Draft version. If you spot
any mistakes, email me.
Thanks[email protected]
This song is still sung
today with some lyrics changed as E
Noho TūheitiaSEE
BELOW
During the 1914-1918 World War, 100,000
New Zealand men volunteered to "Fight for
King and Country" in Gallipoli and
France. But Te Puea remembered how
her grandfather, King Tāwhiao, had made
peace with the Crown 36 years ago and had
forbidden Waikato men from taking up arms
again.
"They tell us to fight for king and
country" she remarked. "Well,
that's all right. We've got a king. But
we haven't got a country. That's been
taken off us."
However Maori MPs Apirana Ngata and Māui
Pomare were keen to get Waikato men to
enlist, and in 1917 they met with King Te
Rata Mahuta at Mangatawhiri marae to try
and persuade him to support them. Women
were not allowed to speak on the marae;
they could only sing. So Te Puea put
forward her arguments against conscription
in this song.
1. E noho, e Rata, te
hiri o Waikato
E huri tō kanohi ki te hauāuru
Ngā tai e ngunguru i waho o Te
Akau
Auē, hei auē!
Remain, Rata,
the shield of Waikato
Turn your face to the west,
to the waves that rumble beyond Te Akau,
Aue, hei aue!
E Rata - Te Rata was then only about 36 years
old, shy and sickly. He had recently returned from
England where he had been rebuffed in his attempt to
have Waikato lands returned to their rightful owners.
The shield of
Waikato, "You are the protector of the
Waikato land and people, and I'm taking you on a
virtual aeroplane flight to remind you of what you are
protecting."
Te Akau -
literally "the rocky shore." This is the district inland
from the rocky shoreline north of Raglan, and south west
of Mangatawhiri. Just as Te Akau shields Waikato
farmlands from stormy seas, so Te Rata must shield
Waikato people from political storms.
2. Tō pikītanga ko te
ao o te rangi
Tō hekētanga, ko Karioi maunga
Tō hoenga-ā-waka, ko Whāingaroa
Auē, hei auē!
3. Takahia atu rā te moana i Aotea
Kia whatiwhati koe i te hua o te
miro
Te tihi o Moerangi, te puke
okiokinga
Auē, hei auē!
Your climb is to
the cloudy land in
the sky,
your descent is to
Mt. Karioi
Your boat trip is
from Raglan harbour,
Aue, hei aue!
Tread the shore at Aotea harbour,
that you may pluck the fruit of the miro
on the peak of Moerangi, the hilltop lookout,
Aue, hei aue!
Climbing
to the cloudy land up in the sky - this describes
the 50 km journey south from Te Akau along the ridge
that gradually climbs 960 metres to the top of Mt.
Pirongia, then 30 km norwest down to Mt
Karioi, a little lower at 760 metres and
overlooking
Whāiangroa or Raglan harbour, for a 40km boat trip
down the coast to Aotea harbour, then a hike up to the
miro trees onMoerangi
hill overlooking the
Kawhia estuary.
4. E piua ō mata ki
Kāwhia moana,
ki Kāwhia-ā-tai, ki Kāwhia-ā-tangata
Ko te kupu tēnā a ō tūpuna
Auē, hei auē!
5. E tū tō wae ki te
kei o Tainui
Tēnei tō hoe, ko te
Tekau-mā-rua
Ngā tai e ngunguru i waho o
Kārewa
Auē, hei auē!
Cast your eyes on Kawhia harbour,
on the ‘sea-food
Kawhia’ and
‘human Kawhia’
of which your ancestors spoke,
Aue, hei aue!
Place your foot by the stern of Tainui,
your paddle is the Council
of Twelve, for the
roaring waves beyond Gannet Island
Aue, hei aue!
The Kawhia estuary
is a food-basket of kai-moana that has fed countless
Kawhia people ever since the arrival of the colonists
from Tahiti on the Tainui voyaging
waka. Maori people of Te Puea's time were now in need of
the same coordinated application of all their diverse
talents under an skilful and courageous leader to arrive
at a similar rewarding lifestyle.
The Tekau-mā-rua advised the King on key
policies affecting Māori development, whether social,
cultural, economic, spiritual or political. In the
paddle metaphor used here, the twelve councillors guide
him through "rough waters" on the political "high seas."
Kārewais a rocky island 20km
offshore, only about 5 hectares in size, but the
breeding ground for thousands of gannets.
Te Rohe Potae was the boundary around Ngati
Maniapoto land marking autonomous Maori land. King
Tāwhiao conferred the name on the land in the late 1870s
when he threw his top hat down on a map. The head is sacred to
Māori, and the idea that the hat related to authority
over land was derived from Queen Victoria's crown, a
symbol of her authority.
In the final three verses that were sung at the meeting
to decide whether to support or oppose conscription of
Maori men into World War One, Te Puea is reminding Te
Rata of King Tāwhiao's Biblical references, when he
stated:
6. E huri tō kanohi ki
Pirongia maunga
ki te rohe pōtae ki
Arekahanara
ko te haona kaha o te
Rungarunga rawa
Auē, hei auē!
Turn your face towards Mount Pirongia
to the "top
hat" boundary at Alexandra
the strong horn of the Most High
Aue, hei aue!
In 1864, after Kīngitanga
forces were defeated at Ōrākau, King Tāwhiao and some of
his people had retreated south of the Pūniu River, the
ancient boundary between Waikato and Ngāti Maniapoto.
Later the British built a fortification there called the
Alexandra Redoubt and the border trading township that
grew up around it was calledArekahanara,
although the township is now called Pirongia.
Tawhiao proclaimed that "the slaying of man by man
is to cease," and in 1881 he crossed the Pūniu
with many chiefs and over 500 warriors, who laid down
their guns in front of the resident magistrate with
Tawhiao declaring his people would never fight again.
The strong horn of the Most High - This is a
reference to Daniel's
dream where the powerful horned beasts - the bad
kings - were defeated by the ordinary people of strong
character who followed God's word. At Alexandra, the
Kingitanga defeated the powerful British by laying down
their arms and vowing to refrain from war again. Te Puea
was reminding Te Rata of King Tawhiao's pacifist
commitment.
7. Pakia ō mata ki te Kauwhanganui,
Te Paki o Matariki, nga
whakaoati
Ko Kemureti ra tona oko
horoi,
Aué hai aué!
Focus your eyes on the Maori parliament, its coat of arms,
the oaths sworn there
Cambridge was his wash tub
Aue, hei aue!
Cambridge was his wash
tub refers to the Biblical line Moab is
my washpot. (Psalm
60)
The Moabite tribe were scum, like dirty dishwater, but
they competed with the Hebrews for control of Israel.
After King Tāwhiao came back to the Waikato in 1881, he
settled near Cambridge and a Maori parliament
was set up there. There were others who competed for his
leadership position, but Tāwhiao prevailed. Ohers at the
1917 conscription meeting were urging Te Rata to
persuade Waikato men to fight in France, and Te Puea was
reminding her cousin how King Tawhiao dealt with the
"scummy dish water" policies of his rivals.
8. E hoe tō waka ki
Ngāruawāhia
Tūrangawaewae mō te
Kingitanga
Te tongi whakamutunga a
Matutaera
Auē, hei auē!
Paddle your canoe to Ngaruawahia
The foot stool of the King Movement,
The last remaining possession of King
Tawhiao
Aue, hei aue!
Tūrangawaewae was
Tawhiao's reference to the Book of Isaiah where God
says:
"Ko te rangi toku torona, ko te whenua toku tūranga
waewae...kei hea hoki te wahi hei okiokinga
moku? ...ko tenei ia taku e titiro ai, ko te tangata e
iti ana, kua maru te wairua.... Ko te tangata e patu
ana i te kau, me te mea e tukituki ana i te tangata;"
"Heaven is my throne, and
the earth is my foot stool....Where is the
place of my rest?...this man I will look apon, who
is poor and of a contrite spirit.... But he who
kills a bull is like one who kills a man."
Te Puea was reminding Te Rata that Maori will be blessed
by God if they obey His word and not kill men. She
was also reminding him of the need to re-establish the
king's tūranga-waewae (rightful place to stand) at the
prestigious central location of Ngaruawahia on the
confiuence of the Waipa and Waikato rivers.
Matutaera, or Methuselah, was the Biblical name
King Tawhiao took when he became a Christian; first
Anglican, then Pai Marire. Te Puea is reminding Te Rata
that his predecessor was a prophet as well as a king.
And four years later . . .
. . . Princess Te Puea and 170 followers, from the Maori
village at Mangatawhiri on the bank of the Waikato near
the Mercer swamps, loaded their belongings onto river
barges, boarded them and, in a series of trips over two
days, were towed upriver to a raw, overgrown piece of
land at Ngaruawahia, where they hoped to establish a
new, rejuvenated marae and village on land that had been
bought freehold 12 months before from European owners.
Over the course of the next decades, a motivated team of
Tainui pioneers drained and tamed the 10-acre block,
built quarters, and struggled with financial hardship
and local European hostility to create what is now known
as the Turangawaewae marae, one of the pre-eminent
ceremonial gathering points for Maori and visiting
dignitaries in Aotearoa.
Just days before the river journey, Te Puea had called a
meeting of the whole Maori community at Mangatawhiri and
read out the names of the 170 advance guard who would
accompany her, some of them orphans from the 1918
influenza epidemic. She outlined the plan for the
tribe’s historic make-or-break gamble.
“I’m
taking you away from these wet flats. I have no idea
how we shall survive – much of it depends on how we
work and how the Pakeha at Ngaruawahia treat us. We
may find it easier to die here than to live there. But
we have to go. And we are going to build a marae there
that will be for everybody in the country; a marae
that, one day, people will visit from all over the
world. And we’re going to do it for Waikato and for
our king.”
Sources
Maori
words: from Arapeta Awatere, in The Penguin Book
of New Zealand Verse (1985)
Sound file: from an NZBC recording of Te Puea and her
group Te Pou o Mangatāwhiri at the opening
of Tūrongo House in March 1938.
Tune: borrowed from the 1860s American song Little
Brown Jug.
E Noho Tūheitia
A Tihei Mauri
Ora E!
E noho Tūheitia
te hīri o Waikato
E huri tō kanohi ki te hauāuru
Ngā tai e ngunguru i waho o Te Ākau
Auē hei auē
Tō pikītanga ko te ao o te rangi
Tō hekētanga ko Karioi maunga
Tō hoenga waka ko Whāingaroa
Auē hei auē
Takahia atu rā te moana i Aotea
Kia whatiwhati koe i te hua o te miro
Te tihi o Moerangi, te puke okiokinga
Auē hei auē
Piua ō mata ki Kāwhia moana
Ki Kāwhia kai ki
Kāwhia tangata
Ko te kupu tēnā a ō tūpuna
Auē hei auē,
E huri tō kanohi ki Pirongia maunga
Ki te rohe pōtae ki Arekahanara
Ko te haona kaha o te Rungarunga rawa
Auē hei auē
Pakia ō ringa
ki te Kauwhanganui
Te Paki o Matariki ngā whakaoati
Ko Kemureti rā tōna oko horoi
Auē hei auē
E tū tō wae ki te kei o Tainui
Tēnā tō hoe ko te Tekau-mā-rua
Ngā tai e marino
i waho o Kārewa
Auē hei auē
E hoe tō waka ki Ngāruawāhia
Tūrangawaewae mō te ao
katoa
Te tongi whakamutunga a Matutaera
Auē hei auē
Tāiri te
aroha ia, hā hā!
Toro mai ō ringa me aroha tāua
Aue hī, aue. Hā.
Aue Hei Aue!
Tīhei Mauri Ora Hī!
A Tihei Mauri
Ora E!
Remain, Tūheitia,
the shield of Waikato
Turn your face to the west,
to the waves that rumble beyond Te Akau,
Aue, hei aue
Your climb is
to the cloudy land in
the sky,
your descent is
to Mt. Karioi
Your boat trip
is from Raglan harbour,
Aue, hei aue!
Tread the shore at Aotea harbour,
that you may pluck the fruit of the miro
on the peak of Moerangi, the hilltop lookout,
Aue, hei aue!
Cast your eyes upon Kawhia harbour,
upon
Kawhia'sea-food,upon Kawhia people
of which your ancestors spoke,
Aue, hei aue!
Turn your face towards Mount Pirongia
to the "top
hat" boundary at Alexandra
the strong horn of the Most High
Aue, hei aue!
Clap your hands
for the Maori parliament, its coat of arms,
the oaths sworn there
Cambridge was his wash tub
Aue, hei aue!
Place your foot by the stern of Tainui,
your paddle is the Council
of Twelve, for the calm
sea beyond Gannet Island
Aue, hei aue!
Paddle your canoe to Ngaruawahia
The foot stool for all
of us,
The last remaining possession of King
Tawhiao
Aue, hei aue!
Love hangs over him, ha ha!
Reach out your arms and love us.
Aue hī, aue. Hā.
Aue Hei Aue!
Tīhei Mauri Ora Hī!
. . . Princess Te Puea and 170 followers, from the Maori
village at Mangatawhiri on the bank of the Waikato near
the Mercer swamps, loaded their belongings onto river
barges, boarded them and, in a series of trips over two
days, were towed upriver to a raw, overgrown piece of
land at Ngaruawahia, where they hoped to establish a
new, rejuvenated marae and village on land that had been
bought freehold 12 months before from European owners.