Originally
a young man's lusty courtship song. The first verse is now a
cheeky party song.
And a modified WWII chorus is now an international children's
song, Epo i tai tai e.
He pūru taitama e
He pūru taitama hoki!
He pūru taitama
He pūru tukituki
He pūru taitama e.
Ka haere tāua e
Ki runga Otaki hoki.
Kei reira tāua
whaka-rite-rite ai
whaka-oti-oti ai e.
(I'm)
a strong young man!
A strong young bull!
A vigorous lad!
A rampaging bull!
A husky young man!
You and I are going
way beyond Otaki.
And there we
can make arrangements
to make things final.
In
1909 Kingi Tahiwi was working for an
Otaki law firm. He wanted to marry a very attractive young
Maori woman, Jane Armstrong, but he was just an office
worker, and there was much competition for her favours
from the physical young farm workers in the area. So to
remind her he had a capable young male body, as well as a
bright mind, he wrote this song, putting it to a very
energetic brass band tune.
..........
G He pūru taitama e C He pūru taitama G
hoki!
He pūru taitama D7 He pūru tukituki
He pūru taitama G
e.
A Ka haere tāua e D Ki runga Otaki
A hoki.
Kei reira tāua E7 whaka-rite-rite
ai
whaka-oti-oti ai A
e.
He
pūru goes public
This
frankly sexual, but serious, song remained private
until Kingi's brother and sisters, The
Tahiwis, started singing jazz songs that were
more sexually explict than previous morality allowed.
In 1930 their recording of He pūru Taitama was
distributed by Parlophone, and quickly taken up by
other bands.
Later the same year, it was recorded as a jazz tune on
a short movie film made at Whakarewarewa by Epi
Shalfoon and the Melody Boys.
World War
Two
During
World War 2 Les Cleveland collected many NZ soldiers' songs,
including this bawdy variant of E pūru Taitama sung in Italy
by Maori infantrymen.
E pō i
taitai e!
E pō i taitai e!
E pō i taitai,
E pō i tukituki!
E pō i taitai e!
At
night up high!
At night up high!
At night up high!
At night, thrusting!
At night up high!
When
I phoned Les in 2005, he said he had no further details
about that song, because a German shell had blown up his
notebook! But postwar usage indicates that the soldiers
probably used it as a salty commentary after less explicit
love songs.
My guess is that the soldiers were adding this salty chorus
to sentimental songs like Lili Marlene, to describe what
"Lili" was usually waiting for.
"Underneath
the lantern by the barrack gate,
darling I remember the way you used to wait...
E po e taitai e! E po e taitai e!
E po e taitai, e po e tukituki..."
Certainly
the chorus was used that way by Pakeha soldiers who brought
the song back from Italy with them. Al Young recalled how,
as a young boy in 1950, he heard ex-servicemen in Otago
singing...
Close
the door, they're coming through the window
Close the window, they're climbing up the stairs
Close the roof they're coming through the ceiling
Those Ta-ta-ta, Ta-ta, Ta-ta, Ta-ta are everywhere.
E po i taitai e! E po i taitai e!
E po i taitai, e po i tukituki!
E po i taitai e!
...
no doubt recalling how they were overwhelmed by sexually
starved young women when they returned home to Otago after
six years away at war.
And the Tararua Song Book (1971) shows that the Tararua
Tramping Club had long for many years been singing
"Hepurutai" (sic) as a salty chorus after a maudlin
hillbilly song.
Nobody
else could love you better than I
You'll be sorry by and by.
Hepūru tai tame e
O hepūru tai tame ono.
Hepūru tai tama, hepūru tuki tuki
Hepūru tai tama e.
He
Meriana
Toby
Rikihana also gives a boisterous third verse to the song
He
meriana e
He meriana hoki
He
meriana
I to wahine pai
E romiromi ana e
Making
merry
really merry.
Making merry
with your good lady.
Squeezing each other.
He
pūru for teenaged girls
But
other users were sanitizing the song. In his 1964
instruction book, Maori Games and Hakas, Alan
Anderson offered it as a poi song for young women to sing
...and made it socially acceptable by giving it a
misleading translation.
He
pūru taitama e
He pūru taitama hoki
He pūru taitama,
He pūru n'Otaki
He pūru tukituki e!
"I'm a
young playboy
Very much a playboy
A young playboy,
A playboy from Otaki
Full of the joys of life."
Armstrong
says that the above lines were sung as part of a medley in a
poi item, with the performers then switching without pause
to
Toia mai
te waka e te iwi e
Nei te ara pai kumea mai
Kaua ra e pehi kino te purei
To koutou hoa ra i enei takiwa.
Row
the canoe everybody
Willingly along the path of duty
Don't let troubles upset you
We are all friends together.
Many
Maori songs with good tunes and simple words are sung in
the Pacific Islands, as part of tourist entertainers
repertoire, including in Hawaii. And from there,
misspelled as Epo i tai tai e, it spread as to
Girl Scouts all over the USA, who were told the tune was a
native American Indian one, meaning I will be happy.
(Happy indeed, thrusting all night!!!)
It was also sung in French Polynesia, and collected there.
In 1996 it was published in a French songbook, "Chansons
d'Ailleurs" ("Songs from elsewhere") as Epo e Tai Tai e.
It has now been published all
over the world in collections of international
children's songs.
In
2004, the leader of Swiss children's choir "Siyabonga"
found the 1960s version of "He Puru" in Anderson's book,
and had his choir record a version of it.
T?t? Touretua
But
He pūru is not being taught to seven-year-old Maori
children. When I asked older Maori people, they recognized
"He pūru Taitama's" sexual meaning, and said it was a
"cheeky party song."
And
in the 1980s, the Kahurangi Maori Dance Troupe
revived "He Puru" in its original gendre as a male
sexual display.
They presented it as a long sticks action song for
young warriors, a tītī touretua, similar to
the willow wand dance of the pūru English Morris
dancers shown here.
English
Morris tītī
touretua !
And
one young man from Ruatoria, a Maori-speaking community on
the isolated East Coast, volunteered a version he and his
mates sing there at parties.
Purari
pukumimi e
Purari pukumimi hoki.
Ka inu waipiro
Ka kai tarukino
Hoki titahataha e.
My
bloody bladder
It's ready to bloody burst.
When y'drink booze
And do drugs
Y'get really lop-sided.
Publication
of He pūru Taitama
1930
78 rpm
1964 Songbook
1966 LP
1966 LP
1966 LP
1968 LP
1968 LP
1969 LP
1970 LP
1971 Songbook
1987 Cassette
1998 Songbook
1996 CD
1998 CD
2002 CD
2004 CD
The
Tāhiwis
Maori Games and Hakas
Maori Songs I Love - Barbara Ewing
A treasury of Maori songs
Inia Te Wiata - Festival of Maori Song
The Voices of Mokoia (He
merihana e)
Haere mai
Discovering New Zealand
New Zealand's Maaori Theatre
Tararua Tramping Club Song Book
Kahurangi Cultural Group
Waiata Maori - Rikihana (He
merihana e)
He koha waiata: St Joseph's MGC
Enchantment of the Maori
Aotearoa our country, our songs
SiyaBonga (Switzerland)
Kingi
Te Ahoaho Tāhiwi was born at Otaki in 1883. His father,
Rawiri Tāhiwi, was of Ngati Raukawa, and his mother,
Keita Koa (a.k.a. Keita Pera / Kapu Meaha), was Te
Arawa. Here is their family tree Whakapapa
It
was a musicaly inclined family, with Kingi's parents
being involved in both brass band and choral activities.
Kingi's sister Hopaea Tāhiwi was the organist at
Rangiatea Church for 40 years, and Weno Tāhiwi was a
noted pianist and mezzo soprano.
Weno,
with her brother Henare and sister Hinehou, became well
known in trans-Tasman music circles as The
Tahiwis. You can hear the three of
them singing He pūru Taitama and other songs on
an archival CD of their 1930 Sydney recording session.
See here
Kingi
was educated at Te Aute College from 1896 to 1901, and
then joined the staff there for another five years,
after which he worked for the Otaki office of a
Wellington law firm as an interpretor. It was during
this period he wrote He pūru Taitama.
In 1915 he was appointed to the Native Department as
clerk and interpreter, and in 1922 was appointed to its
head office in Wellington, where he was interpreter on
many occasions to the prime minister and many members of
Parliament. He continued there until his death in 1948.
A rugby and hockey enthusiast, he was a provincial rugby
referee, and later manager of several touring Maori All
Black teams in the 1930s.
Kingi
composed his music with the aid of a five-string banjo,
and then other musicians adapted his music for the
piano.
Kingi
Tahiwi's most-sung composition today is 'Haere ra e
Hine'. Other compositions of his include 'Aue
e te iwi e', 'To ringa e hine', 'Kaore
he wahine', 'Takiri atu takiri mai', 'E whiti te
marama', 'Ka marangi te wai' and 'Hinemoa',
and he also composed Maori lyrics for Brahms Lullaby, He
moe r? te tau.
Ng?ti P?neke Young M?ori Club
In
1937 Kingi Tāhiwi founded the Ngati Poneke Young Maori Club,
and became its chairman and choirmaster. He had a reputation
for proper dress and behaviour, and for instilling those
same values in young Maori.
Many young Maori people moved to Wellington, first in a
trickle during World War I, then in a rush to the
employment which followed the government decision to
undertake heavy manufacturing after the Second War.
The Ngati Poneke Young M?ori Club flourished during World
War II. It provided a meeting ground for Maori in the
capital, and in the club put on regular concerts for
American servicemen in Wellington.
(P?neke => Port Nicky => Port Nicholson =>
Wellington Harbour)
The
Tahiwis - Historic 1930s Recordings
The
Tahiwis - Historic 1930s Recordings: Te Whanau Tahiwi
(Atoll CD and Turnbull Library, 1998)
In 1963 a complete (and pristine) set of original 78 rpm
recordings of the singing and playing of Henare, Hinehou
and Weno Tahiwi were found in a private collection in
Australia. These old discs were originally recorded in
Sydney for Parlophone in 1930.
Twenty-two
songs were transferred from them to a tape, which was then
placed in the Turnbull Library for long-term preservation.
In the 1990s Jonathan Dennis and Horiana Joyce worked with
Wayne Laird of Atoll Ltd
to digitally remaster the tape recording, so that new
generations could hear this taonga. Surface noise was
reduced wherever possible, while every effort was made to
faithfully reproduce the character of the voices as they
were captured in 1930.
Neither
Kingi nor his brother and sisters ever made their living
as singers, song writers or entertainers, but they left
behind a rich musical legacy.
This
operatic aria is a later and serious example of Matua
Tahiwi's writing.
During
World War 2 Les Cleveland collected many NZ soldiers' songs,
including this bawdy variant of E pūru Taitama sung in Italy
by Maori infantrymen. 
It
was a musicaly inclined family, with Kingi's parents
being involved in both brass band and choral activities.
Kingi's sister Hopaea Tāhiwi was the organist at
Rangiatea Church for 40 years, and Weno Tāhiwi was a
noted pianist and mezzo soprano.