NEW  ZEALAND
FOLK * SONG
Kikiki Kakaka
Ka Mate
1. The Ka Mate chant
2. The Ka Mate actions
3. Responding to Ka Mate
4. Historic AB warcries
5. Haka of the 1924 ABs
6. Haka of the 2005 ABs
7. NZ rugby songs
8. What is a haka?
9 Ka Mate's ancient origins
10 Ka Mate to Kikiki
11 Te Rauparaha's haka
12 Te Rauparaha's life

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An intimate wedding night chant

Kīkiki, kākaka
Kīkiki kākaka, kau ana.
Kei waniwania taku tara,
Kei tarawahia
kei te rua i te kerokero!
He pounga rahui te uira ka rarapa;
Ketekete, kau ana,to peru kairiri:

Mau au e koro e.
Ka wehi au ka matakana.
Ko wai te tangata kia rere ure
Tirohanga nga rua rerarera,
Nga rua kuri kakanui i raro?

Ka mate! Ka mate!
Ka ora! Ka ora!
Tenei te tangata puhuruhuru
Nana nei i tiki mai whakawhiti te ra!
Upane, ka upane!
Whiti te ra!

(J. Te H. Grace)

Murmuring within bracken walls,
Closeted love-talk, baring all.
When my pubic mound is brushed,
then the mound divides
forming a pit in the crease!
Forbidden mysteries are revealed in a flash;
surprised, naked, flushed with passion:

I am seized by desire,
although apprehensive, wary.
Who is the person wanting to slide his shaft
to investigate the thigh-girt depths,
the musky hairy depths below?

Oh! Oh!
I'm dying, dying
No, I'm alive, fully alive!
This is a virile man
who is bringing harmony and peace!
Together, side by side,
we can make the sun shine!

Translation

My apologies for any errors in the translation of this important text. Other writers who are far more knowledgeable in Te Reo have published books about Kikiki, but only one of them has given a translation, and that was a translation of Te Rauparaha's very much altered 1820 adaptation of it. Hopefully this attempt to show the beauty of a near-forgotten literary and cultural treasure will inspire others to make more polished translations.

James Cowan, who spent his 1870s childhood on the edge of the King Country and who was a fluent speaker of Maori, informs us that Kikiki Kakaka was used as a wedding and peacemaking song, and on examination we find it contains sexually explicit phrases that would be used in a intimate wedding-night song; kau, taku tara, tarawahia, rere ure.

So the method used in translating this chant was to use Williams’ dictionary and the Whakareo online lexicon to find out whether other phrases might also be metaphors for a story of developing sexual intimacy. These phrases were noted.

Kikiki = indistinct, murmuring, an idiot, stuttering => love-talk.
Kakaka = bracken stalks, or a wall made from them.
Kau ana = alone, quite bare, naked.
Tara = mountain peak => genitals, pubic mound, spike, penis.
Pounga = eclipse => hidden => mysteries.
Te uira ka rarapa = "the lightning flashes" => revealed in a flash of light.
Peru kairiri = "fullness of eyes and lips when angry." But the emotion here is lust, which produces the same facial expression as anger.
Mau au e koro could mean "I'm caught up by desire, by a noose, or by an old man." Obviously the first is what is intended here.
Rerarera is in no dictionary, but is presumably an adjective from rera = thighs. So "nga rua rerarera" = the thigh-enclosed cavities?
Kuri (adj.)= musty => musky, not a dog.
Kakanui
= an inferior fern-root. Instead of being floury when cooked, it is fibrous and bristly, rather like coarse pubic hair.

Ka mate, ka mate. In the context here it seems to refer to the loss of bodily control at sexual climax, scary when it happens the first time.
Ka ora, ka ora. In this context, post-coital bliss.

Sources

Sir John Te Heuheu Grace, Tuwharetoa: the History of the Maori People of the Taupo District, 1959

James Cowan, (Tohunga), "The Wisdom of the Maori," The New Zealand Railways Magazine, 1 Feb 1935.
In the 1930s the Railways Magazine filled much the same intellectual role as the NZ Listener does today in the 21st century.