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Ka Mate

its origins, development, 
and significance

by

John H. Archer


Webmaster 
NZ Folksong website.

Revised version, Sept 2022

© 2009, 2011, 2022, John H Archer, Ohakune, NZ.

Introduction

Since 1998, I have been building up a website investigating the origins of old New Zealand songs and chants, and on my Ka Mate webpage (folksong.org.nz/ka_mate) I first wrote that it was of 19 ^th century origin; “composed by the warchief Te Rauparaha when he was escaping his enemies.”

But further investigation has uncovered Ka Mate’s significance in pre-European times; as a peace-making chant used nationwide, as a chant associated with ancient ocean voyages, as a wedding-night chant, and as a local version of the universal Hero myth.

  1. South Pacific origins
  2. Voyaging chants
  3. Maui slows the sun
  4. Volkner's execution in 1865
  5. Artillerymen in the Ureweras, and a tiger in Sydney
  6. Ka Mate revived in 1901 by the Hon James Carroll
  7. Ka Mate’s widespread use in the early 1900s
  8. The 1940s: “We charged straight in with the bayonet”

  9. The All Blacks
10. Te Rauparaha’s haka and the folk process
11. Ka Mate and Kikiki
12. Tatau Pounamu
13. Expressing tensions felt during unification
14. Haramai Ana

15. Te Rauparaha’s Ngeri at Kawhia in 1820
16. Commentaries on Te Rauparaha’s two haka
17. Te Rauparaha as the composer of Ka Mate?
18. The Waitangi Tribunal, 2009
19. Taonga and mythic values of Ka Mate

20. The Hairy Hero

21. Summary

22. Translating Kikiki
23. Works cited

1. South Pacific origins

In the this century large numbers of old New Zealand books, journals and newspapers have been placed on the internet in a searchable digital format. This has enabled me to find many previously unnoticed variants of those old verses.

Chants relating to voyages from the Pacific Islands have been of especial interest. I have found that stock phrases of old works in the central Pacific have been rearranged in this country, and given new meanings to make compositions that fit new situations.

By looking at a sequence of old chants and their place in history, we can postulate how the present-day version of Ka Mate came into being. The Ka mate ka ora couplet can be traced back to the Tuamotuan archipelago, a little to the east of where Aotearoa was colonised from.

  The notion of leaders giving their lives for others is an even older one in the west Pacific: I was taught this ancient proverb when I was working in northern Ra, Fiji, in the early 1970s, where the word for man was not kai, but kau, used elsewhere in Fiji to describe a tree.

Sa mate na kau Ra, sa bula na kau Ra.
The trees from Ra die, but the trees of Ra live on.

Similar tree metaphors were used in New Zealand, like this

Kua hinga te Totara i te wao nui a Tane
The Totora has fallen in the forest of Tane (Hiroa, 1925)

Another Maori proverb hearkens back to Tahiti, where the supreme chief was identified by a crown of red feathers from the breasts of Rarotongan parrots.

       Ka mate he Tëtëkura, ka ora ano he Tëtëkura
     A red-head (leader) dies, but another red-head (leader) lives.

I spent five years working in Fiji, and still have vivid memories of the warm gentle trade winds, of waking at midnight to find the temperature still at 30 deg C, of needing only a T-shirt when out in a rainstorm. This was the mild weather experienced by Polynesians voyaging across the tropical Pacific Ocean. But when they headed south towards Aotearoa, they found that the temperature could suddenly drop 20 deg C or more. A westerly with rain showers would have been a misery, a southerly, deadly. “ Ka mate, ka mate…”

Navigators heading south needed to become adept at finding sunny patches of ocean amongst the rain squalls, or, on journeys around the coast of Aotearoa, at finding their way into sheltered harbours, thus keeping their crew-members alive. “Ka ora, ka ora …”

2. Voyaging chants

We can imagine the lookout’s cry on spotting the sun shining through a gap in the rain-clouds; “Whiti te ra !” This phrase is a refrain in early Maori voyaging chants, such as this one used by Taukata and Hoaki when Kura-whakaata found them lying exhausted on a beach near Whakatane. They had been shipwrecked at the end of a long voyage bringing kumara from Hawaiki.  

Was Ka Mate once an end-of-voyage chant also? It has long been performed throughout New Zealand just after the canoe-hauling chant ‘Kumea mai te waka, toia mai te waka,’ indicating that these two chants may have had a common origin. Toia Mai is now used figuratively to draw guests onto a marae, but its words and rhythm indicate that it once had the practical role of co-ordinating the efforts of sailors beaching their craft. This suggests that Ka Mate originally had a seafaring role as well. There are other old chants that offer further evidence of this.

When the Tainui voyaging waka was launched in Hawaiki, its launching chant began
         
        “Toia Tainui, tapatu ki te moana …”

and ended
          
        “Turuki, turuki, Paneke, paneke!”
                                                            (Te Hurinui Jones, 1995).

The entire Toia Tainui chant was used again when the Tainui was hauled across the Tamaki Isthmus, (Pomare, 1930), and its final eight lines appear for a third time, at the beginning of this chant used as a tauparapara on the East Coast.

It is evident that this tau was originally a hauling chant; thus the concluding lines would have been thanks to a skilled navigator who had brought the crew safely ashore again.

We may postulate that in the colder, windier, wetter, more hazardous sailing conditions off Aotearoa’s western and southern coasts, Turuki, turuki, paneke, paneke was gradually replaced in the above chant by Kamate, kamate, kaora, kaora.

The earliest published version of a chant combining the Ka mate Ka ora couplet with the Tenei te tangata verses is found in Sir George Grey’s 1853 edition of “Ko Nga Moteatea.” It also finishes with the “ Upoko, whiti te ra” phrase of sailors safely back on shore. He described this book as

 “ a collection of the ancient poems of the New Zealanders, still linger(ing) in the memories of a large portion of the population, although they were fast passing out of use, so ancient and highly figurative was the language in which they were composed.”

Ka mate, ka mate; Ka ora, ka ora

Ka mate, ka mate; Ka ora, ka ora

Tenei te tangata puhuruhuru,

Nana i tiki mai, whakawhiti te ra

Upane, upane / Upane, Kaupane / Whiti te ra,

Upoko, upoko, upoko, / Whiti te ra.

The number of repetitions of the upoko line varies from one to three in different regional versions of Ka Mate, and may have recalled how many times the waka crew were threatened with death by storms during the voyage, and then saved when the navigator steered them into a sunny or sheltered patch of water.

3. Maui slows the sun

For the newly arrived Polynesian colonists in Aotearoa, the next threat to life would have been the long nights and short cold days of winter. This change in climatic conditions is reflected in Maori carving by the change from the art-form brought from Hawaiki of lines of repetitive chevrons (waves constantly breaking on the beach, unchanging days leading away into the past and future, unending generations of ancestors), to double spirals (shortening days in autumn, then unfolding into abundant new life in spring.) The change can be seen in these two door lintels.

The period when this change in consciousness occurred is probably when Ka Mate was adapted to tell the story of Maui slowing the sun and bringing long hot summer days back again. Eventually the Polynesian colonists found ways of coping with the cold, and the population in Aotearoa increased. But then food supplies diminished, and the main threat to life became warfare.

It would have been at this period that the Maui story told by Ka Mate became a metaphor for a decisive leader with diplomatic skills who put himself at risk to bring long periods of 'sunny' peace. In this peacekeeping role, it seems to have spread throughout the land. In 1857, Ka Mate was presented in this form at the Auckland Mechanics’ Institute. (Mechanics' institutes were formed to provide adult education for tradesmen and skilled laborers. )

Hori Houpapa, the presenter of the carved staff to Colonel Wynyard, addressed the meeting, expressing his brotherly love towards the Pakeha. He was followed by Koinake, who, leading a chorus of the Ngati Ohakowe and Ngati Paoa natives, sang "the canoe song." [Kumea Mai?] This was followed by "the peace making song.”
    Ka mate, ka mate.
    Ka ora, ka ora
    Tenei te tangata,
    Puhuruhuru,
    Nana i tiki mai,
    I whakawhiti ti ra.
    U pane kau pane,
    Witi te ra.

    It is dead, is dead.
    It lives, it lives.
    Here is the man,
    With the hairy limbs,
    Who came forward and caused
    The sun to shine forth
    It strikes, it smites. (sic)

Notice that Koinake used the phrase "U 'pane, ka u 'pane." Literally, this is "Strike the head, smite the head," a reference to Maui striking the sun's head with his grandfather's jawbone to slow it down. 

Edward Schnackenburg confirmed this ancient Maui story for Ka Mate. He was born at Kawhia in 1869 and had later recorded the stories of kaumatua there. (Schnackenburg 1926)

In 1949 he wrote an article in the Journal of Polynesian Studies on the origins of Ka Mate. He referred to a story he had collected at Kawhia from Te Huki, a tohunga and ariki of Ngati Hikairo. Te Huki had said that Ka Mate was the story of how Maui slowed the sun, and the tangata puhuruhuru was Maui himself.

4. Volkner's execution in 1865

A computer search of Maori and English language newspapers, (on the Nuipepa and Papers Past archives) and of Turnbull Library documents, has found only one reference to Ka Mate during the latter part of the 19th century, when it was mentioned at the trial of the Tuhoe executioners of Carl Volkner at Opotiki.

Cross-examined by Mr. Carnell: Wepiha was in the church, and instructed the people to carry out Kereopa's commands. Wepiha and Kereopa came together. Witness heard Wepiha, when Mr. Volkner arrived, sing the following song : —

    Ka mate, ka mate, ka ora, ka ora,

Ka mate, ka mate, ka ora, ka ora,

Tenei te tangata puhura,

Nana i tiki mai whakawhiti te ra.


Upane, upane, Kaupane whakawhiti te ra. 


He will die, he will die, he will live, he will live.

This is the hairy man who caused the sun to shine.

Save him, save him, Save him and let the sun shine.

                                (Daily Southern Cross, 1866)

5. Artillerymen in the Ureweras, and a tiger in Sydney

The colonial government used the execution of Volkner in 1865 as an opportunity to move against the Tuhoe, and when Te Kooti took refuge among them in 1869, the constabulary were sent in to wage a 3-year scorched earth campaign in Tuhoe country. They were accompanied by naval artillerymen who picked up at least the some of the Tuhoe’s defiant chant - Ka mate, ka mate, ka ora, ka ora! – and when they returned to the city, they taught this chant to civilian yachtsmen, who later passed it on to a top rugby player F. Murray. In 1898 he was included in a New Zealand rugby team to Australia, and after he taught it to them as their “tiger,” it was quoted in the Sydney sports paper “The Referee.” (Auckland Star, 1898)

Soldiers of the NZ Second Contingent in the Anglo-Boer war were quoted chanting a bastardised version,  "Ka Mate! Ka Mate ! Koru! Koru! Hae-haea! Ha!"  which they thought meant,  "Kill him! Baste him! Cut him up! Ha !" (Marlborough Express, 3 February 1900)

6. Ka Mate revived in 1901 by the Hon James Carroll

Just four weeks after this distorted version of Ka Mate was published in New Zealand newspapers, Native Affairs Minister James Carroll (Timi Kara, Ngati Kahungunu) made sure that Ka Mate was reported more accurately in the press by joining in a public performance of it during a visit to Waahi marae at Huntly, while linking it with to the venerable welcoming chant Kumea Mai (These days performed as Toia Mai ).

The Governors and Premier marched on solemnly just behind the band, but the Hon. James Carroll pranced friskily along with the Maori escort, flourishing a whalebone mere borrowed from old Katipa, and leading in the Maori songs, much to the delight of the young natives. Kumea mai te waka (Draw hither the canoe); Ka mate, ka mate, ka ora, ka ora (It is death, it is death, it is life, it is life) were sung by the Maoris, Tuu Kara heartily joining in and starting fresh ones. (Poverty Bay Herald, 5 March 1900)

Six months later Mr Carroll used it when welcoming King Mahuta to Wellington.

Then came Mr Carroll... He began quietly, also telling the King some plain truths for his wellbeing... “Kia Ora ki te Whenua. Kia Ora ki te tangata. May the land be long preserved! May your lives be long preserved!" or, in other words, "If the land is preserved the people will live" Having spoke thus, Mr Carroll led a splendid burst of song… Then came the chorus "Kamate! Kamate! Kia Ora!" again, with stamping of feet that made the floor shake and voices that made the rafters ring. (Poverty Bay Herald, 25 Sept 1900)

And three months after that, when the Duke of Cornwall (later crowned as George V) made a Royal Tour of New Zealand, Mr Carroll led 150 foot-stamping, eye-rolling Ngati Kahungunu warriors at Rotorua and made Ka Mate famous. Their performance also established the antiquity and widespread ownership of this haka. Described as "the old and universal war ngeri," its words and translation were reported fully and accurately in newspapers, while dozens of pictures were taken on “a veritable battery of cameras” and "the King's kinematographist secured a splendid film of the wonderful performance."

This 1901 Ngati Kahungunu performance of Ka Mate can still be watched today on a copy of the film at the NZ Film Archives.

Among the noted chiefs present were Major Fox, a leader of the friendlies, old Heuheu of the Taupo people, Tamaikowha of Whakatane, Hori Ngatai, Tauranga, Hone Heke and Pene Tani, from the Bay of Islands, Tamahana Mahupuku and Aporo Kumeroa, from Wairarapa; Parata MHR, Otago, Apirana Ngata and Hokumai, East Coast; and Topia Turoa, a very ancient personage from Wanganui.

No sooner had the Duke concluded than the cheering was renewed, and then Mr Carroll led the natives in an ancient Ngeri or war song, the chant chosen for the occasion being one used to welcome illustrious guests,

“ Ka mate, ka mate, ka ora, ka ora

tenei te tangata puhuhuru nana ko i tiki mai whaka whiti te ra

hupane, hupane, kaupane, kaupane whiti te ra."

Nicely translated, this might be rendered,

"It is death, it is death, it is life, it is life
 

This is the illustrious man who has caused the sun to shine.

Hurrah, hurrah ! He has caused the sun to shine.

(Grey River Argus, 15 June 1901)

The Ngapuhis, Arawas, Tuwharatoas, Whanganuis, Ngatiporous (now the Duchess's Own), Ngaitorangis and Ngatikahungunus (the Duke's Own), followed in rapid succession … The Ngatikahungunus gave a display most originally typical of the haka's features. Stripped to the buff, so far as the upper parts of their bodies was concerned, and with mere loin clothes and mats to cover their nakedness, their magnificent frames gleamed brown and muscular. They were the last to dance, and as the Ngatiporous sank exhausted, with a rush and a roar, ten big men of Ngatikahungunu were on their feet, each right hand grasping a carved taiaha or a tewhatewha, eyeballs rolling, and faces grimacing. Smears of blue and black paint disfigured the brown faces, and in the crisp black hair and beards were stuck fantastically the white feathers of the wild goose.

A hundred and fifty strong right feet stamped slowly in tune, thus, thudding, until the ground trembled. Twice that number of sinewy brown hands slapped the muscular thighs in unison, as the men of the Tairawhiti yelled in vigorous chorus, that could be heard miles away, the thundering welcome songs, "Kumea Mai te Waka" ("Draw Hither the Canoe) and the old and universal war ngeri, “Ka Mate, Ka Mate, Ka Ora, Ka Ora." (Tuapeka Times, 19 June 1901)

    Ngati Kahungunu at Rotorua in June 1901, bare-chested with flax piupiu, white feathers and tao.     Alexander Turnbull Library, Reference No. 1/1-003142-G

Ka Mate was also performed by the Whanganui contingent.

The Wanganui haka followed. We caught some words about "The Queen, their mother," and ”The Duke." …Then came the "Kamate, kamate '' chorus, winding up with "Aue! Aue!" with a long-drawn-out "e" with a hissing sound. (Otago Witness, 26 June 1901)

7. Ka Mate’s widespread use in the early 1900s

Over the next 15 years there are many newspaper reports of the widespread use of  "the famous Ka Mate chorus, which now seems inseparable from all New Zealand ceremonials " (Otago Witness, 1907) - at university student shows, in the musical comedy 'Tapu’, at Dominion Day celebrations, and by the 1905 All Blacks in Great Britain.

Sir John Gorst returned Te Awamutu there in 1906, after leaving there before the 1863 war.

Sir John and Miss Gorst were received by a large number of Maoris and Europeans… and the greeting song, "Ka mate, Ka mate, Ki ora Ki ora," always sung in the welcoming of ancient friends, was sung. (Colonist, Dec 7, 1906)

When Lord Kitchener visited Invercargill in 1910 he took a special interest in the Maori contingent there, and made a favourable impression on them.

The well-known haka, commencing "Kamate kamate, ka ora, ka ora," was eminently appropriate. This greeting was in the olden days addressed to a warrior or great chief, and, freely translated, is: — "Are we dead? Are we annihilated? No, we live; we live on through the man of strength." (Evening Post, 22 Feb 1910)

In the very same week, the Hon James Carroll, Minister for Native Affairs, met with Taranaki Maori at Okaiawa, near Hawera.

"Tohu, Te Whiti, and Titokowaru have gone," said Mokai Kereru, "they have left their child Kahupukoro fatherless, but this day he had been joined with the Native Minister." "Kamate, kamate; ka ora, ka ora," sang another …The Maori people had been down-trodden, depressed, but they lived again. The light, the deliverer had come… We are in the darkness. Lift us up. (Hawera & Normanby Star, 21 Feb 1910)

Apirana Ngata included Ka Mate in the booklet he gave the First Maori Contingent going overseas in November 1914, (Ngata, 1914) and they used it at Gallipoli.

The Maoris indeed went into that splendid attack, their first battle with the bayonet, in a mood of savage determination and delight. This was their chance for fame. They went grimly for those Turks, bayoneting them in their lines, they burst into a tremendous haka when they had cleared the trenches—“ Ka mate, ka mate, ka ora, ka ora !”— then silence as they pressed on to the next point. (Cowan, 1926)

In about 1916, a concert version of Ka Mate was written, to honour those Maori soldiers, and this was sung at patriotic concerts (Grey River Argus, 1919).

When the Price of Wales visited Rotorua in 1920, he was welcomed with haka and poi dances by contingents of Te Arawa, Te Tai Rawhiti, Whanganui, and Taranaki. “Then came a haka porowha, or massed ngeri, the " Kamate kamate" by the assembled tribes” (Poverty Bay Herald, 30 April 1920)

8. The 1940s: “We charged straight in with the bayonet”

The Maori Battalion did not use Ka Mate as a “peace-making song” at Minqar Qaim in World War Two.

Lieutenant Marsden writes: “I can still see Lt Hupa Hamiora out in front of B Coy, prancing, leaping and yelling as he led that famous haka, Ka mate! Ka mate!... We passed clean through the enemy defences... There were no prisoners to worry about and the men with reddened bayonets cleaned them in the sand while waiting the arrival of transport.” (Cody, 1956)

Then at El Alemain


“ We had to fight almost every inch of the way …. At one spot we were opposed by a wall of enemy firing at us with all they had. We all broke into the haka “Ka mate! ka mate !” and charged straight in with the bayonet…. It was the most spirited attack that I myself had taken part in.’ (ibid.)

And later at Medenine

The determined advance of D Company was bad enough, but when the opposite hill broke into the rhythm of the stirring haka ‘ Ka mate, ka mate’ it was too much and too unorthodox for the Teutonic temperament. One white flag after another began to wave on Point 209, each surrender being followed from Hikurangi by the cheers that would have greeted the winning try in a Ranfurly Shield match. (ibid)

9. The All Blacks

Ka Mate was not always used in New Zealand rugby test matches. In 1888 a New Zealand "Native" team had worn Maori cloaks and performed “the haka” before the first match of their tour of Britain. They also used the warcry “ Ake, ake, kia kaha!” specially composed for their “invasion of England” and derived from the warcry used when the English invaded Orakau Pa, “Ka whawhai tonu, ake, ake, ake!” But these gimmicks were not as popular as their stylish play, and were quickly dropped.
(Ryan, 1993, page 53)

The 1903 New Zealand team to Australia (the first to play an official test match) used a greeting and warcry" written for them by haka expert Mr Charles Parata MP. ”Tena koe, Kangaroo, Tupoto koe, Kangaroo! Niu Tireni tenei haere nei. Au, Au, Aue, A!” (Evening Post, 1903)

In 1905, "The Originals," the first All Black team in Britain, also used the Ake Ake warcry and performed the Ka Mate haka when it was requested. (McCrystal, 2005) Sometimes the press confused the terms ‘warcry’ and ‘haka,’ and so, when the team performed Ka Mate before the Welsh test, it was reported as, "The war cry went well, and the crowd listened and watched in pleased silence, and thundered their approval at its close.” (West Coast Times, 1906)

The All Blacks returned to Britain in 1924 and used Ko Niu Tireni, a haka derived from Ruaumoko. (Watkins, 1925)

When the All Blacks first performed Ka Mate as “Te Rauparaha’s haka,” relatively few people saw it performed, and very little was written about it. The All Blacks only played four or five tests a year during the 1950s, 60s and 70s, and rugby test matches were not broadcast live, so the number of people who saw the All Blacks perform Ka Mate was limited.

However, by the late 1970s, jumbo jets and satellite TV were making international travel and international entertainment much easier. These technologies would be combined to make money for the rugby code. In 1987 the NZ Rugby Union signed a deal to allow All Black test matches to be broadcast live on TV and the number of All Black tests jumped to seven per year, and then to twelve or more per year when the All Blacks became professionals in 1995. Twelve times a year millions of fans all around the world watched a new performance of Ka Mate, greatly increasing the demand for information about it.

With the coming of the internet in the 1990s, people searched on it for information about the All Black haka and Te Rauparaha. Information from Patricia Burns’ biography “Te Rauparaha, a New Perspective” (1980) made its way onto a few webpages (Archer, 2008) giving rugby fans unvarnished information on the gruesome massacres carried out by Te Rauparaha, as well as giving them information on the full Kikiki Kakaka haka that he is reputed to have chanted when he escaped from his kumara pit.

Nevertheless, most of the hundreds of All Black haka webpages carry only the few lines of the ancient haka, stating that it is “Te Rauparaha’s haka,” with a brief story of Te Rauparaha’s near-death experience attached to it. Overseas rugby fans with left-brain thinking have taken this to mean that he composed a totally new chant.

This simplification of history has been used as a merchandising tool to sell the All Blacks brand. The brief, sanitised story of Te Rauparaha’s cunning escape when under pressure helped promote the image of the All Blacks.

In 2005 there was an attempt to re-introduce the 1924 All Black haka Ko Niu Tirini (Archer, 2008b) in a slightly modified form called Kapa o Pango, (Archer, 2008c) but this was mired by controversy, and Ka Mate is still the crowd favourite.

In recent times, the All Black haka has been performed with a slow start to build up tension, and then the old words have been delivered in a fast, rhythmical and abbreviated style. Here is the 2007 version.

Ka rite! Ka rite!

Kia mau Hi!

Ringa-ringa pakia e

Wae-wae taka-hia!

Ka ki-no nei ! Hi !

A Ka ma-te! Ka ma-te! Kao -ra

A Ka ma-te! Ka ma-te! Kao -ra,

A te -nei te ta -nga-ta pu - hu- ru- huu -ru

Na nei ti ki whaka- whi -ti te...

... ra! U-pa Ka U-pa A Hu -pa-ne! K'u -pa-ne

Whi -ti te raa ! Hi !

10. Te Rauparaha’s haka and the folk process

The above review of old newspaper items, from 1855 to 1920, shows that Ka Mate was performed by Tainui, Ngati Paoa (Hauraki), Ngati Hikairo (Kawhia), Te Whakatohea (Opotiki), Tuwharetoa, Te Arawa, Whanganui and Taranaki iwi, and by Maori at Invercargill.

It has been considered to have been a peace-making song, with a reference to Maui slowing the sun, a plea for mercy, an old and universal war ngeri, a welcome for a person of high rank, a rallying cry of the down-trodden, a lethal battle cry, and a close companion the canoe-hauling chant Kumea Mai.

There are no reports of it being composed by Te Rauparaha, nor of performances by Ngati Toa, so their recent claim of ownership before the Waitangi Tribunal, on account of its use by Te Rauparaha, must now be examined.

There are two different haka on the public record known as “Te Rauparaha’s haka.” We will show that these were formed by combining portions of older chants, including ‘Ka Mate,’ and then modifying some of the words.

This method of composition was also common in orally transmitted songs in Britain and America. Songs underwent change in both their lyrics and tunes, forming completely new compositions. American folk-singer Pete Seeger named this “the folk process”. A New Zealand example is the formation of the 1942 Kiwi soldiers’ song Dugout in Matruh from the 1890s Kansas pioneers’ song Little Old Sod Shanty. This song in its turn had come from the 1870s Kentucky minstrel song Little Old Log Cabin in De Lane that also gave rise to the back country New Zealand song The Dying Shearer. (Archer, 2007)

This folk-process has also been described for several Maori songs of the last century.

The tune of the 1913 piano piece Swiss Cradle Song was modified for use with the Ratana prayer Po Atarau. In 1920 Maewa Kaiha turned this into the farewell song This is the Hour, later known world-wide as Now is the Hour. (Annabel, 1977)

He Puru Taitama began life at Otaki in about 1910 as a very intimate courting song, was recorded as a jazz song in 1930, became a bawdy WW2 Kiwi soldiers’ song E Po E Taitai E, and a schoolgirl’s poi song in the 1960s. It is now sung worldwide in children’s choirs as Epo E Tai Tai E, and at East Coast parties as Purari Pukumimi E (Archer 2006a).

Wharetini Rangi wrote Matangi in 1924 to farewell his wife as the steamer “Matangi” was leaving Tauranga Harbour, and in each decade since then, a new variant has been composed for girls going to work in cities, soldiers away in WW2, uprooted young people in Otara and Porirua, migrants leaving for Sydney, and New Zealanders all around the world. (Archer, 2006b).

Some Maori songs have had large portions of older lyrics added to them. The much-used welcome songs, Pa Mai Te Reo Aroha and Haere Mai E Nga Iwi E, both have the mysterious Tahitian verse, “Tahi miti toru e,” embedded in them. (Rikihana, 1992)

This process was also commonplace in pre-European times. In his textbook, ‘Maori Music,’ Mervyn McLean (1996) notes “composers often borrowed and adapted even quite long passages from existing songs… Whole songs were also reworked to suit new circumstances.”

A haka in pre-contact times could have its meaning changed by modification of its intonation, pronunciation and associated actions. J. Atheley explained how the concise and metaphorical nature of the phrases used in Maori chants assisted this variation in interpretation.

Maori poetry (is) dependent greatly upon euphony and metaphor. Ellipsis plays a great part, …a Maori song is only a rough sketch or a suggestion. …the majority are abrupt, …placing, as it were, the rough material at the hands of his hearers, and allowing them to adapt it to their minds as best suited. (Atheley, 1895)


We will now show how the three old chants ‘Haramai,’ ‘Kikiki’ and ‘Ka Mate’ were reworked to suit the circumstances of Te Rauparaha’s escape, and of his final battle at Kawhia a decade later.

11. Ka Mate and Kikiki

James Cowan, who had been raised with King Country Maori in the 1870s, associated Ka Mate with the wedding chant Kikiki.

“ Ka mate, ka mate,” etc., is only a portion of a very ancient Maori chant. The original song begins, “Kikiki, kakaka, kikiki, kakaka, Kei waniwania taku aro.” (Cowan, 1926) 

A decade later, musicologist Johannes Andersen in his book "Maori Music with its Polynesian Background" (Andersen, 1934) cited anonymous Maori informants who suggested, " The germ of the song might have been Te Rauparaha's." But Cowan immediately refuted this possibility.

It is one of the oft-quoted specimens of native song-making given in a recently published book, “Maori Music, with its Polynesian Background,” in which its origin is attributed to the great warrior Te Rauparaha, on an occasion when he was hiding from his enemies. There is no good Maori authority for this story.

The song, as it is popularly given today, is six or seven lines from the whole chant, which is much longer. If Te Rauparaha used it, he was quoting this fitting final bit; he was not the composer thereof. I have the complete chant, as given me by a chief and tohunga of the old generation many years ago.

The fact is that “Ka mate, ka mate,” and the rest of it is a very old chant, long antedating Te Rauparaha's period. It goes back several centuries, and it is only the concluding portion of an ancient song of reunion and felicitation, often chanted at occasions of peace-making and such gatherings as marriage feasts. (Cowan, 1935)

12. Tatau Pounamu

Peace-making and marriage feasts were closely associated. Hirini Mead (2003) explains that real peace could not be brought about just by military conquest: the conquered group would rebuild their strength and at a later date try to recover their lost land. What was needed was a rongomau, a peace accord with strong bindings; the strongest of these being a peace secured by an arranged marriage. This marriage was metaphorically called tatau pounamu, a greenstone door; permanent, beautiful, and highly valued.

In order to make the binding real, political marriages were arranged and so the parties were bound together in a symbolic marriage. Each partner to the marriage would be a person of standing in their iwi… (But) it was nor until children were born of the marriage that the binding became real, since the children belonged to both sides. They could be relied upon to play their part in acting as symbols of the agreement and as mediators between the two sides. (Mead, 2003)

An elaborate series of visits, gift-offering, speech-making, feasting and singing were part of every arranged wedding. They helped bond the two groups, and strengthen the couple’s marriage. Maggie Papakura describes how the chief who was the boy’s father would visit the chief who was the girl’s father. After being given an elaborate welcome, he would offer valuable gifts and would ask for the girl.

Weeks later, the ceremonial handing over of the hine (bride) took place at the village of the prospective tane (groom). A marriage feast had been made ready, with many hapu being invited to attend. The prospective bride would arrive accompanied by her relatives, and they would bring choice food as well as cloaks, weapons, and ornaments to present as gifts.

The next day the hine and tane would be bathed and groomed, then dressed in fine cloaks. There would be a great feast followed by speech-making and entertainment from both tribes. The girl was reminded that she now belonged to her husband's people till death parted them, and the tane was told “You and your wife are now one; take care of her.” In the evening the young couple would sit in the wharepuni together by the groom’s parents as the entertainment went on throughout the night, and would probably fall asleep beside the older members of their families.
(Makereti, 1938)

13. Expressing the tensions felt during unification

Maggie Papakura is describing an arranged marriage here, between two young people whose iwi were at peace with each other. But if warfare had taken place between the iwi, then a greatly increased emotional burden would have been placed on the young couple. Imagine their feelings when they were lying together for the first time, surrounded by strangers who had killed their loved ones. This tension is vividly expressed in the verses of Kikiki, as given below.

Cowan erred in saying Ka Mate was ‘only’ part of Kikiki. The original verses of Ka Mate consist of a deeply philosophical and elliptic set of metaphors. But the first dozen lines of Kikiki are just the opposite; they are sensual and explicit, indicating different authorship.

However, when Ka Mate is joined to Kikiki, its presentation can be modified to describe the continuation of the developing sexual intimacy graphically expressed in the first two stanzas.

Some readers may be upset at seeing Ka Mate modified to express the emotions of a young man at the climax (Ka mate!) and post-coital (Ka ora!) stages of sexual coupling. However it was 19^th century missionaries who introduced the notion that sexual union was a dirty and shameful act. In pre-European times Maori saw sexual activity as part of the act of creation, a sacred thing. Sexual descriptions were included in old Maori chants, as the third stanza of the haka Whakarongo points out.

The words of Kikiki would have accurately expressed the experiences of a young couple at one of these tatau pounamu weddings as they became fully united for the first time, both physically and spiritually. The words describe the initial apprehension, the rising turmoil of emotions as the bonds become closer, and the feelings of peace afterwards.

The union of two social groups is similar to the marital union of two individuals; there is initial apprehension, then increasing knowledge of each other, climaxing in the death of one’s former independent state, and followed by the joy at attaining long-term security through mutual support. So the use of Kikiki would have been extended to express the emotions that would have been felt by every person involved in a greenstone door or similar peace-making process, in the months before, during and after the unification of the two tribes, as this English paraphrasing of Kikiki shows.

Arapeta Awatere suggested (McLean, 2004) that it could have been Te Wharerangi, the chief hiding Te Rauparaha, who recited Kikiki/Ka Mate when he released the fugitive from the pit beneath his wife, after the furious Ngati Aho war party had swept through his pa. Thus the old chief gave the words of the old wedding chant a new meaning, to convey the story of Te Rauparaha’s escape. Ngati Toa tradition is that Te Rauparaha himself chanted it.

We can imagine how Te Rauparaha repeated Kikiki to others to describe how he escaped from his enemies.

“ Kikiki Kakaka! I was trembling with exhaustion in that kumara pit. Kei waniwania tau tara! The crotch of Te Rangikoaea, the chief's wife, was brushing against me. Ka wehi au! Fear gripped me when I heard the war party arrive. Mau au e koro e! I realized I was caught in a trap. Ka mate, ka mate ! I thought I was done for when Te Rangikoaea moved away. But my pursuers had departed; Ka ora, ka ora! Instead, there were the hairy legs of Wharerangi, te tangata puhuruhuru! Hardly able to believe it, I climbed out into the sunshine. Whiti te ra!”

And so, in about 1810, Kikiki/Ka Mate wedding chant had its meaning modified to tell the story of Te Rauparaha’s escape.


14. Haramai Ana

Kikiki/Ka Mate was further modified about ten years later by the addition of half a dozen lines borrowed from a third chant, Haramai Ana. Elsdon Best collected an earlier version Haramai Ana as a rangi pakuru from the Tuhoe people.

15. Te Rauparaha’s Ngeri at Kawhia in 1820

In 1820, just before Ngati Toa’s last great battle at Kawhia, Te Rauparaha needed to say to his warriors, “There are enemy closing in all around us, they have ravished some of our most noble women, but they will do so no more; and in the end there will be peace.”

He was fully occupied with organizing the defences of his various fortifications. He was weakened and in pain from boils. He had neither the time nor the energy to compose a new haka, and his warriors did not have time to learn it. Pei Te Hurinui Jones notes how he altered the kumara pit version of the Kikiki/Ka Mate haka for its performance as a ngeri before this battle.

As is usual with chants of this nature, the topical allusions are generally altered to suit the circumstances and the personalities concerned at the time the performance is given. (Te Hurinui Jones, 1960)

Looking at the Maori words below, taken from Te Hurinui Jones’ historical novel “King Potatau” (1960) we see how Te Rauparaha modified the first stanza of Haramai Ana to refer to the encircling enemy, rearranged half a dozen phrases ( brown text ) from his kumara pit version of Kikiki to refer to the high-born Ngati Toa women who had been violated, and then used Ka Mate at the end as an expression of hope.

16. Commentaries on Te Rauparaha’s two haka

Six authors have written about the 1810 kumara-pit chant used by Te Rauparaha, or about his 1820 pre-battle chant, but not one of them has given a word-for-word translation of the Kikiki stanza.

James Cowan (1926, 1935) quotes only the first two lines of an older version of the 1810 chant. He describes it as ancient chant performed at reunions and wedding feasts. Cowan lived in the King Country in the 1870s.

John Te Herekiekie Grace, (1959) gives the full text of a slightly different version of the 1810 chant, but no translation. He explains the first four lines as being an expression of relief by Te Rauparaha that the genital organs of the chieftainess above him were neutralizing the incantations of his searchers.

He explains the remaining lines as words that Te Rauparaha uttered to neutralize sexual advances the chief was making to his wife, advances that could have led to Te Rauparaha’s discovery. However the Maori text does not seem to fit this explanation, and it is highly improbable that the chief would have been thinking about recreational sex when his pa was being searched by very angry kinsmen of Te Rauparaha’s victims. If Te Rauparaha had been found, the consequences would have been severe for the chief and all his people.

Pei Te Hurinui Jones (1960) was renowned as a Maori scholar, and his scholarly work “King Potatau,” gives a very thorough treatment of the three stanzas of Te Rauparaha’s 1820 ngeri. But although he gives concise and accurate English translations to other Maori chants and texts in his book, he does not do so in the lines of English that he gives to explain the Kikiki Kokoko stanza. The words of Te Hurinui that I have coloured grey in the column on the right side do not appear to have any equivalent in the Maori words on the left.

Te Hurinui Jones’ use of this fanciful and misleading English gloss can be explained.

Firstly, he was writing in the era of the Indecent Publications Act, which made it illegal to publish books with explicit sexual descriptions, and so he had to resort to euphemisms. During that same period, Alan Armstrong had used similar euphemisms to translate sexually explicit phrases of Ruaumoko and He Puru Taitama, in his instruction book “Maori Games and Hakas.” (Armstrong, 1964)

And secondly, Te Hurinui was writing a novel, not a factual account. Bruce Biggs described his book “King Potatau” as

a historical novel rather than a biography...a blending of factual research and...fancy, (in) contrast with his Maori writing, which adhered closely to the oral traditions.” (Biggs, 1998)

Patricia Burns (1980) quotes Grace’s story of the 1810 kumara pit chant, but fails to give a translation of it, although she thanks Bill Parker for other translations in her book. She suggests that Te Rauparaha was adapting an old haka rather than creating a new one.

Timoti Karetu (1993) begins his book “Haka: Dance of a Noble People” with the words “… for haka to be meaningful and to survive, the young performer must know what is being said.” Consequently his book gives accurate translations to more than twenty other well-known haka.

But when he presents Te Rauparaha’s 1820 ngeri, he does not give a translation of these words: he merely quotes Te Hurinui’s prolix and inaccurate words. He also fails to print the first of the three stanzas, Haramai Ana. Instead he begins with Kikiki Kokoko. Te Hurinui had called the full three stanzas “Te Rauparaha’s Ngeri,” but Karetu changes the name of this abbreviated two-stanza Kikiki version to “Ka mate, Ka mate.”

He next quotes the 1810 kumara pit version from Grace’s book, but gives it no English translation at all. Then ignoring the extra stanza and the vast difference in meaning produced by the changed words in the 1820 ngeri, he compares these two versions with the comment “…there are minor variations in the lyric.”

Wira Gardiner (2001) puts the Maori text of the 1810 haka Kikiki Kakaka side-by-side with Te Hurinui’s inaccurate gloss of the Kikiki Kokoko stanza in the 1820 ngeri. Then he states that these words describe what Te Rauparaha muttered to protect himself from discovery when he was hiding in the kumara pit. And while previous commentators had merely stated that Te Rauparaha used Kikiki/Ka Mate, Gardiner makes the claim that Te Rauparaha composed it.

17. Te Rauparaha as the composer of Ka Mate?

Grace, Te Hurinui Jones, Karetu and Gardiner all seem to have been caught in a conflict between the left-brain academic tradition that showed Te Rauparaha was recycling old chants, and the right-brain folk tradition that told them Te Rauparaha had created something new. We will now examine how this folk-belief could have arisen, and then in Section 19, we will seek for a resolution of this left-brain, right-brain conflict.

It would have taken a group of people a month or more to compose a song as complex and clever as Kikiki/Ka Mate. Neither the humiliated and half-suffocated fugitive in the kumara pit, nor the traumatized chief who had hidden him would have been able to compose this off the cuff.

Arapete Awatere told Mervyn McLean (1996) "Most songs were composed as a group effort... Songs were reworked … to make the song appropriate to the new context." 

What was a likely occasion when Ka Mate was reworked? Army surgeon Arthur Thompson (1859) gives a hint. “Singing, or the haka, was the amusement of village maidens and young lads on fine evenings... Most songs were accompanied with action...”

When teenaged girls and boys gathered in the evenings, it was likely that the girls bantered the boys with sexually provocative chants. Janice Ackerly (2002) has found that this is still going on in the playgrounds of NZ Intermediate schools today.

I am the ghost of a place named Venus,
Come near me and I'll bite your penis
I am the ghost of Hone Heke
Come near me and I'll bite your teke.

Perhaps, four or five centuries ago, a group of flirtatious “village maidens” amused themselves by composing the verses of Kikiki that described sexual arousal, and sang them to tease and arouse bashful young men. It would have been a cheeky flourish for them to add the words of Ka Mate at the end, reworking its style of presentation to refer to sexual climax, “Ka mate, ka mate!” and post-coital languor, “Whiti te ra!”

There were probably dozens of similar bawdy adolescent chants composed, but the folk process of composition, selection, modification and repetition eventually led to this particular chant being used at weddings as a commentary for the young warrior’s conquest on his bridal night, and the resulting union of souls.

In the 1820s and 1830s Te Rauparaha and his followers had tortured, enslaved or eaten hundreds of people belonging to other tribes. For those tribes to regain respect, they would normally have sought utu against Ngati Toa. These inter-tribal feuds could still be taking place today.

But somehow, in the 1840s and 1850s, the way in which the old peace-making Kikiki/Ka Mate was chanted, and its association with Te Rauparaha, led to a peace process. In the mid-1850s the Rev Thomas S. Grace brought about the reconciliation between Te Heuheu Iwikau, (a relative of Te Rauparaha) and Te Herekiekie, (the son of Tauteka who chased Te Rauparaha into the kumara pit). After the two chiefs had hongied in front of the assembled tribes, “… they all thundered out Te Rauparaha’s haka.” (Grace, 1959)

The thought processes of pre-European Maori must also be taken into consideration. The minds of people in today’s Western civilization largely work in a “left-brain” way, painstakingly logical and tediously slow. But Ka Mate is a piece of poetry, metaphorical and elliptical. Right-brain intuitive processes are needed to comprehend a piece of Maori poetry. Any line in it may have connections to several other pieces of Maori literature. The particular connections that are made, and the connotations formed, depended on the context in which Ka Mate was chanted in on that particular occasion.

Thus, nineteenth century Maori people who were practised in this “right-brain” intuitive thinking would have been able to understand Ka Mate’s different connotations when it was chanted in different contexts.

Many countries are currently trying to find peace after one tribal group has been the victim of massacres by another: Tutsi and Hutu, Serb and Croatian, Shiite and Sunni. They are faced with the dilemma; do you punish all the offenders or forgive them?

The same situation existed in New Zealand in the 1840s, between Ngai Tahu and Ngati Toa. Peace was made between them in the 1850s and it seems that central to maintaining this peace is the legend that the young trouble-making Ngati Toa chief composed Kikiki/Ka Mate while he was buried, and he performed after he had miraculously risen again. A study of the part played by this legend in bringing about a successful peace between Ngai Tahu and Ngati Toa may help to resolve conflicts in other countries today.

18. The Waitangi Tribunal, 2009

“ The settlement legislation will also record the authorship and significance of the haka Ka Mate to Ngati Toa, and the Crown will work with Ngati Toa to address their concerns with the haka in a way that balances their rights with those of the wider public.”
(Waitangi Tribunal 2009)

The members of the Waitangi Tribunal would have been well aware of the ancient history of Ka Mate, so how did they come to their decision of Ngati Toa authorship? Mervyn McLean (1996) gives the answer when he quotes Arapeta Awatere again.

“ Although ownership of songs by tribe was acknowledged, there was nothing to stop people from other tribes learning the songs and making them their own by adapting or reworking them. After a while they will believe the song is theirs. "

Awatere said that the person whose passion inspired the song was credited with it. This is what happened with Pokarekare Ana, credited to the passionate East Coast arranger Pariare Tomoana, although it was a song composed in Northland. (Archer, 2002)

Similarly Ngati Toa made Kikiki/Ka Mate their own by adapting its words and reworking their meaning. They can claim authorship of the ironic new meaning Te Rauparaha gave to the haka after his kumara pit escape, and thus Ngati Toa can protect Ka Mate from its commercial exploitation.

But although Ngati Toa may believe Ka Mate is theirs, there is no evidence, either documentary or contextual, that Te Rauparaha or other Ngati Toa were the authors of the original Ka Mate chant. Instead, all the evidence points to it being an ancient and universal haka that binds different groups together.

The Waitangi Tribunal’s declaration of authorship may be an indication of how the word “authorship” differs in meaning in Maori and European cultures. Or it may be a legal fiction to protect Ka Mate from commercial exploitation. The song Pokarekare Ana was protected by such a fiction when Ngatai Huata, the granddaughter of East Coaster Pariare Tomoana, won copyright of it for the Tomoana family in 1988, merely by asserting that Pariare had written it in 1912, (Daily Telegraph, 1987), even though Tomoana himself had stated in his 1920 songbook that the song came from Northland and had passed though a WW1 army camp at Takapuna before reaching him on the East Coast in 1917. (Ngata/Tomoana, 1920)

19. Taonga and mythic values of Ka Mate

Te Ururoa Flavell, MP for Waiariki, has spoken in Parliament of the antiquity and value of Ka Mate as a taonga.

Although today’s version of this haka comprises only a few lines, the original version dates back several centuries... It is one of the taonga of Ngãti Toa’s tribal heritage. (Hansard, 11 February 2009)

Te Ahukarama Charles Royal (2007) notes that taonga are not merely static, inanimate and unloved, but are repositories of special essences, presences and mana. In wielding them, one is ushered, perhaps, towards a fundamental experience of life.

As a taonga, the Ka Mate haka is not just a chant but a ritual. Royal has pointed out that a ritual is the re-enactment of a myth. “By participating in the ritual one is taking one’s place within of the myth and transforming oneself into one of its protagonists.” Thus, when we take part in a performance of Ka Mate, we are able to experience this fundamental experience of life.

The Rev. Mãori Marsden emphasises that mythic Maori legends offer a simplified, easy-to understand view of what really happens in life.

Myth and legend in the Mãori cultural context are neither fables embodying primitive faith in the supernatural, nor marvellous fireside stories of ancient times. They were deliberate constructs employed by the ancient seers and sages to encapsulate and condense into easily assimilable forms their view of the World, of ultimate reality and the relationship between the Creator, the universe and man (Marsden, 2003)

This study of Ka Mate has shown that we need to make a distinction between fact and truth when we tell stories. Biblical stories of creation, virgin birth, resurrection and heaven have all caused confusion and dissention when this distinction has not been made. Accepting a mythic truth as historic fact leads to mindless fundamentalism, whilst the rejection of a mythic truth because it is obviously not historic fact breeds spiritual alienation. Thus people often fail to see the truth contained in stories such as those of Father Christmas or Paikea.

It is historical fact that Ngati Toa reworked an existing chant to tell the story of Te Rauparaha’s kumara pit escape. But there is a profound truth in the legend that Te Rauparaha leapt out of his kumara pit and immediately performed Ka Mate.

20. The Hairy Hero

What is the myth encapsulated in Ka Mate ? Let us look at the Tangata Puhuruhuru, the person who made the sun shine, who has been variously identified in different versions of this chant with:-

• A tree or fern that dies to give light and nutrient to others.

• An ancestor now buried, whose guiding spirit lives on.

• Kura-whakaata who rescues the sailors bringing kumara from Hawaiiki.

• A ship’s captain who protected the voyagers in bad weather.

• Maui slowing the sun to take away the deadly cold of winter.

• A peacemaker.

• A young bridegroom in a greenstone-door arranged marriage.

• A bold negotiator who unites two tribes.

• The brave chief who hides Te Rauparaha in his kumara pit in 1810.

• Te Rauparaha himself, extricating his Ngati Toa people from the overwhelming forces who attacked them at Kawhia in 1820.

• Te Rauparaha the warlord, creating “Lebensraum” for Ngati Toa by conquest in the Cook Strait region in the 1830s.

• The Rev Thomas Grace in 1853, uniting former allies and enemies of Ngati Toa.

• The Maori soldier killing Turks and Germans in World War bayonet charges.

• Buck Shelford leading the All Blacks to victory in every game he captained, from 1987 to 1990.

Every one of these is a variant of Joseph Campbell’s (1949) “hero with a thousand faces,” whose mythic story, in a thousand different guises, has survived into modern times. Campbell has shown how this story can be found in every society, conveying the message that in a deteriorating society we can neither return to “the good old days” nor can we plan for a guaranteed ideal future. Every individual, every social group, every society, even every civili s ation, is going to die.

 The victory of death can only be conquered by birth; not by the birth of the old ways again, but by the birth of something completely new. The strong man who leads his people through this rebirth into a new society is the Hero. This rebirth is commemorated by ritual. This hero story is the greatest of all myths. (Campbell, 1949)

We can re-examine the Ka Mate haka in this light. It is indeed a ritual, but not just one focussing the skill of 1980s footballers or celebrating the victory of Maori soldiers in the World Wars. Neither is it just the commemoration of an historical escape in 1810, nor just a rite of passage at marriage, a legend of Maui slowing the sun, or even thanksgiving for the warm sun that revived storm-chilled Polynesian voyagers. These are all just variants of the myth proclaiming the instinctive universal knowledge that our way of life must die, to be reborn, over and over again.

In stories from all around the world, the Hero who brings about each rebirth is buried beforehand, like the Inuit hero Raven, the Algonquin hero Manabozho (better known as Hiawatha), Ireland’s Finn McCool, Germany’s Red Riding Hood, the Jewish Jonah and the Christian’s Jesus (Campbell, 1949 p.90)

Consequently the ancient Ka Mate rebirth allegory is greatly strengthened by the addition of Te Rauparaha’s kumara pit story. An arrogant young man roaming the country and killing innocent wayfarers is called to task for his actions. A kumara storage pit almost becomes his tomb, but instead it becomes a womb out of which he is reborn from beneath the thighs of a chieftainess, growing into a leader responsible for leading his Ngati Toa people away from Kawhia to a new life at Kapiti.

Campbell (1949, p.345) tells of how the Hero can become the Father of all, the Emperor. But this great leader can deteriorate into the Tyrant when he loses the upholding idea of his community. Thus, in recent times the heroic liberator of Rhodesia, Robert Mugabe, has become the destroyer of Zimbabwe.

Te Rauparaha becomes the Tyrant when he is consumed by lust for greenstone and attacks Ngai Tahu, killing, raping, torturing and consuming hundreds. His heroic way of life has died. He is entombed again in Governor Grey’s prison hulk and arises from there as the respected leader of many tribes. Death and rebirth, death and rebirth; ka mate, ka ora, ka mate, ka ora.


21. Summary

1. “ Ka mate, ka ora” expresses the old South Pacific concept of a leader putting himself at risk for others, of one generation sacrificing itself for the next.
   
   

2. Pacific Polynesian voyagers probing south from the warm tropics to Aotearoa had to cope with life-threatening cold weather. “ Whiti te ra - May the sun shine on us” - was a common phrase. Chants used after ocean voyages have similarities with Ka Mate. The Ka Mate chant may have been derived from the song of thanks to a waka’s navigator who found warm sunshine after life-threatening storms at sea.
   
   

3. Ngati Paoa (Hauraki) and Ngati Hikairo (Kawhia) had peace-making versions of Ka Mate telling how Maui slowed the sun.

4. Ka Mate was chanted during the trial of Carl Volkner at Opotiki in 1866, and later colonial artillerymen in the Opotiki area learnt it and taught it to yachtsmen who passed their version of it on to a top rugby player. A bastardised Ka Mate rugby “war cry” was taken to the Boer War.

5. In 1901 it was revived by the Hon James Carroll. He led 150 Ngati Kahungunu in a performance of it as “an ancient and universal ngeri”.

6. It was then widely used at joint Pakeha/Maori ceremonies, by the 1905 All Blacks in Great Britain, where it was misnamed a warcry, and by Maori soldiers in Gallipoli and France.

7. The Maori Battalion used it when clearing trenches in WW2 bayonet charges.

8. With the advent of professional rugby and global TV broadcasts, the All Blacks performed a very slick version of it known as “Te Rauparaha’s Haka” and a brief sanitized version of the kumara pit story has become widely known by rugby fans.

9. In the early 19^th century, two haka of Te Rauparaha were formed from Ka Mate by the folk process. This process was commonplace for Maori songs, in both pre-European and recent times. A haka could have its meaning altered by modification in its performance.

10. Cowan noted that Ka Mate was used as the concluding stanza of Kikiki Kakaka, an ancient song of felicitation used at marriage feasts and peace-making.

11. The most enduring peace was brought about by an arranged marriage of two young highborn, one from each tribe. This was called “the Greenstone Door.”

12. A translation of Kikiki Kakaka shows it to be a description of the sequence of emotions felt by a teenage lad on the first night of his arranged marriage. It could also be a metaphor for the emotions felt by two tribes uniting with each other through the Greenstone Door. Awatere suggested that this old chant might have been facetiously applied to Te Rauparaha when he was squashed in the kumara pit with the chieftainess’s crotch brushing against him.

13. The ngeri used by Ngati Toa before being driven out of Kawhia harbour in 1820 also incorporated part of a Tuhoe rangi pakaru, Haremai Ana.

14. That ngeri continued with a highly modified version of Kikiki, and finished with the ancient lines of Ka Mate. It conveyed the message, “There are enemy closing in all around us, they have ravished some of our most noble women, but they will do so no more; and in the end there will be peace.”
    

15. In 1960 Te Hurinui published a misleading and bowdlerised translation of the sexually explicit stanza Kikiki Kokoko from Te Rauparaha’s 1820 ngeri Haramai, probably because of the Indecent Publications Act. Karetu’s 1993 book ignored the major differences between the 1810 kumara pit chant and the 1820 Kawhia one. And Gardiner’s book in 2001 contained a mixture of the two chants, claiming Te Rauparaha actually composed it.

16. These learned men appeared to be struggling with the conflict between left-brain academic tradition telling them that Ka Mate is an ancient and universal peace-making song, and the right-brain folk-story that Te Rauparaha composed Ka Mate. This folk-story is the heart of a healing peace process between Ngati Toa and the descendants of their multitude of victims.

17. The Waitangi Tribunal’s declaration of “Ngati Toa authorship” seems to be a legal fiction to protect Ka Mate from commercial exploitation, thus maintaining the efficacy of its inter-tribal peace-making.
    

18. This study of Ka Mate has shown that we need to make a distinction between fact and truth in a story. A mythical story is non-factual, but it contains the truth about what is the full experience of life.

19. The story that Te Rauparaha composed Kikiki/Ka Mate while hiding in the kumara pit has become our society’s version of the universal myth that tells of the inevitability of the death of our society, and of its rebirth in a new form.

22. Appendix: Translating Kikiki 


I do apologize for any errors in my translation of this important text. Five other writers who are far more knowledgeable in Te Reo have published books about Kikiki, but not one of them has even attempted a word-for-word translation. I hope my attempt to show the beauty of this literary treasure will inspire others to make more polished translations.

Cowan informs us that Kikiki Kakaka was used as a wedding song, and on examination we find it contains sexually explicit phrases that would be used in a intimate wedding-night song; taku tara, tarawahia, rere ure. So the method used in translating this chant involved checking Williams’ dictionary and the Whakareo online lexicon to find out whether other phrases could also be metaphors for a story of developing sexual intimacy. I discovered these phrases.

Kikiki = indistinct, murmuring, an idiot, stuttering => love-talk.

Kakaka = bracken stalks, or a wall made from them.

Kau ana = quite bare = naked

Tara = mountain peak = pubic mound

Koro = koro o te rore = koromãhanga = bird-snare, noose. (the woman’s labia)

Mau au e koro could mean "I'm caught up by desire/by a noose/by an old man." Obviously the first is what is intended here.

Peru kairiri = "fullness of eyes and lips when angry."
But the emotion here is lust, which produces the same facial expression as anger.
Pounga = eclipse = dark, hidden area (between her thighs)

Rerarera = adjective derived from rera, thighs

Nga rua kuri. This is not “ The two dogs,” but Rua (noun) pits, depths, Kuri (adj) smelly.

Kakanui = “like an inferior sort of fernroot.” This is thin and twisted, so I wrote ‘squirming.’

Ka mate, ka mate. In the context here it seems to refer to the loss of bodily control at sexual climax, scary when it happens the first time.

Ka ora, ka ora. In this context, post-coital bliss.

23. Works cited

I am indebted to those who have set up searchable databases of old New Zealand documents: The New Zealand Electronic Text Centre, The National Library’s Papers Past, and Auckland University’s Early New Zealand Books. Those databases have made this literature search a quick and easy task.

Several items are listed as being in small provincial newspapers; The Grey River Argus, Poverty Bay Herald, Tuapeka Times, Marlborough Express and West Coast Time s. These are NZ Press Association items that were telegraphed to papers throughout the country.

Ackerly, Janice, 2002, “Playground rhymes keep up with the times,” Play and Folklore. Museum Victoria, Sept 2002

Andersen, Johannes, 1934, Maori Music, with its Polynesian Background. New Plymouth, NZ: Thomas Avery & Sons.

Armstrong, Alan, 1964, Maori Games and Hakas : Instructions, Words, and Actions.

Wellington NZ: A.H. & A.W. Reed.

--------------------, 1973, "Songs of Maori Heros" Te Ao Hou : No 72

Atheley, J, 1895, “Maori Songs,” Otago Witness, 19 Dec.

Archer, John, “Pokarekare Ana,” New Zealand Folksong website, HYPERLINK "http://folksong.org.nz/pokarekare" http://folksong.org.nz/pokarekare 2002

---------------, “He Puru Taitama,” New Zealand Folksong website, HYPERLINK "http://folksong.org.nz/he_puru" http://folksong.org.nz/he_puru 2006a

---------------, 2006b, “Matangi,” New Zealand Folksong website, HYPERLINK "http://folksong.org.nz/matangi" http://folksong.org.nz/matangi

---------------, 2007, “Dugout in the True,” New Zealand Folksong website, http://folksong.org.nz/dugout_in_the_true

---------------, 2008, “Ka Mate: 12. The Life of Te Rauparaha,” New Zealand Folksong website, ” HYPERLINK "http://folksong.org.nz/ka_mate/12TeRauparaha.html" http://folksong.org.nz/ka_mate/12TeRauparaha.html

--------------, 2009, “Hoki Hoki Tonu Mai,” New Zealand Folksong website, HYPERLINK "http://folksong.org.nz/ho-kihoki" http://folksong.org.nz/ho-kihoki

Auckland Star, 1898, “Football,” 17 Sept, page 10.

Best, Elsdon, 1901, “ The Diversions of the Whare Tapere ”, Trans & Proc Royal Soc NZ, Vol 34.

--------------, 1904, “ Notes on Ancient Polynesian Migrants”, Trans & Proc Royal Soc NZ, Vol 37.

--------------, 1941, (1924) The Maori, Vol II, Wellington, N.Z: Board of Maori Ethnological Research

Burns, Patricia, 1980, Te Rauparaha: a New Perspective, Wellington NZ: Reed.

Campbell, Joseph, 1949, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Princeton University Press: New Jersey.

Cody, Joseph, 1956, 28 (Maori) Battalion Wellington, N.Z. : War History Branch, Dept. of Internal Affairs.

The Colonist, 1906, “ Then and Now,” December 7.

Cowan, James, 1926, The Maoris in the Great War: Gallipoli, 1915, France and Flanders, 1916-1918, Auckland, N.Z. : Maori Regimental Committee,

Cowan, James (Tohunga), 1935, "The Wisdom of the Maori," The New Zealand Railways Magazine, 1 Feb.

Daily Southern Cross, 1866, "The Murder of Mr Volkner" 28 March.

Daily Telegraph, 1987, “Tomoana family claims Pokarekare Ana,” Hastings. August 6^th.

Evening Post, 1903, "Tomorrow's Match,” 10 July, Page 6.

Gardiner, Wira, 2001, Haka, a Living Tradition, Auckland, N.Z. Hodder Moa.

Grace, John Te H, 1959, Tuwharetoa: the History of the Maori People of the Taupo District, Wellington NZ: Reed.

Grey River Argus, 1901,"The Royal Visitors" 15 June, page 3

---------------------, 1911,"The Dandies" 13 January, page 4

Grey, Sir George, 1853, Ko nga Moteatea, me nga Hakirara o nga Maori, Wellington, NZ: Robert Stokes.

Karetu, Timoti, 1993, Haka: the Dance of a Noble People, Auckland NZ: Reed.

Hiriroa, Te Rangi, (pseudonym) ca. 1916, Ka Mate! Ka Mate! Maori War Song, Auckland NZ: E. A. Eady & Co

Hiroa, Te Rangi, (Buck, Peter Henry), 1925, The coming of the Maori, Nelson, N.Z. : R.W. Stiles.

Jones, Pei Te Hurinui, 1960, King Potatau: an Account of the Life of Potatau Te Wherowhero, the First Maori King, Wellington, NZ. Polynesian Society.

--------------------------, 1995, Iwi o Tainui: the traditional history of the Tainui people, edited and annotated by Bruce Biggs. Auckland, NZ, Auck. Univ. Press, 1995, page 29

Makereti, (Maggie Papakura), 1938, The Old-Time Maori, London: Victor Gollancz page 64

Marlborough Express, 1900, "Brief Mention" 3 Feb, page 3

Marsden, Mãori, 2003, Woven universe ed. Te Ahukaramã Charles Royal. Otaki, NZ: Estate of Rev. Mãori Marsden, 2003.

Mead, Hirini Moko, 2003., Tikanga Mãori : Living by Mãori Values, Wgtn, NZ: Huia.


McLean, Mervyn, 1996, Maori Music, Auckland NZ: Auckland University Press.

--------------------, 2004, To Tatau Wakaa: in Search of Maori Music, Auckland, NZ: AUP.

Ngata, Apirana,1914, Songs, Haka, and Ruri for the use of the Maori Contingent Wellington, NZ: Govt. Printer.

Ngata, A. T. and Tomoana P. H. 1920, A Noble Sacrifice and Hoea Ra Te Waka Nei, Wellington NZ: New Zealand Free Lance Office. (Note. This was published in 1919 and also in 1920. Only the 1920 edition includes ‘Pokarekare – Troubled.’)


Observer, The New Zealand, 1895, “The Fretful Porcupine,” Auckland N.Z: 2 February, page 7.

Orbell, Margaret, 1978, Maori poetry, an introductory anthology, Auckland N.Z: Heinemann Educational.

Otago Witness, 1907, “Dominion Day in the Capital” 2 October. Page 30.

Pomare, Maui, 1934, Legends of the Maori, Vol 2, Wellington, NZ. Harry H. Tombs, page 16

 Poverty Bay Herald, 1900, "Ready to span the Tugela" 5 March, page 4

Royal, Charles, 2007, Mãtauranga Mãori and Museum Practice, Te Papa,

www.med.govt.nz/upload/1921/charles-royal-discussion.pdf

Ryan, Greg, 1993, Forerunners of the All Blacks: the 1888-89 New Zealand Native Football Team. Christchurch, NZ: Canterbury University Press, 1993, page 53

Salmond, Anne, 1976. Hui: a Study of Maori Ceremonial Gatherings, Auckland NZ, A H Reed. Page 163

Schnackenburg, Edward H. 1948, The "Ka Mate" Chant, Jnl. Polynesian Soc. Vol 57, pp.172-177

Stimson, John Francis, 1933, Tuamotuan Religion, Honolulu, Hawaii; Bernice P. Bishop Museum

Te Rauparaha, Tamihana, 1980, (ca. 1870) Life & Times of Te Rauparaha, Martinborough, NZ: Alister Taylor, 1980

Tuapeka Times, 1901, "The Royal Visit: The Native Display at Rotorua" 19 June, page 3

Watkins, L.T. [Ed ], 1925, The Triumphant Tour!: the All Blacks in England, Ireland and Wales, 1924-1925. Wellington N.Z: L.T. Watkins, 1925.

West Coast Times, 1906, "Great Excitement in Wales" 1 February 1906, p.4

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