Endeavour To Preserve Traditional Maori Songs

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27631, 12 April 1955, Page 8

Endeavour To Preserve Traditional Maori Songs

(Neu? Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, April 11.

For the last 18 months, Mr W. T. Ngata, secretary of the Maori Purposes Fund Board, has been travelling through the North Island to continue a work begun in 1922 by his father, Sir Apirana Ngata, and Sir Peter Buck—the recording of the waiata, or traditional chants and songs of the Maori.

Sir Apirana Ngata had only a primitive Edison recorder; his son uses a modern tape recorder. In the hundreds of old-fashioned cylindrical records collected by Sir Apirana Ngata; the modern recordings made by the New Zealand Broadcasting Service in later years, and the more recent ones made by Mr Ngata, there has been preserved for posterity a wealth of the traditional songs and chants of the Maori.

The old Edison recordings collected by Sir Apirana Ngata, and now held by the Maori Purposes Fund Board and the Alexander Turnbull Library, cannot be transferred to modern records. Some of the old cylinders were sent to Australian experts, but it was found impossible to make new records from them. —'

One of the functions of the Maori Purposes Fund Board is to preserve Maori culture and art. ' The board bought a tape recorder for Mr Ngata, and has supplied the finance for recordings to be made. Mr Ngata says the recordings are not being made for commercial purbut to save for future generations some of the traditional Maori songs and chants. During his lifetime, Sir Apirana Ngata published two volumes of the words of Maori songs and chants. The board intends to obtain as many re-

cardings as possible of performances of those songs and chants. . - On his recording expeditions, Mr Ngata has travelled through Hawke’s Bay Wairoa. Gisborne and the Bay of Plenty to the Tuhoe country and to Rotorua. His most recent trip was to Taumarunui, in the lower King Country. .... .. Mr Ngata has also visited the Waikato. Taranaki, and Wanganui tribes to seek their co-operation in recording waiata.

Young Maoris’ Enthusiasm The first place to which Mr Ngata took his tape recorder was Jerusalem, near Ruatoria, north of Gisborne. This is the home of Sir Apirana Ngata’s people, the Ngatiporou Tribe, which has always been strong in retaining the Maori arts and culture. The young people there were keen to learn the old chants, and had pursuaded the elders to teach them. When Mr Ngata arrived, he had an organised group to work with. , „ , Mr Ngata says it is mostly only the older Maoris who know the really old chants. The younger Maoris know very little of the traditional waiata. Some of the chants of historical interest have been lost, or can be remembered only in part by a few elders. Even when old chants can be recited right through, their origin and significance have often been forgotten, Mr Ngata says. This shows the great need for the work that he is doing in preserving what is left of this Maori Mr Ngata says he has found that young Maoris are showing a great interest in learning the old chants. Often .this new interest is a result of listening to the elders practising old songs and chants for a recording.