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Te Rauparaha would have learnt this old
haka in his teen-age years.
Kikiki
kakaka!
Kikiki kakaka kau ana!
Kei waniwania taku aro,
Kei tara wahia kei te rua i te kerokero!
He pounga rahui te uira ka rarapa;
Ketekete kau ana, to peru kairiri:
Mau au e koro e.
Ka wehi au ka matakana.
Ko wai te tangata kia rere ure
Tirohanga nga rua rerarera,
Nga rua kuri kakanui i raro?
Ka mate! Ka mate!
Ka ora! Ka ora!
Tenei te tangata puhuruhuru
Nana nei i tiki mai whakawhiti te ra!
Upane, ka upane!
Whiti te ra!
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I'm
jabbering and quivering,
stuttering, shaking and naked!
I'm brushed by your
body
your formed curves, pulsating with energy!
Forbidden mysteries are revealed;
banter and closeness, flushed looks:
I am caught in a trap.
I'm scared but fully alert.
Who is this man with thrusting weapon
investigating the hot moist flesh,
so pungent beneath him?
I am dying, I'm dead!
No, I'm alive, fully alive!
a virile man
who can bring joy and peace!
Together, side by side
We can make the sun shine!
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"Motupoi
Pah with Tongariro"
- George Angas
1844
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Te
Rauparaha's escape
Te
Rauparaha arrived at the northern shore of Lake Taupo in
about 1810 and was told that two Ngati Te Aho chiefs were
waiting to destroy him.
So he made his escape south, heading for the Whanganui
coast. He sailed down to the south west shore of Lake Taupo
then walked to Motu-o-puhi Pa
on an island in Lake Rotoaira.
The Ngati Aho war party arrived in hot pursuit, and the
Motu-o-puhi chief Wharerangi invited them in to search the
place. He had hidden Te Rauparaha in a kumara pit and had
told his wife to sit on top of it.
The woman's rear end was millimetres from Te Rauparaha's
face. He was half-suffocating. He recalled the words of the
old haka. "Kikiki kakaka,... Kei
waniwania taku aro...
Fear
gripped him when he heard the war party arrive, "Ka
wehi au,
and
he realized he was caught in a trap.
"Mau
au e koro e....
He thought he was done for when the chief's wife moved
away. "Ka mate, ka mate...
But his pursuers had departed. "Ka
ora, ka ora... Instead he saw the
hairy legs of the local chief who had hid him. "Tenei
te tangata puhuruhuru...
Exhausted, humiliated, half-suffocated and in shock,
he climbed up out into the sunshine. "Whiti
te ra... He gave vent to his
feelings of relief by chanting the the old "Kikiki" haka
out loud.
Te Rangikoaea sat on
top of the kumara pit |
Te
Rauparaha's haka
Civil
war gripped Aotearoa over the next 30 years. Warring
factions obtained firearms from European traders in
return for flax fibre and land. Te Rauparaha developed a
trading and raiding base on Kapiti Island and grew in
status to overlord of central New Zealand, from
Whanganui to Akaroa.
Then thousands of Europeans flooded onto the land that
had been traded to them, and they started forcing their
way onto Maori-owned land as well. Te Rauparaha became a
respected national leader in the Maori opposition to
these foreign usurpers.
Kikiki/Ka Mate became known as Te Rauparaha's haka, as
the story of his ingenious response to overwhelming odds
gave this old haka a new interpretation that provided a
morale booster to those facing the flood of British
settlers.
As
the years have passed by, Kikiki/Ka Mate has gone from
being a haka 'about' Te Rauparaha to one 'composed by' Te
Rauparaha.
Kikiki is far too complex and subtle to be an
off-the-cuff composition by one man who was exhaused,
frightened and half-suffocated. He would only have been
capable of chanting fragments of verses already well known
to him.
In
actual practice, composition of a top-quality haka was a
group process of intelligent creative effort. Members of the
group customarilly trialled and modified the words and
actions.
However,
when the Ngati Toa people attributed the haka to Te
Rauparaha, they increased its mana and also gave it a
'turangawaewae,' a place where it belonged and where it
was cared for.
Home
- Kiwi Songs - Maori
Songs - Search - Donate
Patricia
Burns, Te Rauparaha, A New Perspective
(Penguin, 1983) pp 44-48.
James
Cowan,
The Maoris in the Great War:
(Maori Regimental Committee, Auckland, 1926)
p 181.
Ka
Mate, Ka Mate, (NZ Railways Magazine, February
1, 1935)
John
Te H Grace,
Tuwharetoa : the history of the Maori people of the
Taupo district. (Reed, 1959)
Mervyn
McLean, Maori Music (University of Auckland
Press 1996)
Kiwi
Songs
- Maori Songs - Home
Published on Folksong.org.nz in
Sept 2008
© 2008 by John Archer
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