This was sung to seek revenge for a
Waikato war-party that had many warriors
slaughtered near Tangiwai in a failed
attack on Whanganui iwi.
Takoto rawa iho ki te po,
E huihui ana mai o tatou wairua,
Kia piri, kia tata mai ki taku taha.
Matatū tonu ake,
ka maranga kei
runga,
Whitirere ki te ao,
tirotiro kau au.
A, me he wairua atua1
te tarehutanga
iho.
E te manawa
i raro kapakapa,
tū kei runga!2
Eventually, when
I'm lying down at night the
spirits of our dead
gather all around,
entwined, close
to my side.
My eyes gradually open,
and sitting up,
wide awake in the dawn.
I look about, but
I'm all alone:
like divine spirits,
the visions have vanished.
How my heart was throbbing
down there; I must
get up!
Homai he mata
kia haea ki taku
kiri;
Taku kiri tirohanga mai nei
e aku tamariki
nei.
Mauria atu ra, e Whiro,3
Aku toto, aku tahe,
aku parapara tapu;
Kia kite mai koutou ko ahau ra tena.
E kimi ana i te ara,
I haere ai taku pokai4
tara ki te tonga;
Tēnā ka paea
nga hiwi maunga ki a Ngati Hau
Give me an obsidian blade
to lacerate my skin,
my skin gazed upon
by my children here.
Take away, O Whiro,
my blood, my body's essence,
my sacred remains,
so that you all may see 'tis indeed myself,
seeking the pathway,
that will take me to my flock who passed to
the south, and who are now
heaped up on
the mountain ridges of Ngati Hau.3
Ko te rongo pai tena i a koutou;
He rongo toa mai, hau ana5
ki te taha-tū o
te rangi!6
Tē puta7
to rongo toa,
ka pēhia mai e
Whanganui.
He toa e whaiatia ko te potiki
na
Tu-whawairi-hau!
Kia ata whakaputa;
Tena ano ra nga tamariki toa
na Rakamaomao.
Kei te rangi, e haere ana;
na
Motai-tangata-rau.
Takahia atu ra nga tuaone11
kei Matahiwi12
ra!
Ko to tinana i noho atu;
Ko to rongo i tuku mai,
I wani mai runga o nga maunga;
Tae rawa mai ki ahau e noho atu
nei i te kainga
Kia whakatauki au i konei,
Aue! Taukiri, e!
Those were splendid reports about you;
A reputation for fighting that resounded
to the horizon!
Battle quickly got rid of7
your reputation, when you were
subdued by Whanganui.
A warrior to be pursued is that
youngest son of Tuwhakairihau!8
Let him now beware; for there are
many warrior sons
of Rakamaomao.9
On the heights, moving steadily
are those of Motai's 100 progeny.10
May they tread on
those sands of Matahiwi afar!
Your bodies lie there in
the hill country;
But news of your fate
has come back,
Skimming swiftly o'er the mountain tops.
It reached me living here
at the village,
And thus I now speak proverbially,
Alas! Mournful am I!
This
was the song Matangi-hauroa sang to Te Whatanui,
a famous Raukawa chieftain, during the musket
wars. A force of Ngati-Raukawa had gone from
Maungatautari with Te Mahunga as leading chief.
Going up the Waikato River, across Lake Taupo
and then through the Rangipo Desert, this force
was defeated by the Whanganui people near
Tangiwai; Te Mahunga was killed and other chiefs
with him were held as captives.
This song was sung in every district, because it
suited the purpose of emphasising a point in
many discussions on the tribal courtyards. The
orator would substitute appropriate names for
those in the song to suit the occasion.
1.
Wairua atua - in some versions “
wairua a po,” spirit of the night.
2.
According to some versions “E te manawa i raro
kapakapa, ana ka maranga kei runga.” But
ana ka maranga is omitted here because it
disturbs the lilt of the song.
3. Whiro
is in Grey's 1853 text. Ngata's text gives Whero
whom he says was a chief of Ngati-Hau, in the
high country behind Whanganui, but I can't find
him in any genealogy. Whiro was a Ngati Hau
ancestor, a chief who moved
from Rarotonga to Aotearoa in about 1300 AD, and
settled on the tussock plains south of Mt
Ruapehu near Tangiwai. So the singer is
figuatively telling Whiro's descendants she is
going to give her life so she can join her
lovers, sons and nephews.
4. Brave
flock - the war party of Ngati
Raukawa who were defeated by the Whanganui are
compared with the thousands of birds - kiwi,
weka, kakapo, mutton-birds - that bred on high
tussock plains south of Mt Ruapehu and were
harvested in great piles for winter food.
5. Hau
ana - resounded, but in some versions
it is “kai ana,” - bit into, or pierced.
6. Te
taha-tū o te rangi - literally "the
raised edge of the sky" - ie, the horizon. But
there is a deeper meaning: Rangi also means
spiritual, heavenly, so this could mean their
reputation bordered on the supernatural.
7.
Tē puta is not "te puta - the hole."
Tē means to fart, or quickly get rid of,
and puta is a battle or battlefield.
Puta is probably derived from pū-tahi, heaping-into-one, the junction
of two waterways.
8. Tuwhakairihau
- Ngata's notes say he was of Whanganui iwi, and
a descendant of Uiraroa, but I can find neither
of them googling genealogies.
9. Brave
sons of Rakamaomao - a reference to
Te Whatanui and his people. Rakamaomao was a
Tainui ancestor.
10. Motai's
hundred progeny - Motai was another
Tainui ancestor, the great-grandson of Hoturoa,
the commander of the Tainui waka. On account of
his many offspring, the term, “Motai's hundred
progeny,” was coined by later generations.
11. Takahia
atu ra nga tua-one kei Matahiwi. A
proverb is being alluded to here. In
the wars with Ngati Tama long ago, the fame of
Kapu-manawa-whiti as a warrior emerged, which
inspired Parekarau to utter the proverbial
saying:
“He iti na Motai he uri tamawahine... mana e
takahi te one i Hakerekere.”
“Motai's little descendant is a child of a
daughter's son... he will tread on the sands
of Hakerekere.”
Hakerekere is the beach between the Awakino and
the Mokau river-mouths, marking the most distant
western boundary of Ngati Tama.
12.Matahiwi. This is not the
village of Matahiwi up the Wanganui river, but
the beach between the Rangitikei and Turakina
river-mouths, marking the most distant western
boundary of Ngati Apa.
Te Kooti's version
Te Kooti composed a
peacemaking version of this moteatea in
1884 when he was stopped from going to
Gisborne for a peacemaking visit. Te Kooti
adapted many waiata so that the knowledge,
perceptions and experiences from the ancestral
past were brought to bear on the present. He
was a subtle and complex poet.