NEW ZEALAND FOLK * SONG W E B S I T E |
Difficulties
Translating Moteatea Elsdon Best 1925 |
Maori songs - Kiwi songs - Home
A difficulty in translating old Maori song is the demand for euphony. Vowels may be added or removed, thus producing word forms which confuse a translator. Thus, the phrase te ahua o te kupu (the aspect or character of the remark) is altered in one song to te ehu o te kupu, in order to shorten the vowel sounds. Ehu usually means 'turbid,' or 'to flick out water', or to 'exhume bones of the dead,' and thus an unwary translator can make a bad mistake. On
the other hand, kua is
sometimes lengthened to koua,
for the sake of euphony. Another stumbling block for the translator of moteatea is the habit of coining a new word to express some action, emotion, or thought, such word never being met with again. Thus, a line in a Tuhoe song runs:—
"Ka whekawhekau te roa
o te ara ka takoto mai." In
order to explain many moteatea, it would be necessary to write a
book, owing to the many allusions made to old time legends,
historical traditions, myths, customs and ritual. "Now lone am I, as, sitting here, I vainly strive my fleeting thoughts, to calm. O friends! What can be done to soothe the pain that racks me. Bear me to water side, there sever my love for the spouse to whom I clung as clings the vine to forest tree, when I was but a girl and he was but a lad. But now all lone am I, and restless is my sleep as that of mateless bird, etc." Now in the words 'Bear me to water side, there sever my love, etc.,' we have a fair rendering of the line "Me kawe ki te wai wehe ai i te aroha ki te makau," but it conveys no sense to us unless we chance to know that it refers to an old rite of a very singular nature known as miri aroha. This ceremony was always performed in the water of a stream or pond, and its object was to dull the affection for a member of the other sex; thus it was performed over widows, divorced persons, etc. In
a lament composed by Tamairangi, a famed chieftainess of the
Wellington district in the early part of the 19th century, we
encounter these lines:— "Ko
te ngaro pea i a Tuhirangi ki roto Kaikai-a-waro Take
the first line—"Concealed perchance like Tuhirangi within
Kaikai-a-waro.' This falls meaningless on our ears
until we are told that Tuhirangi is the Maori name of Pelorus
Jack, the famous dolphin of the French Pass, and that
Kaikai-a-waro is the name of the waters in which he is supposed
to live. The next line—'Left by Kupe to welcome canoes
sailing by way of Te Au-miti.' Elsdon Best, 1925; Games and Pastimes of the Maori, Part VII, page 188 |