30 Poetry in Maori: Genres, Language of a People

Mr. Sayantan Mondal

epgp books

 

About the chapter:

 

This module attempts to briefly outline the poetic tradition among the Maori people of South Pacific. It needs to be stated at the beginning that there remains a scarcity of available materials on Maori poetry. Though colonised for over centuries, Maori poetry has its similarities and uniqueness as a culture of its own. In this module, we will try to introduce different debates and organised nuances that are involved in the making and evolution of the Maori Poetic tradition. It will be also our aim to present the diversity of the poetic culture that exists in the Maori tradition and also briefly introduce the poets of the modern generation.

Content: 

 

Explicating the role of poetry, songs, rhymes in the maori life, Sir Apirana Ngata, in the 1959 introduction to his collection of maori poems recollected a significant anecdot from his early pakeha schooldays. To his young mind the english schooling system impressed for ever the difference between maori and the pakeha methods. “Thus begun the process of absorbing knowledge by eye, by reading on blackboards or books, by associating sounds with letters, by making all calculations in writing. But our teacher, a Mr Green, who achieved great success at waiomatatini and at waiokouaiti at the sounth island, resorted now and then to the ancient polynesian method of teaching through the ear. We sang the multiplication tables up to twelve times twelve, in chorus. The singing or recitation worked to a climax, so that passers- by, our parents and elders, suspended their work or journey, untill the crashing finale: ‘Tuero tamu tuero a hanarete who te who!’” From oral to visual, the journey towards new knowledge for a maori child was thus embedded with a sense of loss and distance from their own heritages. However, the sense of this immeasurable loss had to wait at least a century to express itself through maori poetry and till then it remained camouflaged in the discovery journals and transactions of the white pakehas who painstakingly collected thousands of maori tracks, classified them and attempted to make meaning of it. A glimpse of such endeavour can be found in W. Colenso’s 1881 article which began emphatically claiming  that, “It may truly be said that the New Zealand poetry is, or was, part of their daily life. Whatever differences in taste might 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.”

 

The case of maori poetry, therefore, is not that of a unrelatable wonder. On the contrary, being a part of the spectre of commonwealth, locations like ours, that is, India too offers us many examples where vernaculars were rediscovered by the English like the language of the maori. An oral polynesian literary culture with its plethora of songs for different aspects of life, maori poetry, in this context, presents us with an opportunity to attempt and understand its evolution under settler colonial regime.

 

The early English scholarship emerged around the late nineteenth century in the form of journal articles, collection of songs. what came out rather overwhelmingly from these early scholarly works was an uneasiness of the writers, researchers of the time to deal with the range of poetry maori traditions had to offer. Consequently, though the place of poetry in the everyday life of maori people became quite sensationalised, there was no comprehensive, systematic knowledge about it. Classifications piled up ranging from lullaby, dirges, war songs, canoe songs, love song, hymns, ritual songs and so on. Till the first half of the twentieth century at least, We only had a rough albeit a romantic picture of a community which uses nursey ditties and jingles to amuse its children, historical tales to inform the youth, songs of encouragement after the hard work of the day, rowed their canoes with songs in their lips and so went to the wars and to the graveyards to bury their loved ones (Coleson). However, by the middle of the twentieth century as a number of maori people, efficient in the pakeha (English) knowledge system, came up with their own collections and explanation, the old romantic picture got turnished a bit. For example, Sir Apirana Ngata provided only four broad categories of songs or poetry in his introduction to Nga Moteatea composed in 1928 and they are – 1) Lullabies, 2) Laments, 3) Patere (abusive songs and kaoraora, song of defiance) and 4) Love songs. However, he also mentioned that this classification does not include another set of five groups, such as – Ruri (ditties), Mata (Prophetic songs), Ngeri (chants), Haka (posture dances), Karakia (ritualistic chants).

 

Lullabies, as a genre, is a geographical and genelogical one. On the birth of a new member of the family, the elder, generally the grandmother is tasked with composing one lullaby. And that composition includes the family history, who were they, where did they come from,which all places the family traveled. The new born is often mentioned in the composition as a relative, not only of the family but also of the lullaby. It shall also be noted that tales of war in which the family had been invovled also gets a place in such compositions as well. Let us take the example of one such lullaby by Hinekitawhiti. However, before that let us consider the  family chart in fig: 1.

Hinekitawhiti is the grandmother of Aotawrirangi. And another granddaughter of the family is Tangitoki, who is another relative of the song. And the song begins – ‘May you be set apart, as is fitting for a descendent of Tuariki/ May you be set apart, as is fitting for a descendent of Porouhorea’, and goes on the give details of the family travels and history.

 

Laments, on the other hand, is an all-comprising genre. The songs that have survived till the later times, after the death of the persons for whom it was wwritten, dies or kiled, all fall in the category of laments. They are also very significant repository of the old maori words and ancient sayings. Some of the famous laments are – lament by Turaukawa, the high priest of Tranaki and lament by Rangiuia, the last high priest of Te Rawheoro, a place of ancient maori learning in the east coast of New Zealand.

 

The group of songs known as patere are topical in nature. It involves insult, drogatory references, challenges to one another, and often abusive language and refrences to shameful past defeats. They are different in their tonal quality as weel. Compared to laments or love song songs, these are faster and are accompanied by lot of body movements, gestures, stares and facial expressions. According Apirana Ngata, another group called poi songs are also part of patere. Poi songs are sung by women

generally who indulge in the game of poi (a small ball at the end od of a rope). These songs refers to genelogical details, historical or spiritual queries about oneself. An example of this type is the poi song – Patere of Erenora.

Swing afar my poi,

skim onward my poi,

upwards the heights at Otairi

and there drew night unto patea.

 

(from Patere of Erenora; translation by David Simmons)

Expressed in a lyrical manner and composed of some of the most intriguing maori language phrases, love songs are a rare specimen. The scarcity of this genre is due to its transitory nature. A number of these songs vanished with the death of the composer. However, some do remain and are compiled. Some scholars, including Sir Apirana Ngata opined that these songs also contained a lot of unrefined, coarse phrases. He also suggested that such an occurance is not surprising considering the time and its antiquity. However, in later translations most of such so called aberrations were purged. The following is an excerpt from a love song. The authorship of the song is disputed. However, Ngati Pikiao, a sub-tribe of Te Arawa claimed the authorship.

“…and our embraces will be binding,

for my charm drew at midnight

the hill standing there in the distance,

Te Tara above and Tauwhare below,

where I was wont to dwell;

and my head was wreathed in mist,

wafted by the warm westwind,

which blew toward the dwellings’ door.

Now I adjure you, Hoki, to take back word,

I will follow the current to hades,

Lest I be too near to regard,

the barrier separating the loved one,”

 

(Translation by Apirana Ngata)

Apart from the above mentioned broad categories there remain a number of the songs and the latest of them being the slam poetry which is currently one of the most popular genres of poetry within maori New Zealand. Amalgamating the old trends with the fierce new words, this new genre of the maori poetry world aims to attack the stereotypes about them and presents a fresh new vision by declaring that they are ‘a diffrent brown’. Among the practitioners of slam maori poetry Te Kahu Rolleston, Sheldon Rua have made notable contributions in the recent times.

 

The traditional forms of oral poetry remains the major source of maori poetry, such as – waiata ringa ringa, waiata tangi, waiata aroha, oriori, karakia, haka and whaikorero.  However, writing words down in a different language and different forms had been the imposed reality in which the Maoris are living since 1850s. And such contact zones have given birth over the years new genres which added to the existing traditional ones and so evolved the language of maori poetry. Maori writing is described as ‘the pou tokomanawa of New Zealand literature, meaning heart of the house. However, most of the maori poets, writers refers to a word ‘whakapapa’.Whakapapa literally means placing in layers, figuratively it stands for the history of the ‘iwi’ people, their fight and survival which is ingrined in their language, stories, poetries. And that is where lies the connection between the people and its language, beyond detatchment. In poetry, that knowledge remains absorbed in relational terms, place names, which in turn works as a reminder to its people, of its history, of battles, genocides. And with the tonal variations, along with the body gesture and graphic metaphors, maori people have weaved a world of their own words away from trespassers. However, in someway though such organic bond between the people and the language, as reflected in the poetry, safeguarded a system of knowledge but also created a few layers of obstacles for the coming generations of maoris who are bound to English education for their career. Memoirs, anthologies of maori work, like that of Apirana Ngata’s is no exception in this regard as it laments over the deccaying knowledge of maor among the new generations. Fortunately, a new door seems to have opened as well in such curious times and made the maori language travel far with English/pakeha. And the goal was as always to reclaim ‘a Reo all your own’ since ‘Language doth but / Clothe in artifice our passion,’ writes Ngata. The following lines from the poem ‘ A Scene from the Past’ by Apiarana Ngata, gives vents to this anxious  growth of the language and the culture brilliantly as it says –

There the old pa stands to-day

Where the mountain, clad in koukas,

Bends with gentle slope and fondly

Show’rs kisses on the stream.

Rippling, laughing, winding, moaning,

Hies she on to join the ocean,

Emblem of a race that’s speeding

Sadly onwards to oblivion.

The earliest maori poem published in English was written by Apirana Ngata.It was Ngata who collated hundreds of annotated songs in te reo rangatira, culminating in the pre-eminent anthology Ngā Mōteatea. Though he worked on this collection for deaceds, it was finally anthologised for the first time in 1959 and was followed up by several volumes. Before that however, his research and findings were serially published in the Journal of the polynesian Society from the beginning of the twentieth century. Another significant collection Into the World of Light came out in 1982. So was the significance of multi-volume Te Ao Mārama which was published between 1992–96. Through such publishing activities and growing english education, genrations of new maori poets emerged and with them a large array of works. Some the poets whose work has established maori poetry on the firm footing in the world stage would be – Hone Tuwhare, Robert Sullivan, Witi Ihimaera, Haare Williams, J. C. Sturm, Trixie Te Arama Menzies, Keri Hulme, Roma Pōtiki, Hinemoana Baker, and Phil Kawana, Hawai‘i- based poet Vernice Wineera. Vernice Wineera is also the first maori woman to publish her poetry.

 

A Brief note on the Poets:

 

Vernice Wineera was born in Wellington and grew up at Takapuwahia Pa, Porirua. She was educated at Sydney Girls’ High School and Wellington Technical College. In 1978 the Institute for Polynesian Studies published her first book of poems, Mahanga, and in 1979 the Polynesian Cultural Centre published Ka Po’e o La’ie, an anthology of La’ie poetry which she edited. Vernice was awarded the 1980 South Pacific Festival of Arts Literature Prize for her poetry collection. (https://www.komako.org.nz/person/1439)

 

Hone Tuwhare was born Oct. 21, 1922, Kaikohe, Northland, N.Z. and died in Jan. 16, 2008, in Dunedin, New Zealand. He made an international impression and became the first widely celebrated Maori poet with his initial collection, No Ordinary Sun (1964). His poetry, written in English, has a conversational tone and incorporates both Maori and biblical rhythms; the subjects range from the political to the personal and often powerfully evoke the beauties of nature. No Ordinary Sun won Tuwhare a fellowship at Otago University in 1969. He published Come Rain Hail (1970) and Sap-wood and Milk (1972) and then helped organize the first Maori Writers and Artists Conference (1973). Some of his later works include verse collections like, Shape-Shifter (1997) and Piggy-Back Moon (2001). (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hone-Tuwhare)

 

Robert Sullivan, Ngapuhi, is a poet and academic. He is a significant internationally published Maori poet with seven collections of poetry released. His poetry is also widely anthologised. Sullivan’s writing explores dimensions of contemporary urban experience, including local racial and social issues. His writing has a postmodern feel, where history and mythology, individual and collective experience, become areas of refined focus. Sullivan’s work has won or been nominated for many awards and he is an editor of the online journal, Trout. His first collection of poems is Jazz Waiata (1990) and it was followed by Piki Ake which appeared in 1993. (http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writer/sullivan-robert/)

 

Roma Potiki, Te Rarawa, Te Aupouri, Ngaai Rangitihi, is a poet, playwright, performer and commentator on Maori theatre. Potiki illustrated her first collection of poems, and has work displayed in the permanent collection of the Dowse Gallery in Lower Hutt. Her poems ground personal emotion in observations of the natural world. Attitudes based on race and gender are challenged and politicized by Potiki, and she is known to use ironic, dogmatic or  acerbic voices and devices to confront these attitudes. Potiki’s poems are in the Oxford (1997), Te Ao Märama and other anthologies, while the refrain of her poem ‘and my heart goes swimming’ became the title of the anthology of New Zealand love poems edited by Jenny Bornholdt and Gregory O’Brien in 1996. Her collection Stones in Her Mouth (1992) articulates intense feeling across a versatile range of forms and tones. At their best, the poems ground personal emotion in a strongly observed natural world, as in love lyrics like ‘flood me’, poems of feeling like ‘change’ (‘ to earth / to heal / to return’), or nature poems like ‘the flax’ (‘the smell is someone weeping / fresh life. / the coarse roots hold / round earth / intend to stay’). By contrast there are poems which depend essentially on the rhetoric of an ironic, acerbic or dogmatic spoken voice, usually of political anger, especially directed at racist and gender attitudes (‘white boys’, ‘change is necessary’). A set of six broadsheet poems was published               by                  Wai-te-ata     Press,             Roma    Potiki   (1996). (http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writer/potiki-roma)

 

Hinemoana Baker is a poet, musician and playwright. Her writing has featured in anthologies and literary journals, and her first collection of poetry, Matuhi / needle, was published in 2004. Baker studied Mā• ori as an adult and her love for te Reo comes through in her poetry. The poems unite observations and experiences of childhood, family, emerging sexuality, politics and culture. Hinemoana Baker was appointed 2009 Arts Queensland Poet in Residence, and she performs regularly as both a poet and a singer-songwriter. ( http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writer/baker-hinemoana/)

 

Phil Kawana is a short story writer, poet and performer. Before Kawana published his first collection of short stories, Dead Jazz Guys (1999), he had twice won the Te Kaunihera Māori Award for best short story in English by a previously published Maori writer in the Huia Short Story Awards. His writing has been anthologised and Kawana has appeared in a number of literary festivals and events, in schools, and on radio and television. Kawana’s first poetry collection, The Devil in My Shoes, was published in 2005 (http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writer/kawana-phil/)

 

Apirana Taylor, of Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, Ngāti Porou and Ngāti Ruanui descent, has published six collections of poetry, four short story collections, two novels, and three plays. He has also been included in multiple anthologies and has published prolifically in other mediums, including sound and video recordings. He writes for children and the theatre, and is involved in acting and teaching drama. Taylor’s first collection of poetry, Eyes of the Ruru, established his powerful voice among Māori writers. Published in May 2017 by Anahera Press, Taylor’s latest publication is his novel Five Strings. In 1972 Taylor published his first collection of poetry, Eyes of the Ruru with Voice Press. The Oxford Companion to New Zealand notes this volume ‘established [Taylor] as a powerful voice among Māori writers.’ Peter Simpson described the poems of Eyes of the Ruru as ‘raw, powerful and angry,’ which presented ‘a Māori voice utterly different from the lyricism and gentle ironies of Hone Tuwhare’ (Evening Post, 14 February, 1997). (http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writer/taylor– apirana/)

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