NEW  ZEALAND
FOLK * SONG

Te Hokinga Mai

Te Taite Cooper,  Fr Max Mariu,
and the PakiPaki community 1986

Maori Songs - Kiwi Songs - Home

Composed for the return of ancient Maori artworks after their highly successful exhibition in major US Museums, this song celebrates not only the return of the ancient taonga, but also the return of the spirits of the ancestors, and the return of international respect for Maori art and culture.   


This video is copied from a very old VCR tape of their historic tv performance.



If that video is too jumpy for you, here is the audio only.

Introduction
Tangi a te ruru,
kei te hokihoki mai e.
E whaka-whero-whero
i te putahitanga.
N?ku nei ra koe
i tuku kia haere.
T?ra puritia iho
nui rawa te aroha e.

Verse, sung twice
Te Hokinga Mai,
t?na koutou
Tangi ana te ng?kau
i te aroha
T? tonu ra te mana
te ihi o nga tupuna
kua wehea atu r?
Mauria mai te mauri tangata
hei oranga mo te m?rehu
tangi m?kai nei,
E rapu ana i te ara tika
mo t?tou katoa.


Te Hokinga Mai,
Te Hokinga Mai

T? tangata tonu!

 


The cry of the morepork
keeps coming back to me.
It is hooting out there
where the paths meet.
I was the one
who allowed you to go.
It was curbed,
my deep love for you


But now the formal return home.
Greetings to you all,
How my heart weeps
with affection.
Still standing tall is the prestige,
and power of the ancestors
who have passed on, and who are now
bringing back the true spirit of the people
to help heal the remnant
crying like lost souls, 
while searching for the true path
for us all.


The Return Here of our artworks!
The Return Here of our prestige!
We people can stand tall again!


Huri Paraha looks like a sheep shearer and sings like an angel.

 


And here is a karaoke version so you can sing along.

D Tangi a te D7 ruru kei te G hokihoki mai e
E D whaka-whero-whero i A te putahita-G-nga-D-a
N?ku nei ra D7 koe i G tuku kia haere
T?-D-ra puritia A iho nui G rawa te aroha D e

Te Hokinga Mai G t?na kou-D-tou
Tangi ana te ng?kau G i te aro-D-ha D7
T? tonu G ra te mana te A ihi o nga tu-D-puna
Kua wehea atu Bm r? mauria E mai te E7 mauri tanga-A-ta-A7-a
Hei or-D-anga mo te m?-D7-rehu tangi G m?kai nei
E D rapu ana i te A ara tika mo G t?tou ka-D-toa

Te Hokinga Mai G t?na kou-D-tou
Tangi ana te ng?kau G i te aro-D-ha D7
T? tonu G ra te mana te A ihi o nga tu-D-puna
Kua wehea atu Bm r? mauria E mai te E7 mauri tanga-A-ta-A7-a
Hei or-D-anga mo te m?-D7-rehu tangi G m?kai nei
E D rapu ana i te A ara tika mo G t?tou ka-D-toa

D Te Hokinga Mai, Te Hokinga Mai, t? tangata tonu!


Te Maori exhibition, New Yorkposter

"I want you to come back with me to a September day, 1984. It's five o'clock in the morning. We're sitting on the top step leading up to the illustrious Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York - A slight puff of wind stirs the enormous vertical banner towering above the doors proclaiming, TE MAORI, MAORI ART!

The beginnings of TE MAORI go back several years. A team of curators in New Zealand under the guidance of Maori historian, author, carver and academic Professor Hirini Moko Mead assess what objects would make up the exhibition. Private and public collections are visited. Gradually 174 prized and remarkable works of traditional Maori art dating back to 1000 AD are assembled.

Works from thirty Maori tribes representing fifty types of objects are brought together - monumental architectural carvings - gateways, ridge poles, house posts and lintels, elaborate canoe carvings, paddles and bailers, weapons, musical instruments, tools, mortuary carvings and objects of personal adornment. Wood, stone, jade, ivory, bone and shell. The final selections are made by Douglas Newton, (the Metropolitan's chairman of Primitive Art), Professor Mead and Dr David Simmons, (Ethnologist at the Auckland Museum.)

Even before TE MAORI leaves Aotearoa for New York, St Louis, San Francisco and Chicago, it is being called "an exhibition of Maori Art" - not - "an exhibition of Maori artifacts". TE MAORI is being seen as the precious outcomes of skilled artisans.

There is a glimmer of natural light. The Kaumatua group has arrived - each member wearing prized heirloom cloaks made of kiwi feathers with geometrical patterns made from coloured feathers of other birds - tui, pigeon, kaka - greenstone and whalebone ornaments are worn - many carry ornately carved tokotoko - walking, or talking sticks.

The Karanga, the women's keening call of lamentations ring out - 5th Avenue will never be the same- Kaumatua intone incantations welling from solo voices to chorus. The great double doors of the Metropolitan Museum Of Art swing open ... the procession begins with grace and dignity, slowly moves up the steps as we join it.

The successful Te Maori exhibition opens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1984, then tours several other United States cities; St Louis, San Francisco and Chicago. Many, many thousands of Americans respond enthusiastically."

Te Hokinga Mai

On its return to New Zealand, Te Maori was shown in the main cities under the title "Te Maori. Te hokinga mai. The return home" It was again well received. While the taonga (treasures) were created many generations ago, they are regarded as tupuna (ancestors) to whom Maori are personally linked, and so the taonga were appropriately accompanied by traditional ritual welcomes. Consequently, each exhibition of the taonga became an expression of te ao Maori (the Maori world) as a vibrant, living culture.

Te Maori was a landmark event for Maori art and culture. It sparked a new respect for taonga (treasures) in museums and how they were displayed.

It also sparked a new respect for the Maori people by Pakeha New Zealanders

Outstanding art is ALMOST symmetrical.

Tangi A Te Ruru

Associated most often with the night and the spirit world, the haunting call of the morepork sent shivers of foreboding down the spines of the early settlers of New Zealand as well as the Maori who revered it as an ancestral spirit. From ancient times till today the Maori have incorporated the morepork's intense staring eyes into their carvings. This stems from the myth of Rongo, a man who built a carved dwelling from knowledge gained from a house in the sky. He buried a tapu sacrifice near the rear wall of this building; this was "Kou-ruru" or the morepork. In remembrance of this event the bird is now immortalized in the organic swirling artwork decorating the buildings of the marae."      (Jen Longshaw)

The ancestor carved on the gable (kou) of a traditional meeting house is given an owl-like visage to encourage us to imitate their wise, wide-awake ways of living, as we follow them into the dark unknown of the future.
       
 Ruru, or New Zealand Morepork.
     Koruru on NZ ten cent coin

Te Taite Cooper M.Ed, B.A, Dip Maori.

Maori song writer, choreographer, performing arts and spirituality specialist He was born in Hastings in 1940, and educated at PakiPaki and Poukawa Primary Schools outside Hastings, and Hato Paora College for three years.

In 1962 and 1963 he was based in Los Angeles as musical director and choreographer for "Mauri Ora M?ori,"

click image
a kapahaka group of six members that toured California and Arizona doing one hour programs in Junior High Schools. Te Taite and other Mauri Ora members lived in Vancouver, Canada, from 1963 to 1985 and were used by the NZ government to promote New Zealand tourism.

He then returned to New Zealand and in 1986 co-wrote "Te Hokinga Mai". He tutored at PakiPaki Bilingual school and gave them many of his waiata. He wrote many songs for different groups including Patea M?ori Club, and was responsible for the M?ori repertoire of the New Zealand National Youth Choir during their 1994 tour of North America.

In 1992 he graduated at Victoria University, Wellington with a Dip. M?ori and in 1994 with a B.A. in Education. He then lectured teachers at Victoria University and Weltec, and in his 70s he was an advisor to the ACC. He died in Wellington in 2020.



Bishop Max Takuira Matthew Mariu SM CNZM

Mariu was born in Waihi on the southern shore of Lake Taupo in 1952. He was educated at the convent school there, and later at Hato Paora College, Feilding.

He then joined the Society of Mary and studied for the priesthood at Greenmeadows. He was ordained a priest in 1977 and did parish work at Napier and Whang?rei, and M?ori pastoral care at Pakipaki. In 1980-81-22 he was on the staff of Hato Paora College.

At the age of 36 he became the first Catholic Maori to be ordained a bishop. (Frederick Bennett was an Anglican bishop in 1928)
His ordination on the marae in Tokoroa (or Waihi?) combined M?ori and Catholic ritual.

In the 2002 New Year Honours, Mariu was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to M?ori and the community. He died in Auckland in 2005 at the age of 53 of a heart problem he had for some 30 years.

Pakipaki

A k?inga village south-west of Hastings on the banks of the (now highly polluted) Awanui stream at the site of the kainga of his 16th century ancestress Hinetemoa. The full name of the village, Te Pakipakitanga-o-Hinetemoa, recalls how she huddled up there when surprised emerging naked after bathing.

Pakipaki was established in the 1860s as the permanent settlement of Ng?ti Whatui?piti, Ng?ti Ngarengare, Ng?ti Papatuam?r?, Ng?ti Te Rehunga, and Ng?ti Tamater? back to their ancestral land following 40 years of displacement to Mahia during the Musket Wars.

Pakipaki is an ecumenical community represented by many faiths. The predominant denominations of Christianity of Pakipaki wh?nau families are the Catholic Katorika M?ori o Te Ritenga, the Anglican H?hi Mihingare, and the R?tana Movement. Wikipedia.

Other Maori Songs - Main Song List - Home

Published on the NZ Folksong website on 16 June 2006, for Nicola.

Thanks to Matua Toby Rikihana for the lyrics, and to Carla Rikihana for these guitar chords.
Tidied up, with guitar chords and mp3 added, May 2011. Revised Jan 2020.