Kupu whakaata

Tu Tangata, Issue 27, 1 December 1985, Page 46

Kupu whakaata

na, Arapera Hineira Blank

He Whakaaro Ke, Barney Pikari, Harry Walker, Vern Winitana, Angela McGregor, Robyn Kahukiwa. A group of four Maori writers and an artist have put together a book He Whakaaro Ke. They have had their work published in the Porirua Community Newspaper, Te Awa-iti over several years and this book is a gathering together of various articles that have appeared in this time.

The writers have sought to gather their own funding to publish the book and hope to have it out in the new year.

“As a group we believe that when we agreed upon this collective project to collate our work into this book our ideals were based solely on the chance to write and paint in part about the Maori experience.

“This is not to be interpreted to voice or speak for all Maoris but illustrate the Maori perspective from another point of view, by using this forum and platform to do so we are on two points highlighting a written point well over due and a written defense against white writers who have merely interpreted Maori expression, our writing is at least in total and raw.

We are independently minded in our writings, each coming from four different aspects of lifes' experiences but sharing a common goal with Maori related issues of social and topical interest. The biggest plus of our work is

that our writings are not murdered through ignorant editing therefore keeping our own individual Maori compassion in content.

To have four Maoris writing in the same community as against none speaks for itself in saying that we know we must help ourselves to help others reach for that, though we appreciate of course having a regular column, to express a Maori point of view and grow from. We point out though that our community newspaper needed us also to grow from.

The need for more Maori recognition of this type of assertive literature is a must, our over all oppressed state of mind has badly ham-strung the Maori written expression. Our social conditioning state of mind shows we do not use the written word to any advantage or comprehend and appreciate that power, instead relying on the oral tradition (or is it that we are simply subjected out of this system).

The lack of written criticism on Maori issues for example in support or otherwise is quite obvious, letters to the editor in main stream newspapers shows up that Maori unwillingness to express a written point of view. At the moment we don't even encourage that, preferring to leave this undermining weakness where it is, perhaps this work may correct that, we hope so because we have nothing to lose but those chains."

The Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse Editors: lan Wedde and Harvey McQueen Price: $24.95

It’s worth paying that much money on such a book. It’s one of the best anthologies I’ve read. I think what made it better was the combination of Maori and English verse. Side by side, the different languages complemented each other rather than one drowning out the other.

It featured great artists like and indeed leaders such as Te Puea Herangi, Tuini Ngawai, Hone Tuwhare. And it also featured younger artists, Pita Sharpies, Keri Hulme and Hirini Melbourne. The wairua right throughout the book was deep. Those people had definite messages they had to get out to the public and they’ve done it through their work.

“Inaianei kua Kite ahau kite minamina Koe Ki te pirangi Koe Ahakoa wawata noa Me kai kia ki Engari kia tika te Haere!”

For the poems and waiata that couldn't be translated by the original author, the editors have used what professional advice they could muster from Margaret Orbell. They have

acknowledged that translating these verses were difficult when out of context. For example:

MATAI RORE AU Matai rore au kite taumata, Te ngakau whakapuke tonu Me aha iho ka mauru ai, Whiuwhiu kei te muri, kei te tonga? (tribe unknown)

In her introduction, Margaret Orbell writes: “Maori poetry was generally inspired not by success and happiness but by sorrow and loss; great men, for example, were praised in song only after they had died. But these songs were composed as a positive response to unhappy circumstances, a way of dealing with them.’’

This is illustrated in waiata throughout the book. “He tangi mo Tawhiao”, “Tangi a taku ihu”, and other laments and waiata aroha.

Even for those who are not poetrybuffs, I’d recommend this book.

The Birth of Maui Te Whanaunga Mai o Maui

Glenda Kauta. Reed Methuen. $7.95

He aha te mea nui/Ma wai/ Ko au tenei/Ahakoa he iti

Patricia Grace and Robyn Kahukiwa. Longman Paul.

Nga Tupuna

Life in Maori Communities 1200-1769

Kathryn Rountree. Longman Paul. $5.95.

The first book reviewed is by a Maori woman in Christchurch, Glenda Kauta who has taken the Maui story and retold it with some changes. In this version Maui’s mother is Taronga not Taranga and baby Maui is raised by the sea god Tangaroa himself rather than an old tohunga.

The maori language translation is by Maraa Te Tai from Te Rawhiti.

This book, along with many now pouring from the publishing houses is aimed at providing bi-lingual books for young readers. Unfortunately the level of the maori language is too advanced for children whose first language is english.

The story will appeal to young readers but the placing of english and maori on each page will most times mean the maori gets overlooked in the attempt of explaining what is happening in the pictures. Only a reader confortable with expressing themselves in maori language and thought will get the most from such a book.

With my own children, I found it hard to resist persistent calls in english to read the english. At least with other

books with maori language only, the reader and the listeners both have to make an attempt to understand and enjoy the story on the basis of maori thought as expressed in the reo. A completely different series of maori language books are the four ones by Pat Grace and Robyn Kahukiwa. The thought pattern expressed gets across well a Maori view of life. For example Ko au tenei starts with a picture of a mountain and the words, ‘Ko taku maunga tenei’. It moves through the river, the town, the marae, the wharenui, the whanau and then finally with ‘Ko au tenei' rightly places the individual in the order of things. Similarly He aha te mea nui points to the importance of people over things, while at the same time covering in word and picture some things like lollies and icecream that children may think they can't do without. Following on from an obvious market in maori language books to the increasing market for Maori topics is Nga Tupuna. It’s aim is to fill the large gap

in the New Zealand education curriculum where taha maori now officially sits. In keeping with this the author has prepared background notes for teachers and suggested further studies. As a further book explaining New Zealand’s past, Nga Tupuna helps fill in this gap and will be welcomed by teachers who've been told to teach taha maori but who don’t have the resources to do it. Unfortunately for Nga Tupuna the knowledge contained will probably not move on to understanding, without the addition of people, the human and spiritual resource. As the books introduction says, ‘the most important things of maoritanga today have come from nga tupuna.' But then it goes on to say, ‘one way to find out about the past is to ask archaeologists. They can tell us about the food, tools and houses of Maori communities hundreds of years ago...’ ‘This book is about what they tell us of life in Aotoearoa’.

So you see the pakeha way of seeing the past as a science to be interpreted and the Maori way of facing the past as the foundation for today and tomorrow is once again unreconciled. Nga Tupuna is not actually about our ancestors of which we are the living embodiment, but about archeologists’ views and guesses of how they lived. For $5.95 our children may receive more knowledge about their country’s roots but it will do little to still the increasing backlash that says “why do we have to be always preoccupied with the past”. That can only come with seeing today’s Maori as being the tangata whenua as well as Nga Tupuna.

Syd Melbourne songs on cassette through Replay Radio , Box 2092, Wellington. Hirini or Syd Melbourne must be one of the most under-rated Maori contemporary composers, at least to the majority of New Zealanders. His importance as a song-writer is confined when Maori radio stations take to the air, as they are increasingly doing now. Syd Melbourne songs like Te Kopere and Tihore Mai are well-known along with his children’s songs as on the Trees Birds and Insects cassette.

This latter cassette along with Hinepukohurangi, a cassette with 18 songs dealing with contemporary issues concerning maoridom, has been joined by two more.

One is an interview from an on-air radio programme about how Hirini composes his songs. This is a delightful way to understand the insights of Maori thoughts about Aotearoa. Hirini, helped by patient questioning, explains how he interprets the sounds and movements of everything from insects to steel-wheeled animals like a train.

His song about a glow-worm, titiwai, took a long time. The tune was longest, as most often it’s the words that come first, says Hirini. It’s these words that show the genius of the writer, the sound of the song’s subject being emphasised in the caressing of vowel sounds and the stressing of pauses. Indeed. Titiwai Kowhitiwhiti sounds as though it was composed in a glow-worm cave like Waitomo.

The second cassette, Ruatoki Children Sing Songs by Syd Melbourne, is a welcome treat, with renditions of earlier songs like Whiti Te Marama. Newer songs like Te Whare Whakahirahira stand out with the simplicity and power of the lines: Ko rangi nui e tu ake nei hei tuanui, Ko Papatuanuku e takoto nei hei whariki, Ko te reo me nga tikanga hei tahuhu, Ko te iwi hei poutokomanawa. Let the sky be as a roof over us, the earth as a mat on which we stand, the language and tradition shall be a ridge pole, and the people the heart < supporting the house.