MAORI POET

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 891, 31 August 1956, Page 17

MAORI POET

ANYONE who has even a. slight acquaintance with Maori culture knows of its long lineage. Even before the first English version of the Bible, Maori poets in a land which Europeans hadn’t heard of were composing laments that were poignant and expressive, and direct and economical in their communication of severance and grief. This Maori tradition has persisted, even though it is now embodied in a new form, the action song, which was born at the time of the cultural tevival stimulated by the Young Maori Party. In a talk, Tuini Ngawai, to be heard from 2YC at 8.18 p.m. on Wednesday, September 5, and later from other YC stations, Eric Schwimmer, the editor of the magazine Te Ao Hou, talks about the action song and its outstanding modern exponent, Miss Tuini Ngawai, of Tokomaru Bay. Miss Ngawai belongs to Te Whanauarua Tauperi, a sub-tribe of Ngati Porou, She wrote her first song"He Nawe Kei Roto"’-in 1933, a conversation piece between two lovers, which was performed informally as an entertainment action song at the opening of the meeting house at Tokomaru Bay. Since then she has written over two hundred original songs-songs on love, death, religion, songs of welcome and of everyday things-which are performed by hundreds of groups all over the country. Tuini Ngawai sometimes composes her own music, but more often uses existing melodies. Mr. Schwimmer says of this much-criticised aspect of action songs that "Miss Ngawai uses the popular hits because they suit her purposeto bring her message to the people of her own Tokomaru Bay, people who love musical hits and like to have them mixed with the traditional feelings, phrases and dances." Three of Miss Ngawai’s compositions are played in this programme-a welcome of war veterans to the marae, written for the Ngarimu hui, a welcome to the Queen, composed for the Royal Visit, and one of her most famous compositions, The Shearing Song.