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This action song is a tribute to Rima Wakarua of Nukumaru.
He worked to obtain compensation for confiscated Taranaki
lands, and then use the money to develop cultural projects.

Footnotes 1 E Waka e! With a capital W. This is not "E waka e" "Oh canoe" "Waka" is a nickname for Rima Wakarua. At Waitotara, his Nga Rauru people sing this song more intimately as "E Rima e!" 2 Tēnei o tamariki. (Literally "This is your children") Rikihana noted the apparently irregular grammar, and suggested that you sing Ēnei o tamariki (These are your children). But Matara Matawene was proficient in the language, and composers of waiata often used abbreviations to fit the beat of the song. Is this a shortened form of something like "Tēnei te ahunga o āu tamariki'? 3 Matua-kore-tia is a good example of of compound word formation. Matua - father, kore -without, tia - passive verb, to become. Performance This is a classic waiata-a-ringa that was widely performed at Maori concerts in the 1940-50-60s. Its performance was fully described in in 1960 in Ngata and Armstrong's Maori Action Songs. E Rima e!  - Kei whea rā koe? Anei o       - tamariki E mahi nei - i nga mahi Ki runga o  -  te motu nei. Kātahi nei rā te aroha e Ka ata rā nō ngā iho Ka matuakoretia3 to iwi e, Ki runga o te motu nei. Oh Waka! Where are you? Here are your children working here on the projects you started all over this land. Now flourishing is the love formed there thanks to your core qualities. Your people are fatherless throughout this land. Tune Notice the simplicity of this music. It only uses the three bottom notes of the octave, Doh, Re and Me, here sung as D, E and F sharp. On Record 1953 - Music of the Maori people of New Zealand, Ngati Poneke, 78  1960 - E Waka E / E Tehia,  Apaapa Sisters - 45 1960 - E Waka E / Pa Mai, Peter Posa - 45 1966 - The magic of Maori songs, Polynesian Studies Group, LP  1987 - The musical moods of the Maori, St. Joseph's Maori Girls Choir, LP  1998 - Waiata aroha, Maori songs of love, St. Joseph's Maori Girls' Choir, CD  2001 - Ko Ngati Poneke Hoki Matou, Ngati Poneke Young Maori Club, CD Rima Wakarua Rima Wakarua belonged to Ngā Rauru, descended from Rauru Kiitahi, a man of his word (born around the 1700's). There is a legend that Ngā Rauru are descended from the Kāhui Rere, the people who can fly. Their waka is the Pahitonoa and they are said to have been here before the waka Aotea arrived. Rima was born in the late 1870s of mixed Maori-Pakeha descent. No details of his whakapapa, early life or education have been found on public record. In formal inscriptions and documents he was often referred to as "Rima Whakarua." (Whakarua is a stormy north-easterly wind, and is pronounced "wakarua" in south Taranaki). A review of these formal documents outline his rise to leadership. In 1897 we find the name of 19-year-old Rima Whakarua added to the list of guardians in the lease of blocks of tribal land. In 1902, 23-year-old Rima Whakarua was named the Waitotara representative of the Taranaki Maori Council, and in 1906 he was elected as a member of the Taranaki Maori County Council. Note that the pony he rode in horse events at the 1904 Wanganui A & P Show was named "De Wet".(General De Wet was a rebel leader in the 1901 Boer War.) In 1907, as Rima Whakarua, he was awarded 50 shares, worth 18 Pounds per year, in the West Coast Settlement Reserves from the government. In the 1920s Rima Wakarua became a follower of Wiremu Ratana who in 1918 had formed a religious and political movement committed to a Maori national identity, self-determination and the redress of grievances over loss of land A 100 Pound ($10,000) Rima Wakarua Memorial Scholarship was established for Taranaki students in 1938. The National Library website has a photo of a young Maori man with "Rima Wakarua" written on the negative, although his whanau say this is wrongly labelled and is actually a photo of Rima's older half-brother Te Iwiora. Today Taranaki Maori rugby teams still play for the Rima Whakarua Memorial Shield and the Rima Whakarua Cup. Taranaki Maori Trust Board The "West Coast Settlement Reserves" fund was poorly administered and in 1927, after pressure from Maui Pomare and Sir Apirana Ngata, a government commission instituted a yearly payment of £5,000 to be applied by a Board for the benefit of members of iwi whose lands were confiscated. As a result, the Taranaki Maori Trust Board was set up, with Rima as a member, and his nephew Wi Wakarua (1902 - 1964), as secretary. In 1931 Rima stood (unsuccessfully) for a seat in parliament. In 1934 Rima was made chairman of the Trust Board. Described as a born leader, Rima was instrumental in getting trust board monies used for building meeting houses, dining halls and other amenities that would provide a long-term cultural benefit for West Coast iwi. Payments from the government had become sporadic after the great 1930 depression, and when the economy began improving in 1935, Rima led a deputation to the prime minister seeking a doubling of the annual payment from 5000 Pounds each year to 10,000 Pounds. One Pound was about one day's wages, about $100 today, so he was asking an increase from about $500,000 to $1M at today's rates. In March 1936, Rima was part of a delegation to meet the new Governor General, Viscount Galway, and they discussed how to encourage the growth of the Maori people's culture and ideals. Then six months later Rima was dead, at the age of only 58. His death was widely mourned. There is no inscription on the concrete covering his grave at Nukumaru. His wife is buried nearby. His obituary mentions that Kuke, his wife, was the only daughter of Hetaraka Tautahi and that Mr. W. Wakarua was their only son. (Wi Wakarua is called his nephew in some articles) Rima and Kuki also had two daughters, Mrs. Reno Tomo and Julia Wakarua. Hetaraka Tautahi Rima's father-in-law, Hetaraka Tautahi of Nga Rauru, was descended from Turi of the Aotea canoe through males, all elder sons, and was the authority on the subject of the Aotea. In 1897 he dictated signifiant information to Rima and other Nga Rauru elders about the history of the Aotea's voyage. Rima later allowed some of it to be published in this 1935 volume of the Journal of the Polynesian Society. The original handwritten 1897 manuscript is now in the archives of the National Library. Thus the name of the Aotea's anchor was Akiaki-whenua, its anchor-rope was Wharona-o-te-rangi and bailer Te Ririno-o-te-rangi. Turi's paddle was Te Roku-o-whiti and his spear Te Anewa-o-te-rangi. Te Awhiorangi Rima Wakarua also became custodian of the ancient greenstone adze Te Awhiorangi that had been brought to Aotearoa in Turi's canoe Aotea, the canoe having been made from a tree felled with this adze. This adze had been hidden by Rangi-taupea eight generations previously, in a tree at Ototuku near Waitotara, and had been found again in 1888. It was made of a striped reddish stone. Te Awhiorangi provided the pattern for all axes in this land. The axe had been passed down by the line of elder sons from Tāne-toko-rangi down to Rakau-maui, and from him to his great grandson Turi, who brought it across the seas in the “Aotea” to New Zealand. Turi bequeathed it to his first-born son, Te Hiko-o-te-rangi, and from him it descended to Rangi-taupea, who hid it in his sacred mountain of Tieke, at Moerangi, as related in the following fragment of an old song:— E amo ana a Rangi i tana toki, Ko Te Awhio-rangi E whiri ana i tona kaha. More details are in the Appendix at the bottom of this JPS article. Maori songs - Kiwi songs - Home Webpage put onto folksong.org.nz website April 2012; corrections made in Nov 2012, Reformatted for small screens April 2022