. 45 (M), p. 227 (Note 62). 32. On drawings in manuscripts, see Neich, 1993: pp. 162–71. 33. Te Uremutu, Polynesian Society, MS-Papers-1187-191, pp. 30–31; MS-Papers-6373-08 has a transcription and translation by Piripi Walker, ATL; and see partial translation of this manuscript in Simmons, 1976: pp. 69–70, 160–64. 34. About these ancestors, see Stafford, 1967; and for one (edited) story in Māori about Hinemoa and Tūtānekai, see Grey, [1854] 1971: pp. 106–13. 35. As occurs today, see Stirling and Salmond, 1980: p. 30. 36. Johansen, 1954: p. 24. 37. Te Wananga, 28 April 1877, p. 166. ‘Whatumaraia’ in the newspaper is a misspelling of ‘Whatumariari’, see NM I, Song 30. 38. Johansen, 1954: pp. 123–24; Best, 1976, I: p. 348. 39. See a version of the story in Māori in Grey, [1854] 1971: pp. 106–8; and summary in English in Biggs, 1960: p. 68. 40. Pukuatua, Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 2b, pp. 54–57, AL; there is a translated excerpt in Shortland, 1882: p. 30. 41. For a similar version of this genealogy in an account about Tiki-tawhito-ariki by Te Rangikāheke, also of Te Arawa, see Biggs, 1952: p. 191. Shirres noted Tiki as often called on in karakia (1986: pp. 9–10). 42. Orbell, 1985a: p. 13. 43. Examples in NM III, Songs 215, 269. 44. Te Rangi Hiroa, 1949: pp. 337–38; A. T. Ngata, 1972 (2): p. 14; see also Biggs, 1960: pp. 26 ff; Tau and Anderson (eds), 2008: pp. 72–77.

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notes to pages 57–65 45. Locke, MS-Papers-1187-095, p. [12], ATL; Locke, 1883: pp. 451–53 has a partial translation of the manuscript about Kahungunu. 46. See versions of the story in Grey, [1854] 1971: pp. 138–39 in Māori and with translation in Orbell, 1992: pp. 151–55. 47. Te Rangi Hiroa, 1949: p. 361; Tau quotes Reverend J. W. Stack remarking similarly on the necessity for orators to know genealogies (2003: p. 33). 48. Te Rangi Hiroa, 1949: p. 361. And see Rewi, 2010, on the kinds of knowledge required of a contemporary orator, esp. Ch. 3. 49. A. T. Ngata, 1972 (1): p. 4. 50. As example in A. T. Ngata, 1972 (4): p. 13. 51. Te Kāhui Kararehe (who also took the names Poukōhatu and Wiremu), AG-346-1/3, pp. 10–11, HL. About their lives and writing, see A. Smith, 1993 (which has reference to some of the names in this piece); 1996: pp. 509–10; 2001: Ch. 5. 52. Broughton refers to Kauika as ‘a learned man’ (1979: p. 3). Te Korimako, 20 January 1888, p. 4, with a translation in Tautahi and Taipuhi, 1900: pp. 230–33. 53. Te Korimako, 20 January 1888, p. 4; see also S. P. Smith, 1913, I: p. 22 (M), p. 12 (E). 54. Refer Sole for chants and songs in which the history of Te Āwhiorangi is recalled (2005: pp. 15–20, 25, 34–39, 357). The adze is also spoken of in other canoe traditions, for example, of the Tākitimu (Simmons, 1976: p. 114; Orbell, 1985a: p. 38). 55. Refer Johansen on kin and treasures (1954: pp. 100–4). 56. Wohlers, MS-0234, ‘Part 5’, p. [1], HL. I attribute this to Tiramōrehu from a note on the manuscript ‘Heroes etc Matiaha’, and a descriptive rendition by him of this genealogy (without the question form) in van Ballekom and Harlow (1987: pp. 10–11 [M], p. 33 [E]); on Tiramōrehu’s life and learning, see Evison, 1990. I have not found another of this style, but for a similar format in prayers and sayings, see S. P. Smith, 1915, II: pp. 148, 158, 211, and in narratives, see Tau and Anderson (eds), 2008: pp. 58, 65–66, 110. 57. Smith, Polynesian Society, MS-Papers-1187-162, p. 237, ATL; and see translation and an updated version in Sadler, 2014: pp. 152–55. Regarding the life and writing of Tāwhai, see Walker, 1993; Rountree, 2002. And also on the new in whakapapa see Loader, 2011. 58. Biggs, 2006: p. 19. 59. Thornton, 2004: p. 209; this work is also valuable in regard to lists in the oral tradition. 60. Eco, 2009: pp. 15–18, 113–18, 245. 61. See Reilly, 2004, on creation narratives. 62. For examples and discussion of these kinds of genealogy, see Te Rangi Hiroa, 1949: pp. 433–38; Best, 1976, I: pp. 55–72; van Ballekom and Harlow, 1987; Tau, 2003: Ch. 3; Thornton, 2004 (who includes some comparison of tribal traditions of origin stories, pp. 224–37). 63. Tautahi, MS-Papers-2121, pp. 1–2, ATL. 64. For ‘Matua te kore’ I follow the interpretation of Barlow, 1991: pp. 54–55 and Thornton, 2004: pp. 216–38. In the change of phrasing to ‘i te’ (a change of pace that would have been an aid to chanter and listener), I chose to retain the negative ‘tē’, interpreting this as a continued emphasis on the lack of any sensation or movement in this state; my translation of those phrases reflects that too, although there are other possible meanings. An alternative translation for the formulaic ‘i tē mania, i tē paheke’ could be ‘no jarring, no grating’ (H. W. Williams, 1971: p. 247,

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notes to pages 65–69

65.

66.

67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76.

77. 78. 79. 80. 81.

82.

Paheke 4. a). See other translations and discussion of this genealogy in Broughton, 1979: Ch. 2; Rapley, 1988; Sole, 2005: pp. 5–8. Refer Thornton on the effect of repetitions in these genealogies (1999: pp. 34–38). And consider Foley’s interesting suggestion that given the highly referential oral tradition, ‘ “repetition” is in fact a misnomer’ because the traditional element is ‘coextensive . . . with the tradition as a whole’, not with a line or section or genre (1991: pp. 56–58). Te Rangi Hiroa, 1949: p. 434. Some repetitions may have been lost in writing and editing of traditions, given this comment by J. F. H. Wohlers in a letter to Alexander Mackay of 1874: ‘I enclose here a copy of the ancient Mythology of the Maori, comprising the period of the gods, mostly in the Maori text, in the same words and sentences as dictated to me by old Maories some 25 years ago. I have only arranged the text to some order and left out useless repetitions’ (Wohlers, MS-0234, n.p., HL). Refer Kerr, 2006: p. 76 regarding Kawau’s work with Grey. Kawau, Grey, GNZMMSS 91, p. 489, AL. It is unclear from the manuscript whether Kawau composed the text himself or wrote it as part of his copying of manuscripts for Grey. The manuscript has some notes by Grey on translation. Grey notes on the manuscript ‘kahui tipua’ as alternative for ‘tahua tipua’; on translation, see H. W. Williams, 1971: p. 409, Tawhito, and p. 458, Tupua/Tipua; Reedy, 1993: p. 47 (M), p. 150 (E). See Johansen on plant imagery and the notion of ‘tupu’ (1954: pp. 40–49), and Salmond on parallels between plant and human growth in the language and traditions (1991: pp. 344–45, 350). Taylor, GNZMSS 297/30 (Part 2), p. 231, AL; there is a translation in R. Taylor, 1855: pp. 22–23 (Note). On the saying, see R. Taylor, 1855: pp. 22–23; MG1563. See Best, 1982, Part II: pp. 320–22 on personifications for trees. Wakefield, 1845, II: p. 229. McEwen, 1986: pp. 195–96. For the moon, stars and heavens, see Thornton, 2004: p. 209; for insect people, see D. Miller, 1952; in relation to the sea (and other origins), see Best, 1982, II: pp. 219–90. Tau refers to Ngāi Tahu having genealogies for weather patterns and meteorological phenomena (2001: p. 66). Tautahi, MS-2121, pp. 79–80, ATL; Tautahi and Taipuhi, 1900: p. 202; Houston, 2006: p. 13. About establishing and describing tribal boundaries, see Walker, 1969: pp. 407–10; Broughton, 1979: Ch. 6; Haami, 2004: Ch. 2. Winiata, 1956: p. 215. Tautahi, MS-Papers-2121, p. 74, ATL. The manuscript has ‘nā Te Ao’ (by Te Ao) and I assume this is Ringori Te Ao. See references to his life in Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 7g, AL; and Paul, 2000: p. 82 (Note 48); letters by him are listed in the Hocken Library online catalogue and published in Te Waka o te Iwi (1857) and Te Korimako (1886); for the characterisation, see AJHR 1864, E 15, p. 3. I am grateful to Hazel Petrie for these references. Te Ao, Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 1a, pp. 72–73 (there is another copy of the narrative at MS 15o, pp. 160 ff), AL. A translated version of the whole account is in

212

notes to pages 69–78

83. 84. 85. 86. 87.

88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95.

96.

97. 98.

99.

Shortland, 1882: Chs V, VI; and a portion in Stafford, 1967: pp. 33–43. About some of the place-names, see Stafford, 1994 and 1996. Orbell, 1985a: p. 59. Tau has suggested that larger land forms were named by more remote ancestors and smaller ones by the more recent (2003: p. 115). Te Waka o te Iwi, November 1857, p. 8. There are many other letters with boundaries in this issue and in Māori-language newspapers from 1842 onwards. Contemporary cataloguing of names in the tribal territory can be found in gazetteers, such as for Te Arawa (Stafford, 1994 and 1996) and Tainui tribes (Phillips, 1989 and 1995). Winiata, 1956: p. 216. Te Whaiti, MSY-4823, p. 90, ATL. I am grateful to the Trustees of this collection for permission to publish this excerpt. The final sentence refers to ‘these three ancestors’; I have noted in square brackets where I understand the issue for Hineraumoa starts. A. Smith, 1993: pp. 20–27, 32–35; Raumoa, Spragg, MS 96/17/3 (MS II), pp. 10–11, AML. Te Kāhui Kararehe, AG-346-1/3, pp. 13–14, HL. About Ueroa, see A. Smith, 1993: Ch. 8, and version of the historical episode in S. P. Smith, 1910: pp. 211–17. Te Ao, Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 1a, p. 38, AL; translated version in Shortland, 1882: p. 51. Grey, GNZMMSS 103, pp. 164–65, AL; with a translation in Biggs, 1959. For a similar list of kōhuru, see Shortland, MS-0385/002, HL. On his life, see S. Oliver, 1990: pp. 192–93; for his writings see the Inventory to Taylor’s manuscript collection, GNZMSS 297, AL. Orbell, 1995: p. 248. Hīpango, Taylor, GNZMSS 297/18 (Part 1), pp. 57–62 (pagination of photocopy), AL. See also A. T. Ngata on revenge in reference to laments composed for those who died by treachery or murder (NM II: pp. xiv–xvi [M], pp. xxix–xxxi [E]; and Ballara on utu and take (2003: Ch. 6). For a list of Ngā Rauru whare wānanga, see Houston, 2006: pp. 183–84. When John White as editor of Te Wananga asked for plant names he was sent lists; one man commented on the great number of them and that they differed between tribes (White, NZMS 714/3, pp. 94–97 [pagination of photocopy], AL). Te Kāhui Kararehe, AG-346-1/1, p. 44, HL; A. Smith, 1993, has reference to some of these names. Kāhu, MS-582-F/14a, [pp. 1–2], HL (noted by James Herries Beattie as belonging to Hoani [John] Kāhu). See reference to Kāhu’s writing, Ngāi Tahu gathering material about boundaries and resources from the 1880s, and mahinga kai as ‘immediate contact . . . with ancestral activities’ (Tau, 2003: pp. 29, 31); also J. Williams’s examination of this and other Ngāi Tahu records of resources (2010). For similar lists of people, resources, boundaries, forts etc., see ‘E ara whenua tēnei’ (Te Kāhui Kararehe, AG-346-1/1, pp. 141–45, HL), which I take to mean ‘tracing the land’ as if in a genealogy; and also Haami, 2004, Ch. 2. For a recent account of lists of maramataka and the knowledge relating to them, see Tāwhai, 2013.

213

notes to pages 79–86 chapter 3 Proverbs and Historical Sayings / Whakataukī 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29.

Te Uremutu, Polynesian Society Papers, MS-Papers-1187-191, pp. 29–30, ATL. H. W. Williams, 1971: p. 220, Nei (iii) 3. G26, MG706; G86, MG2409; other examples, MG1116, 1197, 2319. MG2318, variant MG1600. A. Taylor proposed that, with literacy, proverbs appeal to the less educated rather than the intellectual (1962: p. 8); Metge and Jones, 1995, p. 3. This chapter is partly based on McRae, 1988. Very notable in the historical discourse by claimants minuted by the Native Land Court from 1865. Te Rangikāheke, Grey, GNZMMSS 81, pp. 108–13, AL. On Te Rangikāheke’s writing and work with Grey, see Curnow, 1983, 1985; Loader, 2008. Jowett, Grey, GNZMMSS 58, pp. 113–48, AL; many published with translation in Grey, 1857: pp. 103–8. Transcribed in Mead (ed.), 1981 (Section 4): pp. 5–25; on his writing, see Orbell, 1973: pp. 128–29; and Savage, 1997. Grey, [1854] 1971: p. xiv; R. Taylor, 1855: p. 126; Shortland, 1856: pp. 193–94; Colenso, 1879: p. 110. Andersen imaginatively depicted the active and influential use of sayings in day-to-day and ceremonial activities (1907). Riley, 2013, is another large collection. Examples in McRae, 1988: pp. 239–43, 310–12. Quoted in Sorrenson (ed.), 1986, I: p. 267; Kohere, 1951: p. 9. In Kaa and Kaa (eds), 1994: p. 130. Mead referred in the Preface to sayings as ‘a communication with the ancestors’ (Mead and Grove, 2001: p. 9). Orbell, 1995a: p. 47. Today this is evident in the warmly affirmative responses of ‘Āe rā’ or ‘Kia ora’, when a speaker quotes a whakataukī. However, real admiration is reserved for the unexpected or astute contextual use of them. Grey, 1857: pp. iii-iv; Orbell, 1968: p. xix. Quoted in Sorrenson (ed.), 1987, II: p. 64. Metge has other possible meanings for ‘whakatau’ (Metge and Jones, 1995: p. 3). My assessment from a c.500-page transcription of manuscripts. See McRae, 1988, pp. 100–1 ff for other terms. Consensus is lacking on proverb definition generally (A. Taylor, 1962: p. 13). Tonkin, 1992: pp. 50–55; and see Ong, 1982: pp. 53–54. As also fables (kōrero tara) may be termed whakataukī (Orbell, 1968: p. xi). Grey, 1857: p. iii. According to the context, ‘whakataukī’ or ‘pepeha’ may be translated as ‘exclaim’, ‘state’, ‘boast’, ‘say with emphasis’. In Harlow and Thornton’s concordance to Ngā Mōteatea, Parts I to III (1986), there are three instances of pepeha, but in the song texts these have glosses such as ‘boast’ or ‘command’; of eight whakataukī there are several which incorporate a proverb text, for example, NM II, Song 117, Lines 3–6. Awatere and Dewes, n.d: [Kōrero, p. 10]. Lestrade, 1937: p. 305. On the poetic in whakataukī, see Metge and Jones, 1995. Quoted in Sorrenson (ed.), 1987, II: p. 41. Compare Neich on Māori carving as

214

notes to pages 86–94 ‘a conceptual art which does not necessarily directly represent things’ (2001: p. 134). 30. Edwards and Sienkewicz, 1990: p. 168. 31. Ong, 1982: pp. 35, 33–36, which recalls Tregear’s comment of the Māori mind as ‘a treasury of pithy proverbs’ (1904: p. 76). 32. Alphabetical listing by Grey (1857) and Mead and Grove (2001) illustrates such formulae and also how composers altered them. 33. I have primarily used examples from nineteenth-century sources, although this is no guarantee of their use in the pre-European world. Apart from manuscripts, I have particularly taken from Grey, 1857, using Mead and Grove, 2001, for variants in form and interpretation. 34. Johansen, 1954: pp. 167–69, and Firth, 1926: p. 262 refer to a class of sayings used universally. 35. Balneavis, 1930: p. 19. 36. Balneavis, 1930: p. 18. 37. See Firth on sayings relating to work and the economy of traditional Māori society (1926) and Patterson on values in Māori proverbs (1992). 38. G75, MG2013; G24, MG626. All saying examples are in contemporary orthography unless within a quotation from a published source. 39. Jowett, Grey, GNZMMSS 58, p. 131, AL; G106 and a translation that describes the setting (pp. 114–15); variant in MG735. 40. G27. Similar phrasing in song for the wounds of love: ‘Kia werohia mai ki te tao/Tū rawa ia rā kei taku ate, ī’ (‘It was like a spear thrust/Piercing right into my heart’) (NM II, Song 124, Lines 14–15). A like phrase ‘kī patu’ (word of attack), with its imagery of war and words, occurs in song: see NM I, Song 69, Line 1; NM II, Song 144, Line 6. 41. Quoted in Ballara, 2003: p. 191 (text and translation). 42. Ballara, 2003: p. 11. 43. Hīpango, Taylor, GNZMSS 297/18, Part 1, pp. 61–62, AL. G105, 113 and MG1347, 1676 have similar sentiments. 44. Te Ātahīkoia, MS-Papers-6717-021, p. 20, ATL. On Te Ātahīkoia’s life and writing, see Ballara, 1993: pp. 514–15. 45. Version by P. H. Tomoana in Te Toa Takitini, 1 December 1929, p. 1937; another is in Ballara, 2003: p. 76. 46. MG1174. 47. Te Rangikāheke, Grey, GNZMMSS 87, p. 177, AL; Curnow, 1990: pp. 22–23; variants G49, MG1265. 48. See discussion of these pervasive elements in the culture by Hanson and Hanson, 1983 (in relation to war Ch. 6); Ballara in regard to kinship and war (2003: Ch. 6 and pp. 122–26); relatedly, Mokena on balance and ‘internal thematic harmony’ in quest narratives (2005: pp. 55–59). 49. Te Kāhui Kararehe, AG-346-1/4, p. [8] (in section beginning ‘Ka mau katoa ngā kakī . . .’), HL. 50. Davis, 1855: p. 100. See also G9, MG268, and an interesting variant at MG926. 51. For ‘Me he . . .’ examples, see G67 ff; ‘Ānō . . . ’, MG, pp. 44 ff. 52. G71, MG1910; NM II, Song 102, Line 29; G68, MG1843, 1903; G2, MG46. 53. Thornton, 1992: pp. 43 (text), 70 (translation quoted). 54. As explanation in notes, Thornton, 1992: pp. 111–12; also versions in MG1880, 1950,

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notes to pages 94–102

55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63.

64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77.

78.

2028, 2081. Neich has a thoughtful observation on the aesthetic connotation of these phrases (2001: p. 127). For use in an account about Tiki-tawhito-ariki, see Biggs, 1952: p. 189. Variants in songs, NM I, Song 32, Line 10; Song 60, Line 16. See illustrated examples in Metge and Jones, 1995. G28, MG751; G56, MG1488; G55, MG1615; and see Riley, 1994: p. 115; G54, MG679; G82, translation from MG2194; and for use in a waiata tangi, see McGregor, 1905 (3): p. 75, and in ritual, see Taylor, GNZMSS 297/29, p. 175, AL. See Orbell, 1977: pp. 226–40; 1985; 2003; Riley, 2001. Maori manuscript . . . , MS-Papers-2686, pp. 1–2, ATL; variants at G44, MG1141. In general ‘mahuru’ refers to ‘spring’; the writer using ‘raumati’ ‘summer’ may have intended its other meaning of ‘warmth’. G59, MG1545; G74, and variants at MG682, 1586, 1965. G89, MG2460. Taonui, Graham, MS 120/M100, p. 1, AML. S. P. Smith, 1915, II: p. 147 (M), p. 158 (translation quoted). See use in songs: NM I, Song 6, Line 9, ‘Tō whenua kura ka mahue’ (‘Of your native land deserted’); Song 23, Line 28, ‘Whenua noa i mahue’ (‘Desolate indeed will be the land’); and A. T. Ngata, Preface, NM II: p. xxxvi. See discussion in Curnow, 1983: Ch. IV, pp. 50–80 esp. Te Rangikāheke, Grey, GNZMMSS 81, p. 53, AL; Curnow, 1983: p. 210. Te Rangikāheke, Grey, GNZMMSS 44, p. 915, AL; see also Curnow, 1983: pp. 181–82; and a variant in Best, 1976, I: p. 69. Foley, 1991: p. 7; see his characterisation applied to meaning in a name of a tribal mountain in Paul, 2000. See Walker, 1969. G77, MG2079. See Thornton for song text and comment on the meaning of the phrase (1986: pp. 10, 32). Jowett, Grey, GNZMMSS 58, p. 135, AL; G107 (M), p. 116 (E). Examples G58, MG1515, 1518. G73, MG1935. Ngati Porou traditions, MSY-4565, p. 12, ATL. For use in song: NM I, Song 21, Line 47. G58, MG1528. Grey, GNZMMSS 28, pp. 115–16, AL; Te Rangihaeata, Grey, GNZMMSS 46, p. 10, AL. For biographies of Te Rangihaeata and Te Whiwhi, see respectively Ballara, 1990, and W. H. Oliver, 1990; and on Te Whiwhi’s writing, Loader, 2013: Ch. 4. Te Ngārara, Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 1a, p. 17 (note by Shortland), pp. 8–9 (text), AL; there is a translation in Shortland, 1882: p. 17. A letter from Te Ngārara to Shortland, 1842, concerning land on the Waihou River suggests he may have been from Hauraki or Waikato (Shortland, MS-0385/002, HL); and an 1863 reference by Shortland refers to Te Ngārara continuing to give him whakapapa and traditions (Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 35, Journal, 24 June 1863). Refer Johansen on dualism as ‘of fundamental importance’ in tradition (1954: p. 222). See Pio’s versions about Tangotango in Mead (ed.) (1981: pp. 139, 150); and Best (1972: p. 748). Also, in a Te Whānau-a-Kai song, ‘E noho ana Tonga-tonga i a Pu-hahana-ki-te-rangi,/Ka puta ki waho rā ko te Rā, ko te Marama’ (‘Tonga-tonga

216

notes to pages 102–9 was abiding with the Warm-glow-of-the-heavens,/And begat the Sun, and the Moon’) (NM III, Song 234, Lines 69–70). 79. Te Ngārara, Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 1a, p. 10, AL; variants and interpretations in MG1626, 2495. 80. R. Taylor, 1855: p. 137, and see Note 22 above. On complementarity and symmetry in these kinds of sayings, refer Hanson and Hanson, 1983: pp. 105, 159–68. 81. Orbell, 1985a: pp. 14–16 (and on related sayings); MG886. For variants of ‘Hawaiki kai’, see MG132, 205, 329; and used in a song, NM II, Song 131, Line 17. 82. Te Ao, Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 1a, pp. 76–77, AL; with translated versions in Shortland, 1882: pp. 74–75, and Stafford, 1967: p. 36. See MG1386 for a similar version. 83. Kawau, Grey, GNZMMSS 91, p. 509, AL; variant MG51. 84. For example, Tautahi, MS-2121, p. 71, ATL (and referred to above in Chapter 1, p. 30); Tautahi and Taipuhi, 1900: pp. 203–4; Sole, 2005: pp. 21–26. 85. Hetaraka, Keys, MS-Papers-0407-19, pp. 62–65, ATL; Orbell, 1995: p. 196; and see variant MG2302. 86. On the endurance of the oral style in Māori narrative, see K. V. Smith, 2002; and note Ong, 1982: pp. 115–16. 87. See account by Wiremu Tīpene Pōkaiatua of Manawapou, 1854, in Pōkaiatua, Taylor, GNZMSS 297/30, Part 2, p. 208, AL; Sissons et al., 1987: p. 94 (M), p. 95 (E); Houston, 2006: p. 26. 88. Shortland, 1856: p. 194; R. Taylor, 1855: p. 146. 89. Balneavis, 1930: p. 19. 90. Awatere and Dewes, n.d: [Kōrero 10]; and on this distinction, see McRae, 1988: pp. 103–5. 91. For examples relating to tribes in Te Tai Tokerau, see McRae, 1987; and illustration of their significance, see Tau and Anderson (eds), 2008. 92. Te Ngārara, Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 1a, p. 10, AL; variants MG2499, 2502. 93. For an East Coast account about Ngahue, see Reedy, 1993: p. 34 (M), pp. 135–36 (E). 94. G54, MG2061. 95. Versions G77, 82, MG327. Regarding Ngāpuhi, see G76, MG2037; Kawharu, 2008: pp. 68–73. 96. G2, MG61. 97. Davis, 1855: p. 97. 98. Interpretations by Davis, 1855: p. 98 (Note 8); Best, 1974a: p. 118; MG2457; and see G76. 99. See Mokena (2005) regarding themes, formulae and structure in narratives of sons in search of fathers who left before they were born. 100. Grey, GNZMMSS 50, pp. 36–37, AL, G119-120. See variants in MG1538, 2272. 101. My translation of ‘awa’ follows a note on the manuscript: ‘That is the karakia by the aid of which I descended from heaven’ (Grey, GNZMMSS 50, p. 36, AL; G119); ‘river’ or ‘stream’ is used elsewhere, for example, Orbell, 1995: p. 33. 102. As earlier example of chiefs using the first person, Chapter 1, p. 33 and Note 50. 103. Grey, GNZMMSS 50, p. 36, AL. 104. G55 has ‘Rangitiki’, a typographical error; G81. See versions (including other origins) MG1472, 2161, 2469; Stafford, 1967: p. 57. 105. Kawharu, 2008: p. 180, MG2144.

217

notes to pages 109–19 106. S. P. Smith, 1897: p. 70. 107. Kawharu, 2008: p. 180. Notes from Grey: G85, G10. Versions MG299, 369; and interpretations in Te Rangi Hiroa, 1924: pp. 30–34. 108. See Edwards and Sienkewicz on formulae as building blocks in compositional structure (1990: pp. 39–48). 109. Te Ao, Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 1a, pp. 71–72, AL; translated versions in Shortland, 1882: p. 73; Stafford, 1967: p. 35. 110. Stafford, 1994, I: p. 128. 111. Papatupu Block Committee Minute-book, Vol. 41, p. 117, AUL; McRae, 1987: p. 59. 112. McDonnell, MS-Papers-0151-20B (includes a typescript by Neil Grove), pp. 1–4, ATL. 113. S. P. Smith, 1905: p. 135; also explanation in Taylor, GNZMSS 297/30, Part 1, p. 175, AL; MG2326, and for variants G86, MG2327. 114. J. C. Miller’s suggestion of incisive clichés around which an oral narrator builds a version (1980: pp. 6–7). Refer also Chapter 4 below on narratives. 115. Papatupu Block Committee Minute-book, Vol. 28, Vol. 1, pp. 75–76, AUL; an edited, annotated transcription of the minutes in Tate (ed.), 1986: p. 72 and about Rē Te Tai (p. 63).

Chapter 4 Narratives and Prose / Kōrero 1. 2.

Examples in S. P. Smith, 1910: Ch. 3; Biggs, 1957; Simmons, 1976: pp. 15–59. About his life and knowledge of traditions, see Ballara, 1996: pp. 504–41; Chrisp, 1993: pp. 47–51. 3. Tūnuiārangi, Misc-MS-0474, pp. 1–5, HL; a note with the manuscript reads ‘Told by Major Brown [Parāone]’ (as he was sometimes called from having spent time in volunteer units). The writing is like other manuscripts in his hand in the Alexander Turnbull Library. 4. ‘Tāna tamāhine’: in the manuscript it is unclear whether there is an ‘o’ or ‘a’ in ‘tana’. I have preferred the more usual ‘a’ form of the possessive for a daughter and because it occurs in the phrase following ‘te tamāhine a Kupe’. 5. The establishment of fish or eels in waters or reptiles (ngārara) on the land, for food or as pets, features in other traditions of the earliest travellers. See Tārawa of Whakatōhea and his pet fish and Tūnamu’s eel fishery (Walker, 2007: pp. 12, 17). 6. On the theme of separation in songs (and about reflection on hilltops), see Orbell, 1995a; in narratives, Mokena, 2005: pp. 37–39 (and throughout); and in the culture, Hanson and Hanson, 1983: Ch. 7 (and throughout). 7. Orbell, 1995: p. 94. 8. See Walker (1969) on morals and obligations inherent in personal and place-names. 9. Moihi Te Mātorohanga’s version in S. P. Smith, 1915, II: p. 45 (M), p. 60 (E); see also Harris and Te Whaiti, 1996: p. 271. 10. I translate kōrero, according to the context, as ‘narrative’, ‘story’, ‘history’, ‘account’, ‘discourse’, ‘traditions’. 11. Written for Pākehā, for example, Te Rangikāheke on marriage (Te Rangikāheke, Grey, GNZMMSS 92, AL); Wiremu Tāmihana Tarapīpipi on war (Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 2b, pp. 87–90, AL, translation in Shortland, 1856: pp. 247–51); by Māori for own purposes, for example, Pita Kāpiti on bird hunting (Reedy, 1997:

218

notes to pages 120–24

12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

29.

30. 31. 32.

pp. 27–32 [M], 77–83 [E]); Te Mātorohanga on the practices of traditional schools (S. P. Smith, 1913, I: Chs 1 and 2 especially). Matewhā, Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 2b, p. 26, AL. See reference to Matewhā in Stokes, 2002: p. 89; two letters under his name are listed in the online catalogue of the Alexander Turnbull Library. Tarapīpipi, Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 2b, p. 83, AL (letter transcribed by Shortland); regarding his life and writing, see Stokes, 2002. Curnow, 1983, 1985. For his manuscript on marriage, see Note 11 above; transcription and translation in Biggs, 1960. Grey, [1854] 1971 (English version Grey, 1855); White (in Māori and English), 1887–1890. Simmons, 1966; Reilly, 1985. Refer also Chapter 1, Note 20 about editing of manuscripts. The Polynesian Society Papers and those of Elsdon Best are in the Alexander Turnbull Library. Early issues of Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute (1868–1934) are another source of narratives in Māori. Ballara, 1993a: p. 343; Nahe, NZMS 713, p. 1, AL. Te Kanae, Spragg, MS 96/17/3 (MS I), p. [1], AML; there is a transcription and translation by E. Spragg with a photocopy of the original manuscript. And a translation by G. Graham, see Te Kanae, NZMS 731, AL. Te Ātahīkoia also ordered some sections by year in the last part of his long history (MS-Papers-6717-021, ATL). For examples by Mohi Ruatapu of Ngāti Porou, see Reedy, 1993 and, from the South Island, Tremewan, 2002. As discussed in Walker, 1969: pp. 405–7; Tau, 2003: pp. 17–20. See Orbell on a religious interpretation of the canoe migrations (1985a); also Johansen on myth and ritual (1958). Biggs, 2006: p. 55. Orbell, 1985a: p. 24; Tau, 2003: pp. 83–84, 86. For examples, see Tate (ed.), 1986; P. Te H. Jones and Biggs, 1995; Tau, 2003 (Ch. 5 ff); Tau and Anderson (eds), 2008. Tremewan comments on male and female roles in myth (2002: pp. 178–79); and in tribal tradition, see Tau and Anderson (eds), 2008: pp. 30–32. Ballara refers to the detailed recording of names of those who killed and were killed in battles as demonstrative of ‘the values and priorities of the people recording them’ (2003: pp. 312–13). On the ‘flat’ characters of oral tradition and ‘round’ of literature, see Ong, 1982: pp. 69–71, 151–55; also Orbell on psychological interest as ‘implicit in the action’ of traditional narratives and her suggestion of it becoming explicit as writers added more detail to their accounts (1973: pp. 131–33). Kelly, 1949: p. 8; Te Rangi Hiroa, 1949: p. 49. About written history and Māori oral tradition, see Binney, 1987; Tau, 2003, 2012; and Mahuika on oral history and tradition (2012). Sissons has a valuable discussion of the different understandings of history (1991), clearly summarised in regard to oral narratives, pp. 286–89. Tau, 2003: p. 260. For such accounts, see Orbell, 1968, 1992; Tremewan, 2002. Ong, 1982: pp. 140–41.

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notes to pages 125–28 33. Simmons, 1976, is useful for a survey of tribal renditions of subjects in common. See also Harlow, 2000, on motifs; Tremewan, 2002, who includes comparison with Polynesia; and Mokena on the themes of (and motifs within) the quest story (2005). And, comparatively, Kirtley, 1971. On motif-sequences and structure, see Thornton, 1984; 1999: pp. 6, 13–14. 34. Binney, 1987: p. 24; Orbell, 1992: p. 5; see also Metge in regard to contemporary storytelling (2010: pp. 29-40). Compare carvers’ representations of traditions: Neich refers to the highly developed concept of the individual evident in Māori oral literature and carving (2001: p. 135) and, similarly, Tau, 2003: p. 260. 35. There is a residue of this in contemporary speeches, when exact repetition of standard openings disappoints but apposite adjustment to them is admired; refer Rewi on use of formulae in whaikōrero (2010: pp. 89–91). 36. Lord: ‘In oral tradition the idea of an original is illogical’ (1960: p. 101). 37. Ngati Porou traditions, MSY-4565, p. 50, ATL. 38. Kiriwehi, Keys, MS-Papers-0407-14, p. 2, ATL. 39. For an example of biblical comparisons, see Nahe, NZMS 713, pp. 11, 12, 39, AL. 40. Curnow, 1983: pp. 59–65; see also Mohi Ruatapu’s versions about Māui written in different years (Reedy, 1993). 41. Orbell, 1973: pp. 127–40; see also Metge on narrators connecting old accounts to the local and contemporary (2010: pp. 37–38). 42. A. Smith, 1993: pp. xvi–xvii. Compare Te Rangikāheke as an ‘accomplished’ storyteller but his authenticity questioned by some in his tribe (Thornton, 1992: pp. 2, 17). 43. On other definitions and labels: Metge [1981]: pp. 15–16; Salmond, 1985: p. 249; Mead and Grove refer to ‘He kōrero takurua’ ‘told during leisure time’ and without ‘weight or authority’ (2001: p. 87); Tremewan, 2002: pp. xi–xii; Tau, 2003: p. 17. And compare other Polynesian terms, as in Huntsman on Tokelauan usage (1990). 44. Orbell, 1992: p. 11 (M), p. 13 (translation quoted). 45. This term was used by the editors when reproducing the article (Kaa and Kaa [eds], 1996: p. 45); interestingly in its newspaper source it was labelled ‘He korero kauwhau Maori’ (Te Waka Maori o Niu Tirani, 12 August 1876, p. 201). ‘Kauwhau’ (‘recite’ in Māori) was the word used for a Christian sermon and Mohi Tūrei was an Anglican minister. Tautahi’s cosmological account begins ‘Te ingoa o tēnei karaipiture: Ko [te] wānanga o ngā kōrero a ngā tūpuna’ (The title of this scripture: The teaching of the traditions from the ancestors) (MS-2121, p. 1, ATL). 46. In some 500 pages of transcribed manuscripts, I found no occurrences of ‘pakiwaitara’; there was one ‘kōrero tara’, and ‘pūrākau’ occurred only in the phrase ‘whare pūrākau’, in a South Island account, regarding which schooling see explanation in Anderson (ed.), 1994: pp. 366–70. 47. Ngāpora, Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 2b, p. 25, AL; Reedy, 1997: pp. 15, 57 (M), p. 110 (translation quoted), p. 141 (Note 190); Orbell, 1992: p. 101 (M and translation quoted). 48. See Thornton, 1985: p. 164 for suggestion of motivations that lead to the style of different versions; and Biggs, 2006: p. 54 on restricted versions. 49. My analysis of narrative style and structure is informed by Thornton, 1984, 1985, 1992, 1999; and Mokena, 2005. See also with regard to later compositions (1900s),

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notes to pages 128–35

50.

51.

52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68.

K. V. Smith, 2002, and, usefully comparative, Edwards and Sienkewicz, 1990: pp. 180–90; Finnegan, 2007: Ch. 4. Refer Johansen, 1954: p. 151 on the importance of the event in Māori narrative. Of interest comparatively: J. C. Miller proposed that African oral historians construct their narratives of diverse parts, rather than a single integrated tradition, and with the main elements of clichés, episodes and personal reminiscences (1980: pp. 6–7). Ong, 1982: pp. 37–38; Thornton, 1985: Part I and pp. 173–74; and exemplified in Mokena, 2005: pp. 59–63. Refer also Edwards and Sienkewicz on structural unity in oral compositions (1990: p. 144). Elaboration and explanation become more apparent over time; it is notable, for instance, in Māori writing for general readers, particularly in late nineteenth-century Māori-language newspapers. As Thornton demonstrated, ‘narrative is artfully shaped by means of repetitions’ (1985: pp. 153, 150–57); see also Edwards and Sienkewicz, 1990: pp. 147–58. Harlow’s concordance of Nga Mahi a nga Tupuna is useful for exploring how vocabulary and names are used in narrative (1990). On story-pattern, themes, motifs and structure, see Thornton, 1984, 1985; and in the Māori quest story, Mokena, 2005: Ch. 4 esp. Thornton, 1999: p. 14; Tremewan also refers to complexity in the narratives (2002: p. xii). There is an edited version and translation in White (1887, II: p. 120 [E], p. 114 [M]), who drew material from Taylor’s manuscripts (Orbell, 1968: pp. 107–8); there is no source given for his title or tribal attribution. Taylor, GNZMSS 297/30, Part 1, p. 106, AL; translated version in R. Taylor, 1855: p. 30. Compare Thornton regarding the position and effect of forms of names (1992: pp. 15–16, 82 [Note 23], 95 [Note 11], 98 [Note 25]). Hohepa, 1981: pp. 38–43. Riley, 2001: pp. 175–77, 188; see also Orbell, 1985: pp. 194, 196, 199; 2003: pp. 60 ff. Thornton, 1985: p. 155; refer also Ong on the influence of the ‘interiority of sound’: ‘The centering action of sound . . . affects man’s sense of the cosmos’ (1982: pp. 71–74). Polack, 1840, II: p. 104. Orbell, 1985: p. 197. As an example, and of how lists, sayings, narrative, song and chant come together as a history, see Tautahi and Taipuhi, 1900. Haku, Polynesian Society Papers, MS-Papers-1187-070, [p. 1], with translation, ATL. Arapata Haku is listed as one of the Ngāti Ruanui men sent to prison in Dunedin for protesting at Parihaka in 1880 (Sole, 2005: p. 382). See a similar episode in an account about Tamainupō (Kelly, 1949: p. 91). Refer Thornton on setting the scene in three steps anticipating an encounter (1984: p. 307); and Mokena, 2005: pp. 94–103 on the ‘initial situation’. Thornton, 1999: pp. 47, 49; see also Edwards and Sienkewicz on aspects of the ‘performative dynamic’ in oral cultures (1990: Ch. 3). Refer Mokena on direct speech, dialogue and the formulaic (2005: pp. 46–55). A mark of the impact and memorability of direct speech (some dialogues are termed whakataukī) is the frequent use made of it, at times quoting the Māori text

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notes to pages 135–41 as well, in rewritten tribal histories in English, such as by Mitchell, 1944; Kelly, 1949. 69. ‘Kāti’ as used here has the sense of ‘all done’; in many cases the phrase is ‘ka oti’ – see Thornton’s comments on this usage (1992: p. 75, Note 10, p. 79, Note 17). 70. Johansen, 1954: p. 72 and see his discussion of retribution (pp. 61–83); also Hanson and Hanson, 1983: Ch. 6. An illustration of its influence: Shortland tells of a chief reciting the Lord’s Prayer and changing the phrase ‘as we forgive them that trespass against us’ to ‘but we can’t forgive them that trespass against us’ (1856: p. 187). 71. As in Orbell, 1992: pp. 15, 118. 72. Hohepa, 1981: pp. 43–46. 73. See examples in Orbell, 1992: p. 29; Reedy, 1993: p. 19 (M), p. 119 (E), p. 22 (M), p. 122 (E). Tremewan noted among the dual or two-part structure of many narratives, pairing of episodes, such as ‘at home’ and ‘away’ or an unsuccessful attempt followed by success, explaining this as reflecting ‘a general tendency to see the world in terms of dualities’ (2002: pp. xviii, 10, 45). 74. In regard to love songs, see Orbell on ‘a strong sense of movement’ and ‘concern with journeys’ (1977: pp. 300–2). Taylor wrote an interesting comment on travel, which begins: ‘A chief must be a travelled man. The Maori appears to have had a natural desire to travel . . . ’, GNZMSS 297/32 (Part 1), pp. 60–61, AL. Broughton referred to his ancestor, Rauru, as a well-travelled man (1979: p. 43). 75. For examples ending with another genre, see Reedy, 1993: p. 18 (M), p. 118 (E) (whakapapa); Orbell, 1992: p. 21 (waiata); and a simple statement Reedy, 1993: pp. 23, 24 (M), pp. 124, 125 (E); 1997: p. 45 (M), p. 97 (E) (whakapapa and a simple statement). 76. As in Orbell, 1992: p. 149 (M), p. 150 (E); Reedy, 1997: p. 40 (M), p. 91 (E). 77. Versions in Grey [1854] 1971: pp. 99–105; S. P. Smith, 1915, II: pp. 122–25 (M), pp. 129–35 (E); Te Rangi Hiroa, 1949: pp. 29–33. See also S. P. Smith, 1910: pp. 94–105; and discussion in Simmons, 1976: pp. 182–88. 78. Morpeth to Tregear, 13 June 1894, Haku, Polynesian Society Papers, MS-Papers1187-070 [p. 3], ATL. 79. Ballara, 2003: pp. 313–14. 80. Ngati Porou traditions, MSY-4565, p. 158 (statement, which has an echo in A. T. Ngata’s ‘According to some authorities . . .’ [1972 (4): p. 6]), pp. 165–66 quoted passage, ATL. For another version of these episodes relating to Paikea, see White, 1887, Vol. 3, pp. 31–71 (E), pp. 16–47 (M); and for more detail about them W. Ngata, in which passages quoted and attributed to an unpublished manuscript of Wī Pēwhairangi suggest it is the same as MSY-4565 (2009: pp. 50-53, 145-154, and related episodes and quotations in Chs. 7 and 8). Other narratives from this manuscript, episodes about Māui, are transcribed and translated in Mokena, 2005: pp. 256–78. 81. Ngati Porou traditions, MSY-4565, p. 164, ATL. 82. As occurs in other tribal records. See Houston for a list of Taranaki whare wānanga (2006: pp. 183–84); and regarding the Tākitimu’s ‘load’ of knowledge, the ancestors ‘implant[ing] the mauri, or life-giving spirit, of the whare-wananga in the land’ as they travelled around, and building houses for dissemination of the knowledge (Mitchell, 1944: pp. 42-43). 83. Ngati Porou traditions, MSY-4565, p. 163, ATL, ‘kei te kōrerotia i roto i te pukapuka Nama II’ (recorded in Book Number II).

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notes to pages 141–49 84. Johansen, 1954: p. 161. The sense of a continuum of life in the traditions has a parallel in carving, see Neich, 2001: pp. 136–37. 85. As Salmond’s suggestion that tribal histories and genealogies were ‘openly discussed within the kin-group’ (1985: pp. 249–50), which seems right, given also the need for many to memorise them. Refer also Biggs on different kinds of knowledge, some ‘discussed openly’ and other under ‘ritual restriction’ (2006: p. 54). 86. As described in Walker (1969). On their importance in song, see Ngata, Preface, NM I: pp. xvii–xviii (M), pp. xxiii–xxiv (E); and Tau, 2003: pp. 115–20; on ‘the significance of a “name” in classical Maori thought’, see Thornton, 1984: pp. 309–11; on the resonance of names of battles in narrative and song, see Tremewan, 2002: pp. 58–59; and in regard to war, Ballara, 2003: pp. 312–13. 87. Ngati Porou traditions, MSY-4565, p. 168 (sentence), pp. 183–84 (later episode), ATL. 88. See Biggs’s comment on the expansion of detail in tribal tradition compared with the thinner record of the remote past (P. Te H. Jones and Biggs, 1995: p. 9). 89. Te Wheoro also took the names Wiremu Te Morehu Maipapa: Scott, 1990: p. 524 and regarding his life. 90. Te Wheoro, NZMS 712, pp. 21–22, AL. There is an edited copy and translation in White (1888, Vol. IV: pp. 170–74 [M], Vol. IV: p. 180 [E]); an English version in Kelly (1949: p. 234); and another rendition (in Māori with translation), as told by Tainui elders and edited by Pei Te Hurinui Jones (P. Te H. Jones and Biggs, 1995: pp. 280 ff). 91. Te Wheoro’s ‘rau mā whitu’ literally means ‘a hundred and seven’ but is also used for ‘an army or large body of men’ (H. W. Williams, 1971: p. 328, Rau [ii]). Since he added ‘Kotahi’ in two places, I thought to retain a sense of a number by ‘the hundred’, also ‘a large number’ (Concise Oxford, 1991: p. 576). 92. On resolving problems in narrative (as also noted in the Māui story quoted), see Mokena and the prevalence and structure of the ‘lack and lack liquidated’ sequence in the Māori quest narrative (2005: pp. 104–58 esp.). 93. For a photo of the site and a version of this episode in English, see Phillips, 1995: pp. 114–17. 94. Astelia banksii, liliaceous plants (H. W. Williams, 1971: p. 152). R. Taylor wrote of this plant that the ‘deep purple, handsome’ fruit was ‘much eaten by the natives’ (1870a: p. 10). 95. Thornton has the use of symmetry as for effect rather than as fact and noted ‘a liking’ for it in oral narrative (1992: pp. 80, 97). 96. See such tools in Best, 1976a: pp. 68–91. 97. See Maki and his war against Kaipara in which there are similar tactics and phrases with regard to the sharpening of axes (Kelly, 1949: pp. 152–53). In Jones’s version of Whare and Tapaue, the phrasing is different (P. Te H. Jones and Biggs, 1995: pp. 274–75); this, I think, is because the style of his renditions of the oral histories leans more towards writing, that is, it is more explicit and less formulaic. 98. Polack, 1840, II: p. 172. 99. As also Tremewan noted: ‘sequences of events seem illogical, from a modern perspective. Several events may be described, but the links between them are not made clear’ (2002: p. xv). 100. Thornton 1985: pp. 156–57 and further about appositional expansion see 1985, Part II; 1992: p. 5; 1999: pp. 56–66.

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notes to pages 149–58 101. Thornton, 1985: p. 157, who notes that narratives may also be linear or chronological (p. 163). 102. Thornton, 1988. See also Metge, 2010: pp. 29–40 on contemporary narrators; and on time and sequence in oral narrative, Ong, 1982: pp. 141–47.

Chapter 5 Songs and Chants / Waiata 1.

2. 3. 4. 5.

6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Taylor, GNZMSS 297/27 (Part 1), pp. 58–59, and a copy with translation in Grey, GNZMMSS 100, p. 694, AL; also published with translation in R. Taylor, 1855: p. 145. Song text in Grey, 1853: p. 276; other translations, Mitcalfe, 1974: p. 48, and Awatere, 1975: p. 511. I am unsure if Taylor is correct in the names of his explanation; another waiata in his collection seems likely also to be by the same composer: ‘composed by a lady of the Ngati Maniapoto for her son who was at a distant village’; it is a song of great love for her child (GNZMSS 297/29, p. 93, AL). R. Taylor, 1855: p. 145 (Note). Grey, 1853: p. ix. Lord reflected of an epic singer’s first writing of his text that ‘it was the strangest performance he had ever given’, with ‘nothing to keep him to the regular beat except the echo of previous singings . . . in his mind’ (1960: pp. 124, 124–28). Rōpiha, Grey, GNZMMSS 8 and 9, AL; Simmons based his tribal affiliation on the name signed in the middle of the book and also proposed that genealogies suggested him to be of sufficient rank to have knowledge of the traditions (1976: p. 116); see also Petrie on Rōpiha (2015: p. 98). Pātara, Grey, GNZMMSS 49, AL; Grey and Bleek, 1858, Vol. II, Part IV, Item 138. Taha, Grey, GNZMMSS 67 and 68, AL; Grey and Bleek, 1858, Vol. II, Part IV, Item 151; Simmons suggested he was of Te Āti Awa (1976: p. 458). Jowett, Grey, GNZMMSS 58, pp. 150–89 (waiata), AL; the note is in Grey’s hand after the songs (p. 192) and I assume it relates to the foregoing pages, AL. About manuscripts of Te Rangikāheke’s songs and his commentary on songs in Grey, 1853 (Te Rangikāheke, Grey, GNZMMSS 118, AL), see inventory in Curnow, 1983: pp. 107 ff. See also Loader, 2016, on the manuscripts of waiata by Hakaraia Kiharoa in the Grey collection. Taha, Grey, GNZMMSS 67, pp. 629, 720. In Grey, GNZMMSS 95A, p. 212; the word upoko can mean ‘verse’ but in this case, to judge by the texts on the pages (which are assumed to be on pp. 215–18), it refers to complete songs. Rōpiha, Grey, GNZMMSS 9, p. 1, AL. Likewise wanting to inform widely, in a letter of 1896 to S. P. Smith, Tūtangē Waionui of Taranaki sent waiata and promised more ‘hei perehi māu’ (for you to publish) (Travers, MS-Papers-1187-184, p. [1], ATL). Grey, 1853: Title page; Grey, GNZMMSS 66, p. 441, AL. Kerr, 2006: p. 81. McGregor, 1893: [p. i]; his published collection (with its four supplements) and extant manuscripts include songs from Waikato and other regions. McGregor, 1893: [p. 9]; McGregor, NZMS 719, Vol. 1, pp. 21–22, AL; I take ‘ki te iwi’ to refer to his own people, where he learned the songs, rather than to mean ‘for people’. Some are in the Polynesian Society Papers, MS-Papers-1187, ATL. As Ngati Porou whakapapa and waiata, MSY-4563, ATL; about use in newspapers, see Head, 2002; McRae, 2002; Tremewan, 2002a.

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notes to pages 158–63 13. A. T. Ngata and Jones, 2004, 2005, 2006; A. T. Ngata and Mead, 2007; and an introduction to the collection, McRae and Jacob, 2011. 14. See McLean and Orbell, 1975; McLean, 1996. On performance in relation to meaning, see A. T. Ngata, NM I: p. xxxv; NM IV: pp. xiii–xiv. 15. Grey and A. T. Ngata chose ‘mōteatea’ for their collections. An older usage, it has the gloss of ‘lament’ (H. W. Williams, 1971: p. 211); Ngata intimated that it was appropriate for the more complex songs (quoted in Sorrenson [ed.], 1986, I: p. 65). 16. For detail about the music and these categories, summarised briefly here, refer to McLean, 1996: Chs 2 and 3; also Orbell, 1985b: pp. 57–61. 17. Orbell, 1985b: p. 57. 18. McLean, 1996: p. 35, and on song labels and types Chapters 2 and 3. On kinds of songs, style, content and language, see also A. T. Ngata in NM I: pp. xix–xx (M), pp. xxv–xxvi (E); NM II: pp. xi–xxiii (M), pp. xxvi–xxxiv (E); Mitcalfe, 1974; Orbell, 1978, 1991; and on general character, Metge [1981]: pp. 48–49. 19. Colenso, 1881: p. 57. On traditional songs and singing, see also Best, 1976b: pp. 185–213. 20. A. T. Ngata, NM I: pp. xxxv–xxxvi. 21. A recent suggestion is that to sing without a purpose is an ill omen (McLean and Orbell, 1975: p. 15). 22. Orbell, 1978: p. 5. 23. Rōpiha, Grey, GNZMMSS 8, p. 34, AL. See another composition in reply by Te Ikaherengutu in NM IV, Song 368, and other competing songs, NM III, Songs 222, 223, 224. 24. A. T. Ngata, NM II: p. xli (M) and pp. xlv–vi (E). 25. R. Taylor, 1855: p. 71. 26. R. Taylor, 1855: p. 72; Taylor, GNZMSS 297/18 (Part 1), 297/29, 297/30 (Part 1), AL. 27. R. Taylor, 1855: p. 138; Shortland, 1856: pp. 186–87. 28. Grey, 1853: pp. ix–x. This is very evident in speeches and letters initiated, punctuated or concluded with songs, which Māori composed for Grey: see Davis, 1855. 29. A theme of Orbell’s work is that songs reflect ‘major preoccupations in Maori life and thought’ and ‘pervasive patterns of thought and behaviour’ (1995a: p. 33); Dixon refers to their insight into the ancestors’ ‘ways of seeing the world’ and tribal histories (2002); see also W. Ngata, 2009. 30. See examples in Mitcalfe, 1974; Orbell, 1991; laments for the dead in newspaper obituaries in Tremewan, 2002a: p. 120; and an interesting instance of an ancient song used in a nineteenth-century political setting in A. Smith, 1993: pp. 66–73. In regard to the Native Land Court, see McLean, 1996: pp. 217–18; and mention of a song composed by Te Kāhui Kararehe’s grandmother and later sung in the court, in 1915 or 1916, which helped to win a case (Te Kāhui Kararehe, AG-346-1/4, n.p., HL). 31. Reilly on this practice in a Mangaian’s manuscript narrative (2009: p. 33). About songs in nineteenth-century Māori letters, see Sutherland, 2007. For example of this ending, see Henare Te Rangiwhaiata’s letter in Te Wananga, 14 December 1878, p. 628. 32. Best, 1976b: pp. 201–2; McLean, 1996: pp. 214–16. 33. A. T. Ngata, NM I: p. xxxvi; as example, see the repertoire of a Tūhoe elder in McLean and Orbell, 2002.

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notes to pages 163–68 34. Reasons for Ngata and Jones seeking explanation of allusions and genealogies from tribes for annotations in Ngā Mōteatea; and of advantage to tribal members’ studies of their own songs, which very often also explain the local philosophy and customs in which the songs are embedded and to which they contribute (see, for instance, Royal, 1994; Black, 2000; W. Ngata, 2009). 35. Best, [1924] 1974: p. 8, 1959: p. 5; see also A. T. Ngata, NM I: p. xxxv on elders’ memorising at a later time. 36. As A. T. Ngata refers, particularly to women (NM II: p. xi [M], p. xxv [E]). 37. See discussion in McLean, 1996: Ch. 7. 38. Pātara, Grey, GNZMMSS 49, p. 3 (title), pp. 75–76 (text), AL. Grey published an edited version (1857a: p. 57), and Mead a translated summary (1969: p. 399); also referred to in McLean, 1996: p. 214. 39. McGregor, 1893: p. 98. 40. McLean, 1996: p. 214. 41. Grey, 1853: p. 14. 42. Which raises the question of whether Māori wrote out their songs verbatim. Although some narrators made changes for readers, it feels as if the songs have been ‘sung out’ on the page. 43. McGregor, 1893: [p. xx]. On variation, refer also Jones, NM I, Song 51 (introduction), p. 217. 44. A. T. Ngata, NM II: pp. xiii, xviii (M), pp. xxvii, xxxiii (E); Mead, 1969: p. 400; McLean and Orbell, 1975: pp. 25–27. Immediate examples of set phrasing are first line indexes, as in Tremewan, 1998, A. T. Ngata and Jones, 2004–2006, and A. T. Ngata and Mead, 2007. 45. Orbell, 1977, on formulaic usage specifically, pp. 80–94; 1995a: pp. 30–31. Relatedly, McLean on the ‘rule of eight’ or the metre defined by vowel count (1996: pp. 258–63); and Roa’s questioning of the formulaic and consideration of discourse structuring in waiata and mōteatea (2004, and see above Ch. 1, Note 75). 46. In regard to formulae and imagery as noted in Te Uira’s song, see Mead, 1969: pp. 388–90; Orbell, 1995a; and to ‘borrowing’, McLean, 1996: p. 212. 47. Maori manuscript . . . , MS-Papers-2686, pp. 1–5 (it has a transcription by Elsdon Best), ATL. 48. The ‘ē’ (also ‘ī’ and ‘ēī’) at line end in the first example is a meaningless sound, which I have not translated in this or the following waiata. I suggest that ‘pū’ in the first example, Line 4, is not the modern ‘gun’ but short for ‘pūtātara’ or ‘war trumpet’. 49. NM II, Song 182, Lines 33–40; Grey, 1853: p. 112; NM II, Song 185, Lines 24–26; Grey, 1853: p. 205; Orbell, 2003: p. 36. 50. Orbell, 1995a: p. 46; McLean and Orbell, 1975: p. 27. 51. See Orbell, 1977: Ch. 2 on the language, including grammar and vocabulary; and McLean, 1996: Ch. 13 on rhythm. 52. For detail of poetic usage, themes and imagery, see A. T. Ngata, NM I: pp. xvii–xviii (M), pp. xxiii–xxiv (E); Mead, 1969; Orbell, 1977: Chs 3 and 4 esp.; Metge, [1981]: pp. 59-67; A. Smith, 2001: Chs 8–10 for imagery relating to the landscape and environment; and usefully about figurative language in Māori, see Joseph, 2011. 53. As example, Thornton’s interpretation of Te Uamairangi’s lament for his house (1986).

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notes to pages 168–73 54. My discussion is limited to the texts, although matters of music and performance are also important to understanding the songs. 55. Matewhā, Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 2b, pp. 26–27, AL; translations, Shortland, 1882: pp. 2, 38; Shirres, 1986: pp. 32–35. 56. Refer Te Rangikāheke’s similar discourse on kinds of karakia and rituals (Te Rangikāheke, Grey, GNZMMSS 51, pp. 91–128, AL, translated in part by Curnow, 1992: pp. 87–93). Both he and Matewhā commented that prayers had lost their effectiveness since the arrival of Pākehā. See also discussion of origins and ritual in Shirres, 1986. 57. R. Taylor, 1855: p. 72; Shortland, 1882: p. 28. On karakia and ritual, refer also Te Rangi Hiroa, 1949: pp. 489–507; Best, 1976, I: Part VII; Tau, 2003: pp. 66–82. 58. About Tū-te-rangi-ānini, a Ngāti Tamaterā chief of Hauraki, see references in Tūroa, 2000; and, in relation to songs, NM IV, Song 326; see also an oriori composed by him for his son, in reply to a cursing song (Grey, GNZMMSS 70, p. 799, AL). 59. Example in NM I, Song 30, p. 75; in lament, Grey, 1853: Appendix, p. cii. 60. Compare Edwards and Sienkewicz on the tendency in oral communities to incorporate ‘a variety of traditional forms into the fibre of the performance’ (1990: p. 190). 61. Orbell, 1985a: p. 36; examples in myths, Tremewan, 2002. R. Taylor proposed, plausibly but without evidence, that karakia ‘may be derived from ka, to burn, showing the consuming power of the spell, and raki, to dry up, denoting its effects’ (1855: p. 72). 62. Te Ngārara, Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 1a, pp. 10–11, AL; translated version in Shortland, 1882: pp. 18–19. See variants in van Ballekom and Harlow, 1987: p. 3 (M), p. 25 (E); Tremewan, 2002: pp. 30–31 (M), p. 37 (E); Tau, 2003: p. 46 (M), p. 51 (E) and discussion pp. 58–59. 63. The conclusion of Shirres in a study of karakia, which is based on a large number of manuscript texts and includes an index to them (1986: p. 1 and Ch. 1 esp., 1997: Chs 5–7); and refer McLean, 1996: pp. 35–38. 64. Johansen, 1958: p. 12; H. W. Williams, 1971: p. 387, Tara (v) 2. 65. As Johansen (see above Ch. 3, Note 78) and discussion of pairings and contrastive opposites in Salmond, 1978; also apparent in other genres, see Tremewan, 2002: p. 10. 66. This example of defeat perhaps led to the phrase ‘Werohia te tao a Tangaroa’ being predictive of success; see also use in song in Thornton, 1986: p. 6. 67. See Shirres regarding formulae in karakia, and example of the variants of one (1986: pp. 6, 176–88). 68. Shortland, 1882: p. 19 (Note). 69. Pukuatua, Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 2b, p. 56, AL, for childbirth: ‘Wetea te whiwhi, wetea te hara,/Wetea te mānuka/Wetea kia mātaratara/Tawhiti te rangi/ Te taea’; Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 2b, p. 63, AL, for someone deranged: ‘Wetea mai te whiwhi,/Wetea kia mātaratara’. See Shirres on the purpose in ritual to ‘loose destructive’ atua and ‘bind to’ atua that are a ‘source of life and strength’ (1986: pp. 139, 141 ff). 70. Tremewan, 2002: p. xviii. 71. Te Rangihaeata, Grey, GNZMMSS 77, pp. 16–17, AL; for versions in English, see J. Te H. Grace, 1959: pp. 78–79; Stafford, 1967: pp. 54–55.

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notes to pages 174–80 72. Instances of long amounts of time spent in recitation of them explain the length and great number of karakia in manuscripts. 73. Te Ao, Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 2b, pp. 11–12, AL; translated versions in Shortland, 1882: p. 84; Stafford, 1967: p. 40. 74. For discussion, see Shirres, 1986: p. 23; McLean, 1996: pp. 33–38; see also Te Rangikāheke’s Māui account in Thornton, 1992: pp. 64–65. 75. Examples in Shirres, 1986, who also categorises them as for major and minor rituals (p. 43). 76. Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 3c, p. 1, AL; variant in Grey, 1853: p. 311. 77. For songs and prayers for kūmara planting, see Best, 1976a: pp. 144–93; Reedy, 1997: pp. 67–73 (M), pp. 121–28 (E). 78. Grey, 1853: p. 72. 79. Taylor, GNZMSS 297/30, Part 1, p. 112, AL. 80. Pātara, Grey, GNZMMSS 49, p. 76, AL. Today these chants may preface whaikōrero (formal speeches) to engage the audience’s attention, as examples in Rewi, 2010: pp. 141–44. 81. For examples, see Grey, 1853: p. 107; Best, 1975: pp. 110–14; NM IV, Song 377; see also McLean, 1996: pp. 40–41. 82. Grey, GNZMMSS 66, p. 441, AL. 83. See NM III, Song 289; McLean and Orbell, 1975: pp. 34, 183; in narrative, see P. Te H. Jones and Biggs, 1995: pp. 256–60. 84. Taylor, GNZMSS 297/30, Part 1, p. 11, AL, with notes and a translation. See other versions from Grey: called a ‘ngeri’ and with translation (GNZMMSS 6, pp. 40–41), GNZMMSS 95A, p. 225 as ‘haka’ (a variant), and translation of a variant (GNZMMSS 99, p. 570), AL. 85. Taylor, GNZMSS 297/30, Part 1, pp. 11–13, AL. 86. Wakefield, 1845, I: p. 97 and further regarding haka, including women participating, pp. 97–99. For other early descriptions, see Shortland, 1856: pp. 169–76; Kāretu, 1993: pp. 26–36; McLean, 1996: pp. 44–71. 87. On words for and kinds of haka, see Kāretu, 1993: pp. 37–48; McLean, 1996: pp. 44–71. 88. See examples in Kāretu, 1993: pp. 15–21; P. Te H. Jones and Biggs, 1995: pp. 144–49. 89. Raumoa, Spragg, MS 96/17/3 (MS II), pp. 8–9, AML. 90. Although this is the spelling in other versions, it should perhaps be Tītapu; see Orbell, 1995: p. 217. According to a note by Grey, Arapaoa was used ‘figuratively for the whole of the island’; this could explain the different phrasing for it and also imply the singers’ claim on it (in Maunsell, 1842: opp. p. 17); this note is in a copy of Maunsell’s Grammar of New Zealand in which Grey used blank pages for copying out songs and notes about them (GNZM 82, copy 3, AL); I am grateful to Robert Eruera for this discovery. 91. Orbell, 1978: p. 101. 92. Variant phrases used in a Ngāti Porou song (NM II, Song 105, Line 16) and Taranaki song (S. P. Smith, 1910: pp. 560–62); and in relation to the separation of Rangi and Papa, see Taylor, GNZMSS 297/31, p. 262, AL and R. Taylor, 1870: p. 120. 93. Grey, GNZMMSS 99, p. 537, AL, with draft translation. 94. See variants (of wording and content), some with translation, in Grey, 1853: p. 67; R. Taylor, 1855: p. 117; GNZMSS 297/27, Part 1, pp. 59–60, AL, with a description of performance of it; McGregor, 1893: p. 118; S. P. Smith, 1910: pp. 43–44; Orbell,

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notes to pages 180–86 1978: p. 81 (with notes p. 101); S. P. Smith (used in Te Arawa history), 1923: p. 123. The version cited by Tremewan (2002a: p. 117) is in Te Waka Maori o Ahuriri, 29 July 1865, p. 4. 95. Orbell, 1995a: p. 36, and about similarities between waiata tangi and waiata aroha. 96. Grey, 1853: p. 64. I have edited the text to explain my translation; from the conventional structure I suggest Te Kairākau as a personal name but see other translation (McEwan, 1986: p. 214) and explanation in Te Rangikāheke, Grey, GNZMMSS 118, pp. 98–99, AL. 97. Refer like phrasing and setting in other waiata aroha in Orbell, 1995a: pp. 37–47. 98. McEwen, 1986: p. 214 from McGregor, 1893: p. 61; another version with different context, Te Whetu o te Tau, 9 January 1858, pp. 10–11. 99. Rōpiha, Grey, GNZMMSS 9, p. 72 (with copy at 10, pp. 79–80), AL; ‘kuhu’ is unclear in the original, it may be ‘kuku’. 100. See use in NM I, Songs 29, 40; NM II, Song 102; and Orbell, 1977: pp. 70–76 on the convention of addressing people in songs. 101. A rōria was a piece of supplejack held in the mouth and played with a finger, also the word for a Jew’s harp (McLean, 1996: p. 173). 102. Compare: ‘E mate mā nei,/Whakarongohia atu/Ngā rōria tangi mai/Nā Eruera kei Motukōkako./Numia ki roto rā, /E hika e ia,/Hoki mai rā ki a au,/ Ki te ūkaipō/O Tamakuhukuhu, o Rongotangatakē,/Ko au hei muri nei’ (Grey, GNZMMSS 73, p. 1149, AL). The long version is published in Grey, 1853: p. 274 and with translation in Orbell, 1978: pp. 16–17. See also a version for a son gone to Poihākena (Sydney), Grey, GNZMMSS 95A, p. 288. On difficulties of reading, transcription and authenticity of songs in manuscript and print, see Orbell, 1977: pp. 11–14; and generally in relation to oral texts, see Finnegan, 2007: Ch. 10. 103. Information about Tūkura-a-rangi from Ballara, 1990a: p. 584; Whyte, 1990: p. 177; Hall, 1993: pp. 194–96; the manuscript cited in Note 102 above has her of Ngāti Kahungunu; in the recent sources she is of Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti and Rongowhakaata. 104. In stories of sons in search of fathers, singing a song (sometimes taught by the mother) is one means of gaining recognition and acceptance (Tremewan, 2002: pp. 249–50, and see examples in narratives in Mokena, 2005: pp. 247, 279, 326). 105. Te Ātahīkoia, MS-Papers-6717-021, p. 40, ATL. See versions and translations in Tarakawa, 1900: pp. 49–50 (M), pp. 57–58 (E); Mitchell, 1944: pp. 168–69; J. Te H. Grace, 1959: pp. 300–1. 106. On tūtū ngārahu, see McLean, 1996: p. 57. 107. This is sometimes referred to as the ‘ironic negative’ (Mitcalfe, 1974: p. 11); and see Sadler on its use as an intensive, as recorded by Williams, 1971: p. 95, Kāore 3, (2014: p. 107). 108. Tarakawa, 1900: p. 58. 109. On peace-making, see Ballara, 2003: pp. 153–62. 110. On oriori: A. T. Ngata in NM I: p. xix (M), p. xxv (E); NM II: pp. xi–xiii (M), pp. xxvi–xxvii (E), and ‘as a means of awakening the interest of the young in the mythology and traditions of his people’ (NM II: p. xlvii); Mead, 1969: pp. 391–93; Orbell, 1978: pp. 61–69; McLean, 1996: pp. 143–45; in regard to language and structure, Tipene, 2001, and a comparison of two versions of one, Tremewan, 1997. 111. Davis, 1855: pp. 192–94; his translation is free but has no source for the information

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notes to pages 186–92 in it. I have edited the Māori text to explain my translation. See versions in Grey, 1853: p. 317; White, 1888, Vol. IV: p. 51 (E), Vol. V: p. 44 (M). 112. The ‘Moromuha’ of the Māori is an error. 113. See this phrase in NM IV, Song 356 A, Line and Note 20, and B, Line 28; and bearing a different connotation NM I, Song 42, Line and Note 8. 114. This may be a reference to Waikato’s defeat of Ngāti Whakaue led by Te Huruhuru at Lake Rotorua near Muruika Pā (Stafford, 1967: p. 152). 115. See ‘Tahuri tō kanohi te puke ki Tuaropaki,/He maunga utu hinu nā ō tūpuna’ (‘Turn your face to the heights of Tuaropaki,/The forest range where game fat was scooped up by your ancestors’) (NM II, Song 112, Lines 12–13). 116. Stafford, 1967: p. 75. Davis has ‘luscious berries’ for the produce (1855: p. 194); it is possible both fine foods were tributes. 117. S. Oliver, 1990b; and see Loader on his writing and biography of his father (2013: pp. 52–102). 118. Te Rauparaha, Shortland, NZMS 998, MS 1a, pp. 25–26, AL; translated version in Shortland, 1856: pp. 64–67. 119. MG2360. 120. Examples in NM I, Song 2; NM II, Song 103; NM III, Song 267. 121. ‘Muri’ can refer to the common part of the village, the place of slaves (H. W. Williams, 1971: p. 214, Muri (i) 4; Thornton, 1992: p. 109, Note 7); see Petrie, 2015, for discussion of Māori words for and practice in regard to slavery. 122. Orbell, 1985b: p. 59. 123. For example, about crops failing (NM II, Song 170), replies to accusations of eating or being stingy with food (NM II, Song 100; NM III, Song 247), and distress at having no food (Grey, 1853: pp. 3, 141–42, 150, 230). 124. Taylor, GNZSMSS 297/30, Part 1, p. 129, AL. 125. Taylor, GNZMSS 297/30, Part 1, p. 41, AL. Grey has ‘He ngeri mo te kai kore’ (1853: p. 102); the song does not fit McLean’s description of ngeri (1996: p. 66) and, although it has aspects of that kind of composition, it is not quite the form of a pātere (ibid.: p 41), it is more ‘contemplative’. There is a draft translation by Grey (GNZMMSS 101, p. 541, AL) and notes in Te Rangikāheke, Grey, GNZMMSS 118, pp. 161–62. Taylor and Te Rangikāheke have suggestions about the house mentioned. The composer may have been Titia; see genealogy in Tūroa, 2000: p. 225 (also a source about Tarāia Ngākuti Te Tumuhia). 126. NM I, Song 85 (whatitoka, doorway); NM II, Song 131 (taumata, summit); NM IV, Song 379 (koko, bay, corner, nook – koko, whanga having similar meanings). 127. Grey, GNZMA 671, AL. The letter is undated but in a group from the 1850s; regarding Pōrutu, see Alexander Turnbull Library online catalogue. ‘Kaiponu’ has a link to myth, as one appellation for Miru, a malevolent inhabitant of the underworld who brought misfortune to humans, ‘Kaiponu-kino’ ‘Selfish-withholder’ (NM III, Song 299, Line and Note 4; Orbell, 1995: p. 119). Another line in this song also has an echo, in a letter to government official Donald McLean, 9 September 1872, from Wī Tahata and the local rūnanga or council of Reporoa. Reporting extreme hunger among their people and asking for food, they emphasised the situation with ‘Mehemea e tae ana mai koutou, e kore e kangatia [karangatia] i te kore kai’ (If you all should arrive here, you won’t be called in because of the lack of food) (McLean, MS-Papers-0032-0696E-09, ATL).

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notes to pages 193–202 128. Grey, GNZMMSS 73, p. 1111, AL (and preceeding it in the manuscript is another song expressing Te Heuheu’s sadness when Grey left Taupō early in 1850). In Line 5 I think the ‘i’ is an error because the phrase is otherwise formulaic and Te Heuheu is expressing his feeling for Grey. The song was also published by Grey with a note (as also on the manuscript) that the flag was sent to Te Heuheu (1853: p. 51). J. Te H. Grace has a different translation and setting, with Grey giving the flag to Te Heuheu at Pūkawa (1959: pp. 438–39); there is also historical and contextual interpretation in Frame and Meredith, 2005: pp. 140–42. Other songs about and for Grey, see Davis, 1855. 129. On winds and clouds conveying a sense of the person missed or lamented, and use of similar phrasing in this and other songs, see Orbell, 1995a: pp. 40–44. Note on Takapuna by Grey in Maunsell, 1842: opp. p. 17, see Grey’s annotated copy at GNZM 82, copy 3, AL. 130. See examples in Orbell, 1991: pp. 27–35. 131. On the effect and coveting of guns, see NM I, Song 33, and NM III, Song 297; on alcohol and its effects, NM I, Song 42, and NM IV, Song 312. 132. McGregor, 1893: p. 119. Another of this kind is ‘A haka by Hoki on account of Toheroa having been accused of stealing a pair of scissors’ (Grey, GNZMMSS 73, p. 1103, AL). 133. Grey, 1853: p. 38. 134. Grey, 1857a: p. 27. 135. Orbell, 1985b: p. 59.

conclusion 1.

Biggs, 2006: p. 44; Orbell, 1985a: p. 3; as too A. T. Ngata’s ‘persistent research’ (NM II: p. xlvi). 2. Reedy, 1997: p. 19; W. Ngata, 2014; Rewi, 2010; and similarly Dixon, 2002, and illustrating the oral tradition’s influence on the present, see articles in Keenan (ed.), 2012. 3. Sharples, 2014: p. A41; Reedy, 1993: p. 10; Mead and Grove, 2001: p. 9; see also Thornton, 1999: p. 75. 4. Tausky, 1991. 5. For an expansive survey of writing by Māori, and insight into the influence of the oral tradition, see the five-volume Te Ao Mārama (Ihimaera [ed.], 1992–1996). 6. McRae, 1995; for examples of such fiction, see P. Grace, 1986; Ihimaera, 1994. 7. Similarly, since the twentieth century, the media of radio and television have made much of programmes of elders talking about their traditions, and of speech and song compositions. 8. On these oral arts, see Salmond, 1975, and Rewi, 2010. 9. On contemporary regard for the whare kōrero and whare whakairo representing and embodying traditions, see Melbourne, 1991: pp. 129–41, and articles in McFarland and Black (eds), 2014; and on the oral context of ngā kōrero tuku iho in the contemporary world of Ngāti Porou, see Mahuika, 2012: Chs 4 and 5. 10. As haka in Kāretu (1993: Chs 4, 5), and see McLean on modern genres and performance (1996: Chs. 6, 20). 11. Orbell, 1978: p. 5. 12. Metge, 2010: pp. 29–40; 2015.

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Index

boundary delineations and disputes, 23, 29, 46 boundary lists, 5, 18, 60, 68, 70–73, 77, 84; see also land: naming of; list-making; placenames, importance of Broughton, Ruka, 52 Buck, Sir Peter, see Te Rangihīroa buildings and resources, lists and names of, 18, 21–22, 23, 68, 76–78, 94, 124, 142; see also chiefs’ houses; fortifications; gateways; meeting-houses; sleeping-houses; storehouses

action dance and song, 6, 29, 132, 159, 178; see also haka adzes and axes, 22, 61, 107–8, 133; see also Te Āwhiorangi allegory, 17, 122 alliteration, 86, 89–90, 150 allusions, 5, 23, 39, 40, 51–52, 57, 63, 85, 95, 97, 106, 107–8, 109, 111, 112, 118, 136, 151, 153, 158, 162, 168, 187, 189, 194 Alpers, Antony, 2 ancestors, 12, 13, 14, 42, 51, 54, 91, 102, 104, 110, 118, 121, 122, 124, 126, 137–38, 139, 143, 169–73, 185, 197, 198, 199; and bringing them to life, 15, 43–45, 53, 80, 110, 117, 122, 137, 141, 157; and oral traditions, 1, 2–3, 14–15, 17–18, 25–29, 30–35, 38–41, 74–75, 81–84, 88–89, 90, 96–101, 105–6, 108, 114, 115–19, 124, 168–69, 170–76, 186–87, 199, 200, 201, 202; and way of life, 20–25, 39–41, 57, 67–69, 72–73, 76, 77–78, 93, 94, 119, 136–37, 143–49, 162, 196; whakapapa of, 13, 19, 42–44, 45–49, 52–53, 56–57, 58–61, 62–65, 66–68, 72–73, 108, 144–46, 160, 178–79; see also Hawaiki, ancestors from; oral society; te ao tawhito; wisdom, inherited and proverbial Aotea canoe, 30, 52–53, 60, 68, 80, 103 appositional expansion, 72, 92, 118, 137, 146–47, 149–50 ariki, see chiefs aruhe (fernroot), 22, 78, 163–64 asides and insertions, 16, 77, 126, 200 ātahu (love charms), 161 atua, see gods and cultural heroes autobiographical and biographical compositions, 11, 30, 47, 155 Awatere, Arapeta, 85, 105

canoes, 22, 28–29, 33, 67–68, 94, 157; as symbol, 107, 161, 167; building and descriptions of, 18, 20, 22, 67, 99, 103, 127, 148; in kōrero, 49–50, 53, 63–64, 69, 79–81, 132–34, 138–39, 173–74, 178; in waiata, 161, 173–74; in whakataukī, 87, 94, 99, 103–4, 105; migrations and voyages of, 11, 17, 30, 47, 53, 67–68, 87, 123–24, 125, 134, 137; see also Aotea canoe; Hawaiki, migratory journey from; Horouta canoe; Māngārara canoe; Tainui canoe; Tākitimu canoe; Te Arawa canoe; Tokomaru canoe carving, as mnemonic device, 1, 26, 48–49, 141 chiefs (ariki and rangatira), 12–13, 174; in kōrero, 29, 39, 120, 123, 138–39, 151; in oral tradition, 11, 18, 19–20, 23–24, 200; in waiata, 153, 156, 160, 161, 166–68, 170, 174, 178, 179, 183–85, 188, 190–93; in whakapapa, 32, 49–50, 53, 54, 55, 56–63, 67, 73–76, 127; in whakataukī, 82, 87, 90, 91–93, 94, 101, 104, 105, 107, 108, 109–10, 111, 113; lists of, 67–68, 73–75, 123 chiefs’ houses, 21, 28, 94 Christianity: conversion of Māori to, 12, 188; editing of references to, 15–16; Māori incorporation of, 82, 162; phraseology from, 12–13, 71, 126, 193–94 chronology and time in oral tradition, 47, 53, 59, 83, 122–24, 143, 149–50; see also kōrero, role of time in cloaks, 22, 68 Colenso, William, 38, 82, 158, 160 colonisation, 2, 12, 96, 200 concision and brevity, of language, 3, 5, 6, 9, 36–38, 40, 45–46, 64, 80, 84, 85–86, 89, 128, 131, 143, 151, 197 contrast, as rhetorical device, 14, 86, 89–90, 93, 126, 140–41, 142, 148, 150, 154–55, 174, 191

Ballara, Angela, 90, 138 Balneavis, Te Raumoa, 88–89, 105, 106 Best, Elsdon, 2, 48, 121, 125, 158, 162, 163 Biggs, Bruce, 3, 16, 17, 35, 36, 47, 63, 66 Binney, Judith, 31, 40–41, 47, 125 bird-snaring, catching and preservation, 18, 21, 22, 26, 35, 112, 136, 175, 188 birds: in kōrero, 118, 120, 124, 129–32, 136; in natural world, 28, 50, 64, 167; in waiata, 95, 120, 160, 165–67, 169, 174, 175, 185; in whakapapa, 66–67; in whakataukī, 94–95, 103, 112, 120, 165–67

245

index crop planting and growing, 18, 21, 22, 46, 67, 78, 79–80, 103, 126, 136, 161, 175, 176; see also aruhe; gardens and gardening; kūmara crops, loss of, 28, 160, 190, 195 Curnow, Jenifer, 120, 126 customs, knowledge and practices: in kōrero, 36, 117, 119–20, 124, 139–43, 196; in waiata, 153, 155, 158, 159–60, 162–64, 168–69; in whakapapa, 47, 48, 56–57, 73–74; in whakataukī, 81, 84–85, 92, 113–14; lists of, 67–68; oral traditions about, 1, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 16, 18, 20, 26, 201; preservation and transmission of, 1, 3, 12, 28–29, 30, 34–35, 37, 45–46, 47–48, 81, 92, 197; see also wisdom, inherited and proverbial dance, 6, 23, 28, 29, 37, 157, 159, 163, 172–73, 178, 185; see also haka; haka pana; peruperu; war-dances darts, 23 Davis, C. O. B., 165, 186, 187–88 descent lines, lists of, 5, 19, 20, 29, 32, 36, 38, 43–44, 45–46, 47–49, 50–53, 56–59, 60–63, 66, 67, 141; see also whakapapa Dewes, Koro, 85, 105 Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, 9 direct speech, 39–40, 113–14, 134–36, 141, 154, 161, 170, 176; see also indirect speech domesticity, as subject matter, 11, 20–21, 28, 90, 93–94, 124, 198 Eco, Umberto, 11–12, 64 Edwards, Viv, 32, 40, 86 elders, see kaumātua ellipsis, in poetry, 70, 167 episodic style, 21, 22, 44, 128 Eruera, Rōre, 123–24 Erueti, Reupena, 55 eye-witness descriptions of early Māori life, 17, 27, 48, 132, 157–58, 159–60, 178 feasts, 21, 23 fiction and non-fiction, 34 fighting and war, 23–24, 28, 29, 39, 44, 68, 89–93, 94, 96, 100, 109–10, 111–12, 113–14, 119, 120, 123, 124, 132–37, 138, 148–49, 150–51, 157, 173, 178, 183–85, 191, 194; lists of, 75–76 figurative language and imagery, 1, 6, 25, 17, 19, 38, 45, 47–48, 52, 65–66, 86, 88, 90, 92, 93–94, 95, 98, 100, 104, 106, 107–8, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113–14, 116, 117, 118, 119, 122, 123–24, 132, 140, 142, 147–48, 150–51, 153, 154–55, 158, 161–62, 165, 167–68, 172, 177, 181, 185, 187, 188, 193, 194, 195, 197; see also symbolism, in oral tradition Finnegan, Ruth, 39 fish, fishing and fishing grounds: in kōrero,

115–19, 133–34, 135, 136, 138–39, 150; in natural world, 64, 167; in oral tradition, 18, 21, 22, 23, 27–29, 36, 46, 72, 78, 113; in waiata, 161, 167, 175; in whakataukī, 94, 111–12 fish-hooks: as mnemonic device, 22, 26; as taonga, 22, 26 Foley, John Miles, 37, 98 food-gathering: seasonal, 21, 22; sites and settlements, 18, 36, 45 food preparation, production and availability, 21, 22, 24, 30, 35, 78; in kōrero, 119, 124, 125, 126, 144–47, 151; in oral tradition, 79–81; in waiata, 164, 175, 185–86, 188–92, 195; in whakataukī, 102–4, 111, 114; loss of, 80; see also aruhe; bird-snaring, catching and preservation; crop planting and growing; crops, loss of; feasts; fish, fishing and fishing grounds; kūmara food stores, see storehouses formulaic language, 5, 36, 40–41, 58, 63, 65, 72, 86–87, 90, 92, 97, 98, 100, 106–7, 108, 109, 110, 112, 117, 118, 128–29, 131, 134, 143, 147, 154, 164–67, 172, 188, 193, 196, 197, 201 fortifications, forts and pā, 18–21, 22, 29, 45, 73–77, 91, 94, 106–7, 110, 111–12, 113, 144–46, 151, 168–69, 173, 176–77, 183–84, 190; lists of, 73, 77 funeral orations and genealogy, 55 gardens and gardening: in kōrero, 26, 28, 37, 45, 126, 142, 144–51; in oral tradition, 26; in waiata, 175; in whakataukī, 79–80, 104; lists of, 45, 76; naming of, 21, 26, 28, 36, 45, 76, 104, 142, 151; see also crop planting and growing gateways, 21 genealogies, see whakapapa gods and cultural heroes, 1, 6, 10, 18, 19, 25, 28, 30–31, 34, 38, 46, 51–53, 56, 64, 65–66, 67, 87, 90, 97–101, 122, 124, 163–64, 170, 196, 201; see also Māui; Papatūānuku; Ranginui; Tāwhaki; Tiki; Tiki-tawhito-ariki Grace, Patricia, 200, 201 Grey, Sir George: addresses to, 107–8, 186–87; collecting and writing of Māori traditions for, 14, 15, 49, 65, 81–82, 101, 106–7, 109–10, 120–21, 127; letters to, 75, 93, 108, 186–87, 192; manuscript and published collections by, 2, 12, 65, 84–85, 108, 120–21, 138, 155–57, 161–62, 164–65, 175–76, 179, 180–81, 182–83, 188, 191, 195; songs composed about, by and for, 157, 192–93, 201 Grove, Neil, 82, 108 haka (dance chants), 28, 157, 159, 163, 173, 178–80, 194, 201 haka pana (offensive dance chants), 163–64

246

index 161, 163–64, 168–76, 192–95; in whakapapa, 56–57 karanga (welcoming calls), 33, 190–91, 201 Kararehe, Te Kāhui, 34, 48, 59, 73, 77, 127 Kauika, Wiremu, 60–61 kaumātua (elders), 2, 3, 7, 13, 16, 19–20, 27, 157; in kōrero, 121–22, 123, 125, 126, 128, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142; in oral tradition, 29, 30, 32, 33, 42–43, 197, 201, 202; in waiata, 163, 168–69, 186–87; in whakapapa, 47, 48, 57; in whakataukī, 83, 90, 100, 108, 111 Kawau, Piri, 52, 65–66, 103, 157 Kelly, Leslie G., 2–3, 123–24 Kereopa, Pūtoto, 110–11 kin, kinship and community, 6, 11, 17, 18, 19, 20–21, 23, 25, 29, 31, 32, 34, 38, 39, 44, 47, 50–63, 68, 70, 75, 93, 105–6, 117, 118, 122, 128, 136, 139, 143, 160, 163, 182, 185–86, 202; see also hapū and iwi; isolation, separation and loss of family; marriage connections Kiriwehi, Wiremu, 126 kite-flying, 23 Kōhere, Rēweti, 15, 83 kōrero (narratives and prose), 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 11–12, 15, 16, 18, 19–25, 26, 27–28, 29, 34, 35–36, 37, 38, 51–53, 54, 58–60, 62, 68, 79, 84–85, 92, 96, 112, 115–22, 185, 186, 196, 198; and waiata, 153, 154, 155, 161, 162, 167–68, 178, 179; and whakapapa, 47, 49, 71, 74, 122, 123; and whakataukī, 83, 84, 86, 92, 113–14, 144–46, 147; composers and composition, 116, 117, 123, 125, 126–27, 128–29, 130–31, 134–36, 137, 149, 162; cosmological, 122; kinds of, 36, 127–28; language of, 39–40, 44, 46, 90, 100, 104, 108, 134, 154, 167; narrative styles of, 128–29, 151, 189–90; of land and landscape, 143–51; role of time in, 149–50; subject matter of, 117, 122–24, 129–51; themes and versions of, 124–27; see also birds: in kōrero; canoes, in kōrero; chiefs, in kōrero; customs, knowledge and practices: in kōrero; fish, fishing and fishing grounds: in kōrero; food preparation, production and availability, in kōrero; karakia, in kōrero; kaumātua, in kōrero; kōrero tara; manuscript books, of kōrero; mythic narratives; origins and ancient life, in kōrero; pakiwaitara; pūrākau; tribal histories, and kōrero kōrero tara (tales, fables), 34, 102, 127–28 kūmara (sweet potato), 22, 48, 51, 53–54; in kōrero, 144–47; in waiata, 175, 192; in whakataukī, 79–80, 103–4, 175–76 Kupe, 13–14, 43, 115–19, 128, 134, 137, 174, 178–79, 181

Haku, Arapata, 133, 134, 136, 137–38 hapū and iwi: and oral tradition, 14, 32–33, 39, 57–58, 83, 88–89, 105, 111–12, 123, 139, 158, 160; establishment of, 11, 68–69; names of, 44, 59, 73, 105; spread of, 19, 50, 70, 72, 121–22; see also descent lines, lists of; kin, kinship and community Harris, Fanny, see Panehārete Harris, J. W., 183 Hawaiki, 126, 128, 134, 135, 136; ancestors from, 19, 56, 61, 74–75, 122, 185; ancestral home in, 1, 5, 11, 14, 56, 76, 87, 96–97, 102–4, 124, 126, 128, 139; departure from, 143; migratory journey from, 1, 30, 43, 53, 68, 74–75, 96–97, 115–16, 121, 132–39; oral histories about, 125 Hetaraka, Merito, 103–4 hierarchy and Māori social organisation, 19–20, 57, 196 Hihitaua, 166 Hinemoa, 54 Hīpango, Hoani Wiremu, 27, 76, 90–91, 201 Hohepa, Pat, 131, 136 Hongi Hika, 90 Horouta canoe, 49–50, 51 Hoturoa (ancestor), 80 indirect speech, 86 Īhenga, 54, 68–69, 103, 110, 174, 202 Ihimaera, Witi, 201 illustrations, 53, 199 innovations and change, to oral tradition, 7, 12, 15–16, 40–41, 46, 62, 77, 82, 85, 87, 88, 121–22, 125–26, 162, 167, 189, 192–95; see also variations and versions, of oral compositions Ira, 139–43, 201 isolation, separation and loss of family, 20, 21, 117, 154, 180, 190, 201 Johansen, J. Prytz, 50, 53, 54–55, 63, 135, 141, 172 Jones, Pei Te Hurinui, 3, 158 Journal of the Polynesian Society, 2, 15, 48, 115, 121, 158 Jowett, 81–82, 156 Jury, Hoani Te Whatahoro, 13 Kae, 188–90 Kāhu, Hoani (John), 77–78 Kahumatamomoe, 54, 68, 103 Kahungunu (ancestor), 57–58 kaioraora (cursing or deriding songs), 159 Kāpiti, Pita, 127, 198 Kapu, 126 karakia (prayers, spells and incantations), 10, 20, 28–29, 30–31, 36, 37, 170–74, 198, 201, 202; in kōrero, 173–74; in waiata, 157, 159,

land: acquisition of, 24, 123, 136–37, 143–51; claiming, mapping and reserving of, 18, 29,

247

index Metge, Joan, 48 migration narratives, see Hawaiki, migratory journey from Minarapa, Taurua Pororaiti, 59, 73, 77, 127 missionaries, 12, 16; see also Colenso, William; Taylor, Richard; Wohlers, J. F. H. mnemonic devices, 27, 44, 48–49, 86, 118, 196; see also carving, as mnemonic device; fish-hooks: as mnemonic device; moko (tattooing), as mnemonic device; weaving pattern, as mnemonic device moko (tattooing), as mnemonic device, 26, 48–49 Morpeth, W. T., 138 motifs, 34, 37, 117, 124–25, 129, 132, 134, 136, 154 mottos, 84, 105, 107, 108 music, 6, 156, 158, 159, 162, 181, 182 mythic narratives, 2, 15–16, 36, 52, 87, 89, 94, 97, 98, 120, 122, 127, 150, 168, 170–72, 173, 196

46, 68–75, 78, 84, 95–96, 139; loss of, 195, 200; love of, 194–95, 202; naming of, 18, 19, 21, 22, 26, 30–31, 36, 68–69, 77–78, 80, 104, 106, 110–12, 115–16, 118, 123, 124, 136, 139; see also boundary delineations and disputes; boundary lists; kōrero, of land and landscape; whakataukī, of land and landscape landscape, as verbal map, 1, 22, 26, 57, 68, 71, 110–13, 136 language loss, 2, 200 list-making, 5, 9, 18, 31, 38, 42–44, 45–46, 47–49, 50–52, 54, 63–64, 67, 68, 73–75, 77–78, 103, 142, 170, 188, 196; see also boundary lists; buildings and resources, lists and names of; chiefs, lists of; customs, knowledge and practices: lists of; descent lines, lists of; fighting and war, lists of; fortifications, forts and pā, lists of; gardens and gardening: lists of; taonga, lists of; transgressions, lists of; weapons: lists of; whakapapa Locke, Samuel, 57

Nahe, Hoani, 121 names, importance of, 36, 67, 106, 110, 142–43, 146, 197; see also buildings and resources, lists and names of; gardens and gardening: naming of; hapū and iwi: names of; land: naming of; personal names, importance and use of; place-names, importance of narratives and prose, see kōrero Native Land Court, 13, 63, 70, 110, 162, 194 natural world: in waiata, 153–54, 167–68; in whakataukī, 93–95, 99, 101–2; see also birds: in natural world; plants, in natural world newspapers, Māori language, 2, 7, 15, 35, 50, 55, 82, 158, 162; see also Te Korimako; Te Waka o te Iwi Ngā Rauru, 30–31, 52, 60–61 Ngāi Tahu, 31, 47, 61, 77, 106 Ngāi Tāmanuhiri, 88 Ngāi Tāwake, 44 Ngāi Te Rangi, 93 Ngāi (Ngāti) Te Whatuiāpiti, 55, 183 Ngāi Tūhoe, 163, 198 Ngāi Tūkoko, 72 Ngāpora, Tāmati, 49, 127 Ngāpuhi, 42, 43–44, 47, 62, 75, 90, 107, 111, 183–84; see also Te Popoto; Te Uri-o-Hua Ngata, Āpirana, 3, 15, 57, 58–59, 82, 83–84, 86, 158–59, 160, 161, 163 Ngata, Wayne, 198 Ngāti Apa, 166 Ngāti Awa, 82, 104, 107–8, 126 Ngāti Haeroa, 59 Ngāti Hauā, 81–82, 120, 156 Ngāti Kahungunu, 13, 14, 31, 57–58, 71–72, 91, 95, 115, 156, 183, 194, 199 Ngāti Koata, 158 Ngāti Kōura, 48

Mahuika, 101, 130 mana (authority, pride, standing), 18, 23, 24, 31, 53, 75, 90, 95, 130, 138–39, 144, 163–64, 169, 174, 186, 194 Manaia, 132–39, 141, 148, 173–74, 187 Māngārara canoe, 127 manuscript books, 2, 3, 5, 7–8, 9, 12–13, 15–16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 25, 29, 33, 35, 199–200, 202; of kōrero, 119–22, 125–26, 127, 129–30, 138, 142, 144; of waiata, 81, 155–59, 160–63, 165, 167, 174–75, 176, 179, 181–83; of whakapapa, 44, 45–46, 47, 49–51, 53, 57, 59, 60–61, 65, 68–69, 71–73, 77; of whakataukī, 2, 12, 49, 81–83, 85, 90–91, 95, 100, 101, 105, 165 marae (ceremonial meeting-grounds), 1, 4, 6, 28, 77, 88, 90, 201, 202 marriage connections, 32, 55, 57–58, 120, 123, 124 Matangirei (house), 30–31 Matewhā, Piripi, 120, 121, 168–70 Māui, 32, 52, 100–1, 116, 125, 126, 129–32, 148, 174, 179, 186–88 Māuipōtiki, 101, 201 Māui-tikitiki-a-Taranga, 93–94, 101 McGregor, John, 157–58, 164, 165, 194 McLean, Mervyn, 3, 158, 159, 164 Mead, Hirini Moko, 82, 108, 199 meeting-houses, 1, 47, 201 memorisation, 2, 3, 6, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 25–27, 29, 31–32, 37–38, 39, 40, 45, 46, 48–49, 50, 62, 65, 66, 71, 74, 78, 81, 82–83, 87, 95, 98, 118, 119, 142, 143, 148, 151, 154, 155, 158, 163, 165, 174, 181, 188, 196–97, 200, 202

248

index origins and ancient life, 15, 18; in kōrero, 120, 122, 126, 129–32; in waiata, 168, 170; in whakapapa, 59, 66; in whakataukī, 5, 83, 87, 96–104, 106, 108; see also Hawaiki; te ao tawhito oriori (instructive songs for children), 57, 67, 161, 166, 170, 185–88

Ngāti Mahuta, 49, 144–45, 147 Ngāti Maniapoto, 79, 153 Ngāti Maru, 79, 106, 121 Ngāti Miru, 113 Ngāti Mutunga, 33, 57 Ngāti Paoa, 191 Ngāti Porou, 13–14, 15, 32, 49–50, 51, 53, 57, 100, 127, 129, 139, 198, 199 Ngāti Rangiwewehi, 14 Ngāti Raukawa, 79, 101, 111, 121, 166, 200 Ngāti Rongo, 59 Ngāti Rongou, 127 Ngāti Tamaterā, 166, 191 Ngāti Tautahi, 90, 110–11 Ngāti Te Wehi, 144–45 Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Toarangatira, 33, 75, 101, 111, 121, 156, 158, 178–79, 188, 200 Ngāti Tūwharetoa, 49, 56, 193 Ngāti Wai, 70–71, 194 Ngāti Waka, 59 Ngāti Whakaeke, 110–11 Ngāti Whakaue, 53, 54, 56, 188 Ngāti Whātua, 109 Ngātoroirangi, 74, 173–74 ngeri (chant), 178, 179 Nukutawhiti, 43 ōhākī (last words of the dying), 55 Ong, Walter, 39, 45, 68, 86, 124 oral composers, 3, 4–5, 6, 7, 9, 13, 20, 21, 26–27, 32–33, 36, 37, 40–41, 196–97, 200, 201; see also kōrero, composers and composition; waiata, composers and composition; whakapapa, composers and composition; whakataukī, composers and composition oral retention and transmission, 13, 14–15, 16, 22, 27, 28–29, 35, 38, 40, 139–43 oral society, 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 17, 19, 25–29, 30–34, 38, 42–43, 45, 47, 63, 65, 68, 71, 74, 81, 84–85, 87, 89, 108, 118, 143, 155, 158, 162, 168, 181, 183, 194, 196–98, 202 oral tradition, 30–34; compositional style of, 3, 4–5, 6, 7, 9, 16, 29, 34–35, 36–39, 41, 45, 196–97; delivery and performance of, 13, 27–29, 36–39, 46, 50, 66, 125, 132, 136, 174, 197; genres of, 4–6, 11, 28, 32, 34, 35–36, 41, 46, 71, 147, 170, 196–98; language of, 1, 3, 32–34, 35, 36–41, 38, 55, 86, 128–29, 151; Polynesian heritage of, 17–18, 30, 34, 136; preservation of, 2, 13, 27, 38, 142–43, 197 orality and literacy, meeting between, 5, 7, 15–16, 34–35, 49, 199 orators and oratory, 4–5, 24, 27, 38, 58, 65, 81, 82, 84, 87, 90, 93, 107–8, 122, 153, 154, 161, 166, 167, 183–85, 196, 200, 201; see also whaikōrero Orbell, Margaret, 3, 69, 83, 122, 125, 126, 158, 165, 167, 181, 190, 195, 201

pā, see fortifications, forts and pā Paikea, 139–43, 201 pakiwaitara (entertaining or amusing stories), 34, 36, 127 Panehārete (Fanny Harris), 181–83 Pango, Hāmuera, 188 pao (witty, topical or jesting songs), 36 159, 164 Papatūānuku, 30–31, 46, 51, 61, 65, 66, 97–99, 100, 169–71 Papatupu Block Committee, 110–11, 113 Parehuitao, 186–88 Pareihe, 183–85 Pātara, Hōri, 156, 163–64, 176 pātere (abusive songs or replies to gossip or complaint), 159, 163–64 patupaiarehe (fairy-like people), 25, 124, 127, 163 pendants, ear and neck, 22, 94 pepeha (sayings, often relating especially to tribes), 79–80, 82, 84, 85, 105–6; see also whakataukī personal names, importance and use of, 20, 27, 36, 39, 41, 54, 55, 59, 67, 110–11, 118, 124, 129, 130, 134, 146 personification, in poetry, 61, 63, 67, 76, 99, 123, 167–68, 176, 187 peruperu (war-dance), 178 Pio, Hāmiora, 82, 87, 126 place-names, importance of, 110, 119, 123, 129, 134, 136–37, 146, 187–88; see also land: naming of plants, in natural world, 28, 94, 101, 167 Pōhūhū, Nēpia, 13 Pokopoko, 109–10 Polack, J. S., 132, 148–49 Polynesian Society, 138, 158 Pōmare, Māui, 86 poetry and poetic language, 9, 35, 37–39, 64, 70, 86, 112, 123, 127, 148, 151, 153, 157, 158, 159–63, 164–65, 167–68, 170, 174, 185, 188, 190, 195, 197–98, 201 Pōrutu, Īhāia, 192 pounamu (greenstone), 22, 75, 106, 107, 178 prayers, see karakia predictions and omens, 20, 84, 92, 96, 113, 114, 180 prophetic movements, Māori, 82 proverbs, see whakataukī published oral literature, 2, 3, 7, 12, 13, 15–16, 48,

249

index 49–50, 55, 62, 82, 87, 108, 129, 138, 144, 146, 155–61, 165, 186, 194–95, 198, 200 puha (chant), 178–79 pūkōrero (scholars, teachers), 19–20, 33, 202 Pukuatua, Pētera, 56, 173 pūrākau (ancient and mythic narratives), 36, 127 Rāhiri, 44 rangatira, see chiefs Ranginui, 46, 51, 61, 65, 97–99, 169–72 Rangipōtiki, 170–72 Rangitāne tribe, 115, 180–81 Raumoa, Te Pamariki, 33, 178 reciprocity, as cultural ideal, 22, 92 Reed, A. W., 2 Reedy, Anaru, 3, 127–28, 198–99 Reilly, Michael, 162 repetition, 9, 31, 37, 39–40, 45, 59, 65–67, 72, 73–74, 80, 83, 86–87, 89, 91, 92, 95, 96, 98, 104, 111, 114, 117, 118–19, 125, 129, 130, 132, 136, 141, 142–43, 147–48, 150, 151, 172, 174, 179, 191, 195, 197; see also formulaic language Rewi, Poia, 198 rhetoric, 35, 39, 95, 123, 160, 162, 187; see also contrast, as rhetorical device rhythm, 38, 40, 43, 49, 54, 56, 60, 62, 64, 65–66, 73–74, 78, 86, 104, 129, 131, 132, 143, 159, 167, 172, 174, 176, 179, 195, 197 Riley, Murdoch, 131 Rīmini, Tīmi Wāta, 126 ritual observances and practices, 2, 11, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26–27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 44, 47–48, 55–57, 59, 90, 94, 99, 119, 122, 124, 154, 160, 162, 164, 169–70, 172–75, 180, 196, 198, 201, 202; see also karakia ritual texts, 15, 28, 32, 63–64 Rongo, 30–31 Rongomaiwahine, 57–58 Rongomaraeroa, 51 Rongorongo, 68, 80 Rōpiha, Hāmi Hōne, 156–57, 160, 181–83 Ruatapu, Mohi, 53 Salmond, Anne, 47 satire and irony, 62–63 sayings, see whakataukī Servant, Catherin, 27, 201 Sharples, Pita, 199 Shirres, Michael, 172 Shortland, Edward, 2, 12, 49, 56, 68, 74, 82, 101–2, 103, 105, 106, 120, 127, 158, 168, 170, 172–73, 188 Sienkewicz, Thomas, 32, 40, 86 slaves and slavery, 20, 24, 55, 190 sleeping-houses, 21 Smith, Ailsa, 34, 126–27

Smith, Judge, 42 Smith, S. Percy, 2, 13, 14, 48, 62, 109, 112, 115, 121, 125, 138, 158 songs, see waiata spear-throwing, 23, 90 Stafford, D. M., 3, 188 storehouses, 21, 23, 76–77 Stothard, Peter, 17 symbolism, 6, 86, 90, 122, 154, 167–68, 172, 185 symmetry and contrastive opposites, 86, 89–90, 92, 93, 96, 142, 148, 154, 174 Taha, Tīmoti, 156 Taharōku, 190–91 Tainui canoe, 49, 53, 79, 80 Tainui tribe, 123 Tākitimu canoe, 127 Tamakaha, 59, 73 Tamatekapua, 53–54, 127 Tāne, 30–31, 51, 56, 60–61, 66–67, 99 Tangaroa, 30–31, 51, 170–73, 174 taonga (prized possessions), 30, 60, 61, 88, 91; lists of, 59–60; see also adzes and axes; cloaks; fish-hooks: as taonga; pendants, ear and neck; pounamu; Te Āwhiorangi Taonui, Āperahama, 42–45, 46, 54, 59, 96 Tapaue, 144–48, 151 tapu (sacredness or ritual restriction), 15, 16, 61, 63–64, 87, 100, 109, 122, 124, 163–64, 169–70, 175, 196; of places, 18, 26, 61, 78, 185, see also ritual texts Tāraia Ngākuti, 190–92 Taranga, 100–1 tau (chant), 92, 156 Tau, Rawiri Te Maire, 3, 31, 47, 122,124 Tautahi, Hetaraka, 30–31, 64–65, 68 Tāwhai, Hōne Mohi, 62–63, 201 Tāwhaki, 100, 103 Taylor, Richard, 2, 12, 15–16, 27, 66, 76, 82, 102, 105, 129–30, 153, 158, 161, 168, 170, 177, 190–91 Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, 201 te ao tawhito (the old world), 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 11, 17–25, 27, 33, 34, 39, 40, 48–49, 53, 55, 67, 71, 78, 81, 83, 85, 87, 89, 91, 92, 95, 109, 113–14, 119, 122, 128, 129, 134, 136, 147, 151, 153, 155, 159, 161, 165, 185–86, 195, 196–97, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202; see also oral society Te Ao, Ringori, 68–69, 74–75, 103, 110, 202 Te Arawa, 14, 53–54, 56, 68, 74–75, 79–80, 107, 109, 110, 180, 186; see also Ngāti Rangiwewehi Te Arawa canoe, 53, 79–80 Te Ātahīkoia, Mohi, 91–92, 183 Te Āti Awa, 33, 52, 107, 108, 133–34, 137, 138, 178–79, 192 Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi, 27 Te Aukamiti, 91

250

index Tregear, Edward, 26, 138 Tremewan, Christine, 3, 173, 180 tribal histories, 2–3, 5, 11, 13, 20, 21, 23, 26, 28, 29, 31–32, 34, 39, 48, 196, 198, 202; and kōrero, 120–25, 127, 143–49; and waiata, 57, 158, 161, 170, 178–79, 185–88; and whakapapa, 42, 44, 46, 47–49, 50–63, 68, 72–75, 78, 112, 123, 134, 141, 142; and whakataukī, 80–81, 83, 88–89, 91–92, 105–14 tribal societies, 19, 21–22, 24, 31–32, 38–39, 47, 123; see also hapū and iwi; whakapapa Tūkura-a-rangi, 183; see also Panehārete Tūmatauenga, 51, 90, 100 Tūnuiārangi, Parāone, 115–19, 128, 129, 137 tūpuna, see ancestors Tuputupuwhenua, 43, 96 Tūrei, Mohi, 127, 198 Turi, 30–31, 52–53, 60, 68, 103, 141, 201 Tūtānekai, 54, 56 tūtū ngārahu (chant), 178 Tutunui (whale ancestor), 188–90 Tūwhare, 111 Tūwhawhakia, Kerehoma, 158

Te Āwhiorangi (adze), 60–61 Te Hākeke, 166–67 Te Heuheu, Iwikau, 49, 193 Te Huhuti, 57–58 Te Huruhuru, 186–87 Te Kanae, Wiremu Naera, 121 Te Korimako (newspaper), 60 Te Mātorohanga, Moihi, 13, 14–15, 202 Te Ngārara, 101–2, 106, 170–71, 173 Te Okawhare, Paratene, 13 Te Paki, 82, 89–90, 99 Te Popoto (tribal group), 42 Te Potikai, 186–87 Te Rangihaeata, 101, 173–74 Te Rangihīroa (Te Rangi Hiroa), 57–58, 65, 82–83, 124 Te Rangikāheke, Wiremu Maihi, 14, 81, 82, 87, 92, 93–94, 97–98, 120, 126, 156, 191, 202 Te Rangitāke, Wiremu Kīngi, 107 Te Rarawa, 113 Te Rauparaha, 33, 75, 178, 179, 188 Te Rauparaha, Tāmihana, 188–89 Te Tahi-o-te-rangi, 126 Te Tai Tokerau, 111 Te Tai, Rē, 113–14 Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori, 8 Te Uira, 153–55, 165, 168, 180, 201 Te Uremutu, Eruera, 53–54, 79–80 Te Uri-o-Hua, 47 Te Waharoa, Wiremu Tāmihana Tarapīpipi, 120 Te Waka o te Iwi (newspaper), 70, 194 Te Wananga (journal), 55, 88 Te Wera Hauraki, 183–85 Te Whakatōhea, 88 Te Whareumu, 183–85 Te Whatuiāpiti, 57–58 Te Wheoro, 144–50 Te Whetū, Kārepa, 158 Te Whiwhi, Hēnare Mātene, 101, 173 thinking and beliefs, 1, 3, 6, 10, 16, 20, 25–27, 34, 47, 64, 71, 76, 81, 83, 87, 96–97, 122, 158, 162, 192, 197 Thornton, Agathe, 3, 13, 63–64, 94, 129, 132, 134–35, 149–50 Tiki, 56, 61–62, 66, 168–70 Tiki-tawhito-ariki, 94 Tinirau, 188–90 Tiramōrehu, Matiaha, 61–62 tohunga (priests, experts), 19–20, 23, 29, 30, 33, 48, 49, 121, 127–28, 170, 174, 177, 185 Tokomaru canoe, 132–34, 135, 137–38 transcription of Māori, 7–9, 16 transgressions, lists of, 68, 76 translation of Māori, 2, 3, 9–10, 16, 34, 65, 84–85, 149, 158, 186–87, 191–92, 198 tree-felling, 21, 22, 67

Uenuku (ancestor, Ngāpuhi), 44 Uenuku (ancestor, Ngāti Porou), 141 Uenukukōpako, 126, 188 Ueroa, 59, 73–74, 77 Uetonga, 94 utu (payment, reply), 23, 76, 91, 135 variations and versions, of oral compositions, 2–3, 7, 15–16, 31–33, 37, 40–41, 43, 46, 49, 52, 53, 54, 80–81, 86–87, 90, 96–97, 102, 104, 106–7, 108, 109, 119, 124–28, 130, 133, 138, 139, 154, 146, 164–67, 172, 178, 180, 181, 182–83, 185, 188–89, 191, 197, 200, 202; see also innovations and change, to oral tradition; kōrero, themes and versions of; waiata, versions of vocabulary, Māori, 33, 36, 47–48, 165, 167 Wahawaha, Rāpata, 48, 53 Waiari, Tamarau, 48 waiata (songs and chants), 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24–25, 26, 27–29, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39–40, 41, 43, 44, 46, 47, 49, 55, 57, 58, 61, 68, 71, 86, 99, 125, 127, 128, 132, 147, 152–55, 196, 198, 201, 202; and whakataukī in, 83–84, 85, 86, 94, 99; composers and composition, 81, 94, 134, 153–54, 155, 156, 157, 158, 162–65, 167, 181, 183, 185–86, 188, 189, 190–91, 192–95; kinds of, 159, 168–92; language of, 39, 84, 90, 93–95, 96, 100, 134, 151, 153, 164–68, 172, 188, 193; performance of, 172; recited waiata, 168–80; sung waiata, 180–92; use and subject matter

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index in whakapapa; kaumātua, in whakapapa; kōrero, and whakapapa; manuscript books, of whakapapa; origins and ancient life, in whakapapa; tribal histories, and whakapapa whakataukī (proverbs and sayings), 1, 4, 5, 11, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 26, 29, 32, 34, 35–36, 37, 38, 41, 47, 67, 68, 79–84, 125, 137, 147, 156, 162, 179, 192, 196, 201; composers and composition, 81, 85–87, 92–93, 94; in waiata, 189–91; kinds of, 84–85, 127; language of, 85–87, 167; of land and landscape, 110–12; subject matter of, 87–114, 122, 130, 136; see also birds: in whakataukī; canoes, in whakataukī; chiefs, in whakataukī; customs, knowledge and practices: in whakataukī; fish, fishing and fishing grounds: in whakataukī; food preparation, production and availability, in whakataukī; kaumātua, in whakataukī; kōrero, and whakataukī; manuscript books, of whakataukī; natural world: in whakataukī; origins and ancient life, in whakataukī; pepeha; tribal histories, and whakataukī; waiata, and whakataukī in; whakapapa, and whakataukī in; wisdom, inherited and proverbial Whanganui river and tribes, 27, 74, 75, 76, 111–12, 126, 157, 158 Whare (Wharetīpeti), 144–48, 151 whare wānanga (school of higher learning), 13–14, 22, 28, 31, 76, 141, 142, 202 White, John, 2, 12, 15, 42, 120–21, 129, 144, 146, 158 Wi Hongi, Wiremu, 47 Williams, H. W., 80, 88 Winiata, Maharaia, 68, 71 wisdom, inherited and proverbial, 3, 5, 11, 14–15, 23, 27, 36, 37, 38, 39, 83–84, 87, 88–91, 92–93, 197, 199; see also whakataukī Wohlers, J. F. H., 61 women: and composition and knowledge of waiata, 163–64, 180, 181–82, 190–91, 194; and composition and knowledge of whakapapa, 49; and composition and knowledge of whakataukī, 83; in oral traditions, 24, 32, 64, 123, 125, 153 wrestling, 23 writing, and oral traditions, 2, 3, 5, 7–8, 9, 12–13, 14, 15–16, 26, 30, 34, 35, 37, 42–43, 49–50, 53, 65, 77, 81–82, 87, 91, 92, 116, 119, 121, 125–27, 143–44, 149, 155–56, 157, 158, 160, 163, 199–201

of, 117, 118, 122, 130, 132, 136, 153, 159–62; versions of, 164–65; see also ātahu; birds: in waiata; canoes, in waiata; chiefs, in waiata; customs, knowledge and practices: in waiata; fish, fishing and fishing grounds: in waiata; food preparation, production and availability, in waiata; haka; haka pana; kaioraora; karakia, in waiata; kaumātua, in waiata; kōrero, and waiata; manuscript books, of waiata; natural world, in waiata; origins and ancient life, in waiata; oriori; pao; pātere; puha; tribal histories, and waiata; tūtū ngārahu; whakaaraara pā; whakapapa, in waiata; whakataukī, in waiata waiata aroha (songs of love), 36, 117, 153–54, 159, 161, 165, 180–83 waiata tangi (laments), 55, 152–55, 159, 161, 166, 180, 188–92, 201 waiata whakautu (songs of reply), 159, 183–85 Waiaua, Rāwiri, 107 Waikato tribes, 79, 82, 92, 144, 157 Waionui, Tūtangē, 158 Wakaotirangi (Whakaotirangi), 53–54, 79–80 Wakefield, Edward, 27–28, 67, 178, 201 war-dances, 24, 179, 183–84, 185; see also peruperu war-parties, and oral tradition, 24, 29, 75, 109, 111–12, 113, 123, 148, 160, 173, 176, 178, 180, 183–84, 190 weapons: and oral tradition, 22, 124, 138, 148, 161, 177, 178, 187; lists of, 135 weaving, and oral tradition, 35, 93 weaving pattern, as mnemonic device, 26 whaikōrero (oratory, speeches), 4, 27, 37–38, 201; see also orators and oratory whakaaraara pā (watch-songs), 159, 176–77 whakapapa (genealogies), 1, 4–5, 11, 12, 13, 19, 20, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32, 34, 35–36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42–46, 47–49, 50, 55–61, 80, 81, 84, 86, 98, 106, 108, 113, 121, 122, 125, 127, 134, 136, 137, 138, 141, 143, 147, 150, 158, 160, 161, 162, 163, 167, 170, 186, 187, 188, 196, 201, 202; and whakataukī in, 86, 87–88, 97, 100, 101–2; composers and composition, 43–45, 46, 47, 51–53, 58, 62, 64, 67, 71, 77, 185; cosmological, 63–67, 97–98, 122, 142; in lists, 67–78, 83; in waiata, 170; see also birds: in whakapapa; chiefs, in whakapapa; customs, knowledge and practices: in whakapapa; descent lines, lists of; fish, fishing and fishing grounds: in whakapapa; karakia,

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