Please turn your iPhone sideways.

Mr Dennis Marsh has kindly given permission for use of MP3 clips from his Out of New Zealand CD.
Dennis is a Country & Western singer, and consequently sings this song down in the key of G.

1. Kia koe te tau MP3 140 K.
2. Tena ra e hine MP3 70 K.
3. Oti ra e hine is the same tune as 2

Chords of original version

These syllables and guitar chords are as Tui Teka sang the song.

Notice that "mihi e" is sung here as mihi-i, while "koe" is sometimes sung as kwe and at other times as ko-e . Also "Ahakoa haere" is sung as A-ha-kwa ha-e-re.

The tune used is an Indonesian one that was popular in the 1970s. Tui Teka would have heard it when performing in South East Asian venues. Record producer Dalvanius Prime told me that he had some problems with the Indonesian Embassy and the composer before they got permission to use it when E Ipo was first recorded in 1983.

Born Ngoingoi Ngawai in Tokomaru Bay, where she was raised in the Ringatu faith by relatives.

Her primary schooling was at Tokomaru Bay Native school. Her first language was Māori but she quickly became literate in English. Later, from 1938 to 1941, she attended Hukarere Māori Girls School in Napier. After leaving school she returned to Tokomaru Bay and worked for her aunt, Tuini Ngawai, in her shearing gang. Also during this time she competed in many hockey/kapa haka tournaments around the North Island.

She was a member of the Te Hokowhitu-a-Tu concert party which her aunt, Tuini Ngawai, founded in 1939 to raise money for the war effort, and she later tutored and led the group on many occasions. In 1945 she married Ben Pewhairangi, a Tokomaru Bay farm worker.

In the 1970s Ngoi taught Māori language and culture at Gisborne Girls High School, and later began tutoring for the University of Waikato's certificate in Maori studies.

Ngoi was considered an expert on adjudicating kapa haka competion, she was frequently called upon to judge them. She was renowned for the spontaneitity of the compositions she wrote for many people, such as Poi E which she wrote for Dalvanius Prime.

She wrote E Ipo for Prince Tui Teka when he came courting Missy, who lived up Ruatoria way, so that he could sing of his overwhelming love for her.

When Ngoi died at Tokomaru Bay in 1985, she was revered for her unstinting advancement of the Maori language and culture and for her ideal of a bicultural nation in which Pakeha would help to ensure the survival of the Maori language.

Summarised from an article by Taania Ka'ai in The Dictionary of NZ Biography.

Prince Tui Teka

Teka was from Ruatahuna in the Ureweras, and had a musical childhood. After learning guitar and saxophone at woolshed dances with teenage bands, Teka moved to Sydney and began a six-year stand with the Maori Volcanics showband on the Japan and Pacific circuit. The 'Prince' title was adopted when Teka joined the Maori Troubadours: 'In those days Elvis was the king of rock'n'roll so we thought up New Zealand's prince of entertainment.'

In the 1970s Teka performed solo in Sydney and southeast Asian clubs, and Missy joined the show after their marriage in 1976. Teka would appear on up to ten instruments- "Middle of the road," he said, "a couple reggae numbers, a couple country and western, rock'n'roll impressions and playing different instruments."

By 1981 he had returned to Tokomaru Bay ('I began to feel homesick') and became a household name during the next year with E Ipo, and two albums with originals including Real Love and Oh Mum. He appeared in films, including Came A Hot Friday and Savage Islands, in which he featured as a cannibal chief.