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From the summit of Mount Hikurangi, Maui in his canoe still leads East Coast Maori onwards.

Hikurangi1 te toka tapu rā e pupuri e tiaki ana mai ngā raukura2 kua mene ki te pō3 Aroha mai4, huataukina5 tō iwi e		Hikurangi the sacred rock up there holding and caring for the treasures gathered in the twilight world. Hopefully, they will bring prosperity to your people.
Te waka o Māui te tupuna6 koira ko Nukutaimemeha7 e anga atu te kei o ki mua8 te hāpai ō ki muri nei te Tairāwhiti9		There is the voyaging craft of Maui, our ancestor, namely the Nuku-tai-memeha and facing away from the stern, towards the bow, see the advance guard for the future here at the East Coast.
Aue kua papapounamu10 te moana Aue kua karohirohi11 to wairua Hikurangi te toka tapu ra e pupuri e tiaki ana mai Te waka o Māui te tupuna te hāpai ō ki muri nei te Tairawhiti		Aue, the sea is flat as greenstone Aue, your spirit is shimmering Hikurangi the sacred peak there holding and guarding The voyaging craft of Maui your ancestor the advance guard for the future here at the East Coast.
Te mana motuhake o Porourangi e12		Long live Porourangi !

Footnotes 1. Hikurangi - a 1754 metre peak near the East Cape, and the North Island's highest non-volcanic peak. 2. Raukura - these are literally the rare and beautiful tail feathers of the white heron. The meaning of the word has been extended to anything that is treasured for its beauty, uniqueness and cultural value. 3. Po - literally "darkness." But events from long ago have now receded into the darkness of our memory. 4. Aroha mai - literally "give me love." Used when you accidentally offend someone. "Sorry, forgive me." 5. Huataukina - literally "abundance of strings of sea urchins." When your tribe could collect those, there were also many other kai-moana available too, so you were living in prosperous times. 6. Maui - The Ngati Porou people are descended from a historical Maui who sailed from the Society Islands in the Nukutaimemeha and reached Aotearoa/New Zealand. This Maui seems to have been the man who solved the technical difficultes of cold climate sailing. See below. 7. Nukutaimemeha - Maui's voyaging craft. When cloud surrounds the flanks of Hikurangi but not its peak, your imagination lets you see Nukutaimemeha sailing on top of the clouds. 8. Ki mua - And you also see Maui's crew looking towards the bow. They are reminding you to let go of regrets about lost opportunities in the past, and make the most of what is on offer in the future. 9. Tairawhiti - tai (seacoast) ra (sun) whiti (crosses over). "The coast where the sun rises over the horizon," ie the East Coast. 10. Papapounamu - Papa (flat surface) pounamu (greenstone). "As smooth and glistening as a polished greenstone." 11. Karohirohi - ka-rohi-rohi. Rohi = tear-drops. When grass is covered with dewdrops at dawn, it glistens. Hence, karohirohi - glistening. 12. Te mana motuhake o Porourangi e - Literally "The independant authority of Porourangi," This is a shout similar to the Englishman's "Long live the Queen!" Porourangi was the descendant of Maui who united all those on the East Coast one people, Ngati Porou. Metaphorical storytelling In the era before stories were attached to words on paper, many cultures attached stories to local physical features. Thus at Mt Sodom in Israel you can still see the pillar of salt Lot's wife was turned into when she looked back, a story telling us to turn away from evil. Kuini has emphasised that story telling is an important aspect in our lives that we need to rekindle. "It is trying to keep in sync with everything that's been created," she told a Sounz reporter in 2007. "It's that kind of relationship. It is not just the spoken language but the body language and it is really important for me to express this through dance and song and chants. That's how it was kept – by just doing it. I feel connected and as one with the universe." The story told in this waiata is how as a member of Ngati Porou, you can look at Mt Hikurangi and see Maui's crew in their voyaging waka (perhaps on a cloudy day when the only the mountain peak can be seen above the clouds) and you are at once connected with your ancestors, heading always onwards, forward into the future. Kuini has said "It is very metaphorical but it's real for us because we personify so much." During her childhood she heard her elders asking the mountain every morning; ‘He aha te reo o te koroua ra?’ - ‘What is the old man saying today?" A strong message came through in their songs and chants, "We are Mount Hikurangi, we are one with that mountain, and that mountain speaks to us." Maui's triumph of navigation The navigator of the Nukutaimemeha, probably dubbed Maui after the mythical explorer Maui-i-tikitiki, seems to have been the man who solved the technical difficultes of cold climate sailing. For centuries, every navigator in the tropical Pacific islands knew there must be a huge land to their south-west because they saw thousands of whales and millions of birds migrating towards it every spring. But when they tried to sail in that direction, the navigators would have encountered chilling rain and hypothermia-inducing southerly winds. The problem was probably solved by departing in mid-summer, developing warm cloaks and waterproof capes, growing long body hair, and learning how to navigate out of rain-squalls and into sunshine. A 15th century boat-hauling chant praises the sea captain who did the last two of these. "Tenei te tangata puhuruhuru, nana i tiki mai whakawhiti te ra!"(Anne Salmond, Hui, page 163) In the 1970s. when the 7 tonne replica voyaging waka Hokule‘a was loaded with 5 tonnes, it could move at speeds of 4 to 6 knots. Since 4 knots is about 7 km/hr, or 170 km/day and 6 knots is 10 km/hr, or 240 km/day, we can assume that Maui's Nukutaimemeha travelled about 200 km/day. Thus it could have covered the direct 3800 km voyage from Tahiti to the Aotearoa coast near Mt Hikurangi in about 19 days. But after 8 days it would have been south of the warm nor-easterly trade winds and in the colder sou-westerlies, and there would have been no islands en route where passengers could recover after a storm. This voyage could have been made by a boat lightly-laden with tough and experienced sailors moving fast on an exploratory expedition. But the Nukutaimemeha was a migrant ship; it would have been heavily loaded with equipment, women, children and elders. My guess is that the Nukutaimemeha, and later East Polynesian migrant waka, went island-hopping. The migrants would have departed in November, sailed due west in warm tropical waters from Tahiti to Rarotonga, (1000 km, 5 days) rested for a few days, then sailed east again to one of the Tongan islands (1500 km, 7 or 8 days), rested again, and then headed 900 km south for the sub-tropical Kermadec Islands. They would have sheltered there until the weather looked warm and settled to the south, and then continued to sail almost due south for another 950 km (5 days) to Aotearoa. Kuini Reedy, MNZM Of Ngati Porou descent, Kuini was raised at Hiruharama near Tokomaru Bay with her elders' songs and chants as part of her everyday experience. This culturally rich childhood gave her a lifetime passion for education in te reo Maori and its cultural forms. In the 1970s she was a cultural leader and adviser for performing groups that toured overseas, to Japan, Europe, Russia and the United States. In the 1980s she was a pioneer of the Te Kohanga Reo initiative and she helped set up a similar structure for the First Nations people in Canada, in the early 1990s. She is a prolific composer of traditional and contemporary artistic expressions and choreographer, a national kapa haka competition judge and cultural director of the Auckland-based kapa haka group Porou Ariki. She has now been involved in te reo Maori, composition and kapa haka for more than 40 years in the East Coast and Auckland regions. Adapted from an article by Alice Te Puni in the Gisborne Herald, 7 June 2011 Song List - Other Maori Songs - Home Draft webpage made, March 2012