Performances by Acknowledged Experts

The songs transcribed are not only authentic examples of their kind but the performances are authoritative ones by acknowledged experts. The transcriptions in this issue, for example, are of songs recorded for the writer by Turau and Marata Te Tomo at Mokai on 10th September 1962. Turau Te Tomo belongs to Ngati Raukawa and Ngati Tuwharetoa tribes and his wife Marata belongs to Ngati Tuwharetoa and Ngati Maniapoto tribes. As a singing team they have few equals. Between them they have recorded over 50 songs for the writer.

Of the songs which follow, ‘E Pa To Hau’ is a waiata or sung type of chant and the ‘Wairangi Haka’ is recited.

Varied Repetition of Basic Melody

In common with other waiata, ‘E Pa To Hau’ uses as a formal principle the varied repetition of a basic melody. The transcription is so arranged that each repetition of the basic melody fills one line of manuscript. This makes it easy to see correspondences between lines. The beat is not regular' as in most European music but is organised sometimes in units two quavers long, sometimes in units of three quavers. Great care should be taken when reading the transcription that a two is not inadvertently read for a three or vice versa.

The note D in this version is decidedly variable in pitch, sometimes appearing as D-flat, sometimes D-natural and sometimes in between. In seems likely that it was intended to be flat throughout.

Since there is no melodic organization in the haka it has been transcribed as a series of rhythm patterns only, without any attempt to show pitch beyond the occasional use of arrows to show upward inflection of the voice.

Great Uniformity Between Versions

The haka has been given in two versions to illustrate the great uniformity that exists between versions when a song is well sung or recited. The only real differences to be seen

here are the occasional pauses for breath in the solo version and the shift of stress by one beat in the group version due to the impetus of the foot stamping employed.

The solo version was recorded from Marata Te Tomo and the group version can be found on Side 1 band 6 of the Ethnic Folkways library L.P. recording, FE 4433 ‘Maori Songs of New Zealand’, recorded by the New Zealand Broadcasting Service in co-operation with the Department of Maori Affairs.

Already Widely Known

Both of the chants selected for transcription are widely known and are already being performed outside their tribal boundaries. ‘E Pa To Hau’ is especially popular in the Waikato and the ‘Wairangi Haka’ is most often heard in the Tuwharetoa tribal district. The Tuhoe people have a different air for ‘E Pa To Hau’ but the melody given here is the one most usually heard elsewhere. Both songs have been several times published.

Books Where Words Have Appeared

‘E Pa To Hau’ is No. 71 in ‘Nga Moteatea’ part one, edited by Apirana Ngata and Pei te Hurinui. It can also be found in ‘Te Manukura’ Maori newspaper 1:9:16, in ‘Te Waka Maori’ Maori newspaper 10:1:9 and in John McGregor's ‘Popular Maori Songs’ Supplement No. 1 (1898) 17.

The ‘Wairangi Haka’ can be found in ‘Te Ao Hou’ 2:21, in the Journal of the Polynesian Society 19:197–205, in Leslie Kelly's ‘Tainui’ (1949) pp. 127–131, and the last verse beginning ‘Puhi kura, puhi kura’ appears in Elsdon Best's ‘Tuhoe’ Vol. 1 (1925) 567, in John White's ‘Ancient History of the Maori’ (1887) Vol. V: 79, in the Journal of the Polynesian Society 12:44, and in John McGregor's ‘Popular Maori Songs’ (1893), 127.

In the transcriptions, conventional notation is used with the addition of the following signs: