NZ Folk Song * Paikea

Tinirau

Polynesians have had whales as voyaging companions for thousands of years. There were perhaps 200,000 whales in the Pacific, before European whalers arrived.

The oldest whale stories involve Tinirau, (Tini Rau, Kinilau, Sinilau, Tinilau) the god of the whales, who could appear as a terrifying fish with its mouth wide open and ready to devour its prey, or as a handsome young man. Tinirau had a wife called Hina who was a goddess of the Moon. Pantheon.org

In later stories, Tinirau was a chief who had a baby son, Tutunui. He threw the child in the sea and it became a whale. The wicked Kae asked Tinirau for a ride back to his village on Tutunui, and when he got there, he killed and ate Tutunui. Tongatapu.net.to

And today this has been sanitized as a children's story. Tinirau is chief with a pet whale which takes him on adventures to other lands and safely home again.

Notice how these stories have been transfomed from great myths (expressing the deepest fears, conflicts, and ideals of the Polynesian people), to a soothing story about a "real" person.

So is Paikea a real person?

Is Kahutia-te-rangi/Paikea a real person? I think he is a real person the way Kupe, or Robin Hood, or Mary Magdalene are real persons. Each of these is the composite of several historical people, and their stories help us face our fears and shape our ideals.

God of Sea Monsters

Note the ideas associated with Paikea: in older Polynesian societies, Paikea is the god of sea monsters, the son of Rangi and Papa. Crabs are called paikea in the Cooks and pai'ea in Hawaii, and humpback whales are called paikea in NZ Maori dictionaries.

In older Polynesian societies, myths about Paikea personify the awesome endurance of creatures that challenged and survived the stormy seas - crabs surviving hurricanes in the tropics by clinging to drifting logs, and humpback whales heading down into the roaring forties every summer.

There are several different local variations of the Kahutia-te-rangi story-

after a hurricane, he makes a raft out of debris,
or he chants a karakia which enables him to swim a long distance to shore,
or he rides in a waka named after a whale,
or he becomes one with the spirit of the whales,
or he rides on a whale,
or he is a whale,
or he is a taniwha.

And in each variant of endurance at sea Kahutia-te-rangi becomes known henceforth as "Paikea" = "Mr Endurance." See below

Many believe that Paikea is a real person who truly rode on a whale from Eastern Polynesia to the East Coast. We need to understand the perspective from which this a real person's true story.

Two Ways of Thinking

We humans have two ways of thinking:
Literal - "left-brain" - step-by-step logic, grasping one little bit at a time, and
Symbolic - "right-brain" - intuitively grasping whole ideas all at once, by the association of images and patterns.

Older societies used both literal and symbolic thinking.

Westerners' Literal Thinking

But in our Western society, the Greek/Roman founders of our culture concentated increasingly on literal, step-by-step, cause-and-effect thinking. ( - using the left side of the brain). This gave us Greek logic, and Roman roads, and geometry, and geography, and technology and ultimately this internet communication. The downside of all this is that we tend to pull stories apart and judge each detail as a literal fact.

We Westerners have largely lost the ability to understand symbolic reality. This has led to some strange reults:-

Early Pakeha "scholars" distorteded Maori voyaging stories to produce a Great Fleet as "factual history" Details
Creationists have tried to prove that Bible stories are objective accounts of historic events.
Older kids are unable to believe that Father Christmas really brings them presents.
The annual Father Christmas ritual acknowledges and deepens parents' love for their children, and that parental love is real and true.

Polynesians' Symbolic Thinking

Symbolic reality involves the intuitive association of ideas through images and patterns. (The right side of the brain is used for this.) Here-and-now truth is conveyed by vivid analogies in the stories we Westeners call myths. But we literal, left-brain-using Westerners analyse mythic stories as if they were distorted histories of events long ago, far behind us, instead of seeing them as analogies exploring our own here-and-now fears, conflicts and ideals.

However Polynesians of a millenium ago still had well-exercized symbolic thinking. They saw ancestors as being in front of them, leading them. Life on their little tropical islands was physically comfortable - always warm, plentiful food, few enemies - but boring. To live life to the full, challenges were needed - what is beyond the horizon? "Let's follow Maui and pull up another island!" Achieving that reality, I think, is what pushed them across the Pacific.

In Tahiti they could voyage west back to Rarotonga, and home again; voyage north to Hawaii, and home again; and they would eventually get east to South America, and come home with kumara; ...

But south...???

There was obviously land to the south west, because millions of birds were seen migrating down there each spring and back from there each autumn. But their waka ran into bone-chilling prevailing sou-westerly weather when they tried heading south. They were confronted by stormy seas, they were soaked by frigid waters, they were decimated by hypothermia. How many never came home?

The Medieval Warm Period

But about 1000 years ago there began a time of global warming, the Medieval Warm Period.
And with warmer waters to sail in, some made it to New Zealand, and back again.
Over the next couple of centuries others followed.
Then the climate cooled, the route was blocked off again.
And by then kumara had been brought from South America (before 1250 AD).
So how could you get the kumara down to New Zealand? Impossible!

Whale Migrations

Unless you went with the humpback whales? Every August, an estimated 120,000 of the humpbacks started arriving at the warm sheltered lagoons of the South Pacific so the females could give birth.

... breaking the force of the waves.

Every October they headed south, slowly, protecting their babies from killer whales on a 5000 km journey to the Antarctic feeding grounds. They travelled in pods, the big old bull whales in front breaking the force of the waves. They came down past the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand in November, using the shallow bays as protection against killer whales.

If you got the breeding whales familiar with your presence in the lagoon over a few seasons, and if you built a waka the size of a whale, and if you travelled south in the middle of a migrating pod, then you would be sheltered from those bone-chilling waves all the way to the east coast of the North Island of NZ.

Note:- It would have been difficult to go back north to Eastern Polynesia in convoy with the whales. They fed all summer in the Antarctic Ocean, straining huge mouthfuls of krill from the rich waters there. (Two tons per whale, per day, for three months). Then, fattened with blubber, the 30-ton animals would depart northwards again up the Tasman sea.

They then sheltered in NZ coastal waters from May onwards by cruising down past Kapiti island, Cook Strait, the east coast of the South Island, and to Foveaux Strait - presumably those waters contained krill or schools of small fish at that time of year. Then in August the whales left via the Chatham Islands for the tropical Polynesian Islands again. Tony F

Pōpō

Look at this oriori chant "Pōpō," a story for children of pre-European-contact times about bringing kumara from Hawaiki.
It also includes details about beaching whales and about Paikea.

Popo! E tangi ana Tama ki te kai mana!
Waiho me tiki ake ki te Pouahaokai,
Hei a mai te pakake ki uta ra
Hei wai? mo Tama!
Kia mauria mai e to tipuna, e Uenuku!
Whakarongo! Ko te kumara ko Parinuitera.
Ka hiki-mata te tapuae o Tangaroa,

.....Ka kia [e] Paikea Ruatapu i te tama meamea,
Ka tahuri i Te Huripureiata,
Ka whakakau Tama i a ia.

Hush, hush! The boy is crying for food!
Let it (the kumara) be fetched from the Poua-hao-kai,
And the whale be driven ashore
As milk for the boy!
Let it be brought by your ancestor, Uenuku!
Listen! The kumara is Parinuitera.
The footsteps spell of Tangaroa is begun

....When Ruatapu was called a bastard by Paikea
He overturned Te Huri-pureiata,
And (Paikea) recited a spell to make himself swim.

As the Paikea waiata says:-

Whakakau Paikea....Whakakau he taniwha,
Ka u Paikea ki Ahuahu.
Kei te whitia koe ko Kahutia-te-rangi.

Paikea emerges....A sea-monster is coming ashore,
Paikea lands at Ahuahu.
Your identity is entwined with Kahutia-te-rangi.

The personality of navigator Kahutia-te-rangi became 'entwined with' (whitia) the whales in which the spirit of the taniwha Paikea dwelt, and so the spirit of Paikea dwelt in Kahutia-te-rangi too. And the kumara reached New Zealand.

The Truth in These Stories

But this attempt of mine to connect up historical details is just minor left-brain stuff.
When you hear people from the East Coast of Aotearoa proclaim...

"Ko Paikea te tipuna taniwha tangata."

...they are proudly acknowledging, in vivid symbolic format, that...

"...our Polynesian ancestors lived life to the very edge by venturing far across the deep and distant waters,

...they succeeded in their ventures because they strove to become at one with the great animals of the deep ocean,

...and these ancestors are still there in front of us, calling us to follow their example, until we also achieve one-ness with other creatures."

Another version of this Song

There is an old haka taparaha Uia mai koia, telling of the origins of the Arawa people of Rotorua.

Uia mai koia, whakahuatia ake
Ko wai te waka nei e?
Te Arawa!
Ko wai te tohunga o runga?
Ko Ngātoro-i-rangi! Ko Ngātoro-i-rangi!

Whakakau Tainui, hei!
Whakakau Mataatua hei!
Whakakau Tokomaru hei!
Ka ū Te Arawa ki Maketu, pakia!

Ko Tama-te-kapua te tangata o runga
Me ai tō ure ki te ruahine
a Ngātoro-i-rangi
Nana i noho te kei o te waka,
Aue! Aue! Ka raru koe 'Toro e.

Ask me and I shall declare
What is the name of the canoe?
It is Te Arawa!
Who is the high priest aboard her?
Ngātoro-i-rangi! It's Ngātoro-i-rangi!

The canoe Tainui glides along, hei!
The Mataatua glides along, hei!
The Tokomaru glides along, hei!
And the Arawa lands at Maketu. Slap!

Tama-e-Kapua is her commander
and he is intimate with the wife
of Ngātoro-i-rangi
who sits in the stern of the boat,
Alas! Alas! You will be troubled, 'Toro.

Ngātoro-i-rangi was the navigator of the waka Te Arawa.

Some say the the Arawa Uia mai koia was modified in the 1870s to become the haka taparaha Paikea telling of the Ngati Porou people's origins. Other sources say the Te Arawa version was copied from the Ngati Porou version.

During the First World War (1914 - 1918) the words of the Paikea haka were made less direct - ai tō ure was changed to awhi o ringa - the actions were adapted to music in waltz time, and it was performed as an action song, as above. (Ngāta & Armstrong, 1960)

The many Paikea stories

Paikea was a very important ancestor of the East Coast tribes.

Ngati Porou especially
also the Poverty Bay tribe of Rongowhakaata
and Ngai Tahu, who later migrated to the south.

Paikea is also an ancestor in stories of the Cook Islands and the Society Islands (Tahiti etc.)

1. Te Matarohanga -Tahiti

As recorded from Moihi Te Matarohanga, Paikea did not land at Ahuahu in New Zealand, but in Hawaiki where Ahuahu was the site of Te Pakaroa, the Pa of Ira and Ruawharo.

Smith quotes Moihi Te Matorohanga as saying that the Ahuahu island mentioned in the traditions is Ahuahu Island near Te Pakaroa district of Whangara in Tahiti. S. Percy Smith, The Lore of the Whare Wananga, 1913

Note:- If we look all these accounts in a left-brain way, as literal history, then Kahutuia Te Rangi was tipped out of a canoe by his half-brother at Whangara near Tahiti, swam to nearby Ahuahu Island, migrated to Mauke in the Cook Islands, married, was once again tipped out of a canoe, by a storm, and rafted to Mangia.

Then instead of returning to his deeply devoted wife Kea, he changed his name to Paikea and migrated to Aotearoa in another canoe which tipped him out yet a third time and he arrived here in Aotearoa riding on a whale.

He landed here on another offshore island also called Ahuahu, married a second time, then travelled by whale to Whakatane, married again, and finally travelled by whale again to another place called Whangara where he married a fourth time, to a sea-captain's daughter.

3. Mauke - Northern Cook Islands

A man from Mauke (Northern Cook Islands) was out fishing one day in his canoe when his wife Kea, up on the cliff, saw a huge storm coming across the sea. She shouted to her husband to come back to land, but he didn't hear her. The storm caught him at sea and blew him farther and fartheraway from the island. Kea believed her husband was dead, and she cried and cried on that cliff overlooking the sea until she died of grief, and the people buried her there.

He had not died at sea, however. He was blown very far by the storm, but he finally did reach land - the island of Mangaia. The people there did not want him to stay and were on the point of killing him when a woman who was half-Maukean took him under her protection. With her help, he escaped from Mangaia and sailed to Rarotonga where he finally left on the waka Takitumu (Takitimu in NZ) when it sailed to New Zealand. Lonely Planet - Rarotonga

3. Mangaia - The Areitereu

The Ngai Tahu writer Judy Voullaire says the man blown out to sea from Mauke was named Kahutia Te Rangi. He had swam around collecting tree trunks and pandanus leaves, tied them together in a raft, then let the current carry him south.

In the Cook Islands, says Voullaire, paikea are the tiny crabs that survive hurricanes by clinging to sea wrack, and Paikea is the name of the Polynesian crab god, and other things that emerge from the sea. When Kahutia Te Rangi was washed up on Mangaia, he decided that from then on, he would call himself Paikea. He escaped from Mangaia on a waka named after a whale, the Areitereu.

4. Great Mercury Island - Northland NZ

William Colenso, (Transactions of the New Zealand Institute 1881), wrote that Paikea was the son of Uenuku and half-brother of Ruatapu. However Ruatapu was the son of a slave and when Uenuku insulted him about his low rank, he got revenge by plotting to drown his brothers when at sea in a canoe of their father.

Only Paikea survived the sinking of the canoe, making land again at a place called Ahuahu (Great Mercury Island of the coast of Northland, NZ), by chanting a long spell which gave him strength enough to swim the long distance.

Paikea took a wife at Ahuahu named Parawhenuamea and they had several offspring; Marumuri and others. Later, Paikea travelled to Whakatane where he took as a wife Te Manawatina, and eventually to Waiapu where he married a woman named Huturangi, daughter of Whironui, the captain of the Nukutere canoe ). Paikea and Huturangi had Pouheni who then married Nanaia and bore Porou-rangi, the ancestor who founded the Ngati Porou iwi. (Waitangi Tribunal Research Documents)

5. Geneology table

This geneology table is from S. Percy Smith's 1913 "translation" (?) of material "collected" (?) by H. T. Whatahoro from the whare-wananga of Te Matorohanga in the 1860s. Sacred Texts/Pacific

Note:- Historian Kerry Howe has recently given a warning, in his book about other New Zealand historians, that both Percy Smith and Whatahoro tended to "tidy up" Maori traditions.

Smith fancied himself as a scientist, an ethnologist, and he attempted to extract historical facts from mythic geneologies by re-arranging them into "logical" order. (a left-brain man!)

And Whatahoro was adept at telling Smith what he wanted to know, then getting payment and status for it. He was also a member of Kotahitanga and had his own motives for tidying up ancestoral geneologies, so as to unify tribes.
K. R. Howe,"The Quest for Origins: Who first Discovered and Settled New Zealand...?" Penguin, Auckland, (2003) page 162.

	Tāne-matua	=	Hine-ahu-one
	Hine-titama	=	Tāne-matua
50	Hine-rau-wharangi	=	Te Kawe-kai-rangi
	Rua-kawe-rau	=	Puku-wai
	Karanga-tahi	=	Ariari-te-rangi
	Pae-wheki	=	Mohokura
	Awanga-i-te-ura	=	Toko-rangi
45	Te Awhenga	=	Tutu-nui-o-rangi
	Kuratau	=	Pua-kato
	Tao-matua	=	Pure-awha
	Huru-rangi	=	Mawaerea
	Paku-kino	=	Aka-nui
40	Tore-rautahi	=	Te Po-waerea
	Moko-nui	=	Punga-moana
	Te Iho-matua	=	Tukutuku
	Murihau	=	Whakaiho-tapu
	Te Kawa-a-Tāne	=	Hokikau
35	Tuku-heke	=	Te Ahi-tapu
	Mataura	=	Huruata
	Te Waha-o-te-rangi	=	Rahui
	Kohu-matua	=	Te Ara-wai
	Te Komaru-nui	=	Whakarongo
30	Pae-whenua	=	Marama-taka-tua
	Whakaahu	=	Putangi-ao
	Toko-manawa	=	Tntaki {sic}
	Rauru-rangi	=	Pua
	Pipi-rangi	=	Mata-kainga
25	Te Ranga-a-toro	=	Uenuku
	Kahutia-te-rangi	=	Rakauri
23	Nga-Toro-i-rangi	=	Hine-wai-rangi
	(Nga-Toro-i-rangi was	the navigator	of the Arawa canoe.)

Also this from another wife of Kahutia-te-rangi

Kahutia-te-rangi	=	Huturangi
Pouheni	=	Mahanaiterangi
Tarawhakatu	=	...?...
Nanaia	=	Niwaniwa
Porou-rangi	=	...?...
(Porou-rangi was	the founder	of the Ngati Potou iwi.) Ngati Porou Iwi

Te Kani-a-Takirau

Ko wai te whare nei e?
Ko Te Kani !
Te Kani-a-Takirau, 1790s - 1856, Ngati Porou leader, lived at Uawa (Tolaga Bay). Several descent lines of great importance to Ngati Porou converged in him. Resembling the priest-kings of central Polynesia, he was widely held in reverence and was famous for his generosity. Tradition has it that he was buried at Te Ana-a-Paikea, the island offshore of Whangara village.

Te Kani-a-Takirau never grew his own food, was waited on and fed by a few people of high rank. He refused to sign the treaty of Waitangi in 1840, although he was friendly towards European traders. And he never became a Christian, although he protected the mission that was established at Uawa in 1843.

Later, when he was offered the Maori kingship he declined, saying: "Hikurangi is the mountain, Ngati Porou are the people and Te Kani is the man." Mount Hikurangi had never moved to dominate the centre of the island, like the other mountains, but had stayed with Ngati Porou, and so would he. Full details at DNZB.

Other Maori songs - Full Song List - Home

Page put on website 5th November, 2003, revised August 2007

Uia mai koia,¹ whakahuatia ake; Ko wai te whare nei e? Ko Te Kani / Ko Rangi / Whitireia!² Ko wai te tekoteko kei runga? Ko Paikea! Ko Paikea! ³	Ask and you will be told; What is the name of this house? It is Te Kani / It is Rangi / Whitireia! Who is the carved figure above? It is Paikea! It is Paikea!	Paikea on Whitireia meeting house
Whakakau Paikea. Hei! Whakakau he tipua. Hei! Whakakau he taniwha. Hei! Ka ū Paikea ki Ahuahu. Pakia!⁴	Paikea emerges. Hey! A wizard emerges. Hey! A deep-water prodigy is wading ashore. Hey! Paikea lands at Ahuahu. Slap!
Kei te whitia koe ko Kahutia-te-rangi. Aue!⁵ Me ai tō ure ki⁶ te tamahine ⁷ a Te Whironui - aue! ⁸ - nāna i noho te Roto-o-tahe.⁹	Your identity is entwined with Kahutia-te-rangi. Amazing! You were intimate with the daughter of Te Whironui - really!- who settled at the Lake-of-woman's-blood.
Aue! Aue! He koruru koe, koro e.	Alas! Alas! You are now a figurehead, old one.

Paikea tunes

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