SPIRIT and SONG of the MAORI of AOTEAROA {NEW ZEALAND} ANN CLEMENTS “Kei a Te Po Te Timatatanga O Te Waiatatanga Mai a Te Atua
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SPIRIT AND SONG OF THE MAORI OF AOTEAROA {NEW ZEALAND} ANN CLEMENTS “Kei a te Po te timatatanga o te waiatatanga mai a te Atua. Ko te Ao, ko te Ao marama, ko te Ao turoa.”1 It was in the night that the gods sang the world into existence. From the world of light, into the world of music. MAORI are the indigenous people of Aotearoa (island of the “long white cloud”) or New Zealand. According to Maori mythology, music called the world into creation. As soon as the gods turned night into light, they turned light into music. The connotation of this story is that when life fi rst appeared, it brought with it the complexities of living experience, including emotions that are most easily and genuinely expressed through music. All Maori songs (waiata) stem from the emotions that the gods displayed during creation. “There are songs of sorrow, anger and lament; of loneliness, desire and joy; of peace and love.”2 These aesthetic attributes of music echo music’s functions and uses globally. Humans use music to defi ne, represent, symbolize, and unify or disrupt society. Music is an expression of our social, political, spiritual, and self and group identity. Within Maori culture, music plays all of these roles—from its imperative position in sacred (tapu) ritual to its unifying task in the preservation, creation, and demonstration of group identity. Music is a primary social adhesive that has sustained Maori culture and heritage for hundreds of years. Ann Clements Associate Professor of Music Education The Pennsylvania State University School of Music [email protected] CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 55 Number 2 17 SPIRIT AND SONG OF THE MAORI This brief encounter with Maori Over several centuries in relative iso- an independent dominion in 1907 and music will provide an interweaving of lation, these Polynesian settlers refined supported the United Kingdom militarily culture and musical knowledge. It in- a unique language (te Reo), a rich my- in both World Wars. tends to serve as a kūaha or gateway thology, distinctive crafts, and complex In recent years, the government for choral conductors and performers performing arts. While many modern has sought to address longstanding to explore Maori performance practice. Maori take pride in the collective name Maori grievances stemming back to the Learning to navigate the intersections of “Maori,” which is loosely translated as Treaty of Waitangi. Among the disputes music’s sonic and cultural relevance in natural or common, it is important to are that the signed Maori and English Maori life provides the foundation for recognize that Maori were not a united treaties are different and that many of a more complete realization of the rich indigenous population until colonization, the rights guaranteed to Maori were and complex role music plays in Maori when non-Maori settlers (Pakeha) called ignored. To help rectify this, the Waitangi society. for a distinction between the indigenous Tribunal was established in 1975. It has population and the Europeans. Tribal ruled on a number of claims brought affi liation, when known, still plays a domi- by Maori tribes, and compensation has MAORI HISTORY nant role in genealogical self-identity. been granted in many cases. While dis- The first European explorer to agreements over the terms of the treaty He aha te mea nui o te ao? He sight New Zealand was Abel Tasman continue to this day, it is still considered tangata! He tangata! He tangata! on December 13, 1642,4 but he was New Zealand’s founding document.7 unable to come ashore because of the Today, New Zealand is home to over What is the most important “hostile natives.”5 Captain James Cook, 4.4 million people. According to data thing in the world? It is people! who reached New Zealand in Octo- from a recent national census,8 approxi- It is people! It is people! ber of 1769 on the fi rst of his three mately 71 percent of New Zealanders voyages,6 was the fi rst European able identify themselves as being of European —Maori Proverb to negotiate with the Maori, allowing descent, with just over 14 percent iden- him to circumnavigate, survey, and map tifying as Maori. The remaining people While the exact date that the Maori New Zealand. From the late eighteenth identifi ed themselves primarily as being discovered New Zealand is debatable, century forward, explorers and other of Asian and Pacifi c descent. A dispro- it is largely believed that they arrived sailors, missionaries, traders, whalers, and portionate number of Maori face signifi - on the islands just prior to and dur- sealers arrived with the largest wave of cant economic and social obstacles. With ing the thirteenth century. Navigating settlers arriving in the earliest decades of lower life expectancies and incomes a long voyage originating in Eastern the nineteenth century. For many inland compared with other New Zealand Polynesia in the open Pacifi c, their large and highland Maori, there was limited ethnic groups, they face higher levels of canoes (waka) were guided by expert cultural disruption or change beyond crime, health problems, and educational navigators who used ocean currents, the the appearance of new goods. For the under-achievement.9 Socioeconomic- winds, and stars. The ancestors sailed on coastal and lowland Maori, however, based initiatives have been implemented vessels such as Te Arawa, Tainui, Takitimu, change was occurring at an unprec- aimed at closing the gap between the Mamari, and Horouta. These vessel edented speed due primarily to the Maori and other New Zealanders. names live on as the names of the tribal introduction of the musket and the con- groupings (iwi) with which Maori as- version of many Maori to Christianity. sociate themselves genealogically. Many In 1840, Maori chieftains entered into MAORI MUSIC Maori can trace their family genealogy a compact with Britain called the Treaty (whakapapa) back to the specifi c navi- of Waitangi in which they ceded sover- Nā tō rourou, nā taku rourou ka gator and canoe from which they are eignty to Queen Victoria of Great Britain ora ai te iwi. descended. “During the voyage they dis- while retaining territorial rights. That played remarkable powers overcoming same year, the British began the fi rst With your food basket and my many dangers, and on their arrival they organized colonial settlement. A series food basket the people will introduced valuable resources such as of land wars between 1843 and 1872 thrive. the kumara (sweet potato) and karaka ended with the defeat of the Maori. The tree.”3 British colony of New Zealand became —Maori Proverb 18 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 55 Number 2 OF AOTEAROA {NEW ZEALAND} Music is a universal phenomenon. section and provide additional sources presentation and can create a unique There is not a single culture on the of information on a broader variety of introduction to a set of Maori songs in planet that does not manifest musical song styles. concert. Other forms of karanga such traditions. One must bear in mind, as those intended to be sung at funerals however, that the concept of music as we commonly consider it to be is not TRADITIONAL WAIATA universal. All music is sonically and cul- turally specifi c. Ethnomusicologist John Traditional waiata, both sacred and Blacking, in his highly infl uential text How secular, come in principally three forms: Musical is Man?, defi nes music as “hu- lullabies (oriori), love songs (waitata manly organized sound.”10 In this defi ni- aroha), and laments (waiata tangi). They tion the sonic elements of music such as are sung as solos, in unison, or at the timber, meter, mode, melody, harmonic octave. Early European documents structure, and form weigh equally with indicate that the singing was originally the cultural meanings embedded within microtonal.12 Melodically, traditional the music by its creators and perform- waiata incorporate the small range of a ers. For Blacking, the meanings of music minor third. Within this range, however, are as much cultural as they are sonic. there are shifts smaller than semitones, Defi ning music in this way provides a and melodic contours are enhanced meaningful framework for understand- through the use of ornamentation and ing the world’s musics and the challeng- embellishment such as glissandi and ing yet copious path conductors and the bending of the pitch.13 Traditionally, performers must take to make the most waiata end by falling away vocally at the of all the music they encounter. end of the fi nal line. It is considered a Prior to colonization, the Maori had bad omen, and certainly bad form, for no formal written language. The great a song to be interrupted by breath. quantity of mythology, stories, geneal- Groups singing traditional waiata prac- ogy, and cultural knowledge was carried tice staggered breathing, while soloists forward to future generations through strive to maintain the full line within one weavings, carvings, song, and chant. “Just breath. Modern renditions of traditional as the universe took its physical shaping waiata are infl uenced by western tonal- from the singing of the gods, music can ity and microtonal singing, which is a rare be perceived as creating shapes in the ability these days. Microtonal elements silence.”11 The analogy of making music in modern singing of traditional waita as pleasing shapes brings the musical have been maintained to some degree process closely in line with the process through the continued use of vocal of carvers, weavers, and other visual art- slides and ornamentation. ists in terms of forming and reforming A popular example of a traditional the physical world. waiata is the karanga. Karanga are brief Maori are prolifi c musicians.