NEW  ZEALAND
FO LK * SONG

Te Kooti

Alan Clyde, 1870

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Te Kooti was "...an outlaw who for years fought the invaders of his country and eluded their cleverest generals by his knowledge of the bush." These verses challenge the assumption of inevitable European victory over native forces with an ironic South Island perspective on the boasting of the northern military men and their claims of "victory" in each and every skirmish with Te Kooti.

One day in 'Northern Files' I read "Te Kooti's knocked upon the head,
It's pretty certain now he's dead.

Reported too that "Captain Pye put a bullet through his eye
While Tompkins smote him in the thigh!"


Next day a telegram there was, "We've captured all Te Kooti's squaws
We've hanged his men and burnt his pahs"


A month or so and then I hear "Te Kooti doth once more appear
And all the land is full of fear."


But then more cheering in the mail "This great event with joy we hail
Te Kooti yesterday turned tail.

But not before he lost his nose, shot off at the battle's close
At a thousan'yards by Private Rose."

A week thereafter I peruse "Te Kooti his old way pursues
He's killed and eaten Major Blues"


Then overjoyed once more I read "Te Kooti certainly is dead
They've brought to camp the traitor's head."

But then within a week at most, appears Te Kooti, or his ghost
Still with the head that he had lost.


Now frequently comes news by wire "Te Kooti's riddled by our fire
Cut off, ready to expire."

But still for all this treatment rude, his health and appetite are good
With Pakeha his favorite food.

When fails his basket, and his store, another raid doth furnish more
And he gets killed . . . just as before!



And he gets killed... just as before! Capt. Thomas Porter and his irregulars strike wishful poses

Source

Judith Binney - 1995, "Redemption Songs: A Life of Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki", page 535.

Te Kooti

In 1865 militant Hauhau began fighting to regain land stolen from them by the colonists. Te Kooti was accused of spying for the Hauhau and exiled with Hauhau prisoners on the Chatham Islands.

He managed to become their leader and organized a mass escape, seizing a schooner and sailing back to North Island to begin a series of raids, using violence as utu for the government-sponsored theft of ancestral lands.

From 1868 to 1872 Te Kooti and his followers raided throughout the central North Island while being pursued by their colonial and Maori enemies. Te Kooti's Wars.

He then withdrew to the King Country where he spent the next decade under the protection of the Maori King. In 1883 Te Kooti was pardoned by the government and began to travel throughout New Zealand.

He received the support of Scottish and Irish immigrants whose ancestral lands had also been stolen by the British government, including the composer of the song above, Alan Clyde, and also Thomas Bracken, O'Connor & Firth, and Arthur Desmond. In 1889 Desmond wrote...

The Pakehas came with their rum and their gold,
And soon the broad lands of our fathers were sold,
But the voice of Te Kooti said: HOLD THE LAND! HOLD!
Exult for Te Kooti, yo-hoo!

They falsely accused him, no trial had he,
They carried him off to an isle in the sea;
But his prison was broken, once more he was free-
Exult for Te Kooti, yo-hoo!

He plundered their rum stores, he ate up their priests,
He robbed the rich squatters to furnish him feasts -
What fare half so fine as their clover-fed beasts?
Exult for Te Kooti, yo-hoo!

In the wild midnight foray whose footsteps trod lighter?
In the flash of the rifle whose eyeballs gleamed brighter?
What man with our hero could clinch as a fighter?
Exult for Te Kooti, yo-hoo!

They boast that they'll slay him -they'll shoot him at sight,
But the power that nerves him's a giver of might;
At a glance from his eye they shall tremble with fright -
Exult for Te Kooti, yo-hoo!

We won't sell the land - 'tis the gift of the Lord -
Except it be bought with the blood-drinking sword;
But all men are welcome to share in its hoard -
Exult for Te Kooti, yo-hoo!

Exult for Te Kooti, Te Kooti the bold,
So sage in the council, so famous of old,
Whose war-cry's our motto -- 'tis HOLD THE LAND! HOLD!
Exult for Te Kooti, yo-hoo!

But eighty years were to pass before action against the theft of Maori land began again, with Nga Tamatoa in 1970, Dame Whina Cooper's hikoi in 1975, the Waitangi Tribunal in 1977, Bastion Point in 1978....

Since then, Maori have received millions of dollars in compensation, but they still haven't got all their land back.

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Published on web May 2008