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E timu rā koe, e tai nei, Rere omaki ana ai ki waho rā.1 Hei runga nei au tiro iho ai Nga roro whare ki Mihimarino3 Nāku ia nā koe i kakekake I ngā rangi rā, ka hori nei. E tangi rā koe e te kihikihi; Tēnei koe ka rite mai ki ahau. Me he hūroto au kei rō repo, Me he kākā, e whakarāoa ana. Tirohia atu koia mo ko Tāwera,5 Whakakau ana mai ki uta? Hohoro mai koia, hei hoa moe ake   Mōku rā, e tiu nei. Me he pōrangi au e keha ana Me haurangi, kai waipiro; Me he tāhuna rere i te amo hau, He perehia6 rere ki tawhiti.	You are ebbing away, oh tide, flowing swiftly to the open sea. While I am up here gazing down, sitting on the whare steps near Mihimarino that I used to climb up in days of yore, now long gone. You keep chirruping, oh cicada;4 In this, you are just like me. I am like a bittern in the swamp,4 like a kaka,4 forever making a choking sound. Can I see Venus on the pre-dawn horizon swimming towards the shore? Please hasten here and be a sleeping companion for me, in sore distress. Like a demented person I am reeling about, like one intoxicated from drinking beer, like pollen drifting on the wind, or blades of coastal grass wafted afar.
Tiro iho ai au ki ahau Rinoi ra e te uaua; Te koha kore o te kai ki ahau,7 Heke rāwaho i te kiri ora.	I look down at myself so twisted of sinew for food does not help me: but seems to pass outside my living skin.
Waiho au kia pōaha ana, He rimu pukā kei te ākau	So let me remain empty, like honeycombed seaweed on the shore

Notes 1. Whae Harata lived on the coast at the south end of Tokomaru Bay and could see her own life energy ebbing away like the tide. 3. Mihimarino is the hill behind the old village of Pōhaitapu at the south end of Tokomaru Bay.

4.Whae Harata thought her tuberular cough sounded at different times like this cicada's chirruping, swamp bittern's booming, or like this hacking call of a North Island kaka.     5. Tāwera, or the planet Venus, is always close to the sun. Therefore it is tā (struck, painted) by wera (heat). Looking eastward out to sea in the chilly dawn and seeing its bright reflection moving towards her, Whai Harata asks Tāwera to come to her and warm her bed. When seen in the west after sunset, Venus was called Meremere. 6. Perehia is commonly known today as Sand Wind Grass. 7. Tb has caused Whae Harata to lose her appetite for food, and she is becoming lirrle more than skin and bone. This is why Tb was called consumption. 8. Rimu pukā - rimu or limu or rimurimu is the common Polynesian name for moss or seaweed. The leaves of one podocarp tree in Aotearoa looked like seaweed so was called rimu. Rimu pukā is the giant brown bull kelp attached to the rocky sea floor and buoyantly floating upward thanks to its honeycombed air chambers. The Tb bacteria have hollowed out Whae Harata in a similar way. Endemic Maori diseases Before European contact, Maori had cancers, kidney and heart disease. There is also some evidence of streptococci and staphylococci bacteria and the viruses responsible for hepatitis and herpes. But with a low incidence of infectious diseases, Maori would have had reasonable good health, as reflected in their good physique and excellent healing ability. (Hanham 2003) However a lack of easily grown temperate climate foods would have restricted population numbers. Introduced diseases When Europeans arrived in the late 1700s, they introduced new food sources to Maori - maize, pigs, apples, peaches and, most importantly, potatoes - but also infectious diseases. Dysentery, mumps and whooping cough caused a number of deaths although mortality were largely restricted to the Bay of Islands and upper North Island.  An epidemic of measles in the South Island had a devastating impact on Maori there. Influenza epidemics up and down the country in 1820, 1827 and 1836-38 caused a number of deaths in some regions. Thousands died in Taranaki in the 1820 epidemic; although the death rate in 1827 does not appear to be that high. The epidemics in 1836-38 killed many old people at the Bay of Islands. The diseases that affected Maori most of all were tuberculosis and venereal diseases, especially syphilis. These diseases not only affected general vitality and death rates but also changed some beliefs and practices regarding disease. The wars of the early 19th century saw a large female slave population established in the Bay of islands, and put into sexual slavery for the shipping industry. They were put under tapu as a result of venereal disease, probably syphilis. (Hanham 2003) Tuberculosis Tuberculosis was reported from around 1808, and by the 1830s it was having a huge impact on health and death rates of Maori, with some of them believing the increasing number of infectious diseases was due to the anger of their atua for allowing white men to settle in Aotearoa. They believed that Europeans were under the influence of their own different atua since their illnesses were less severe. Then as interaction with Christian missionaries increased, the tuhunga Papahurihia in Northland in the 1830s developed an anti-missionary doctrine based on biblical ideas in which the serpent of Genesis and Exodus was revealed as the most powerful god. This was possibly how a flesh-eating lizard atua became associated with introduced tubercular disease. (Hanham 2003). However that belief was not formed until after the composition of this waiata. D E Hanhan (2003) The impact of introduced diseases in the pre-treaty period 1790 to 1840

Maori songs - Kiwi songs - Home

  Placed on NZFS website August 2020