A HAKA to honour Te Rangihiroa

Te Ao Hou, Spring 1954, Page 15

TOP: A party from Oaonui give a haka on the marae at Manukorihi Pa, Waitara, where Sir Peter Buck's ashes rested for one night on their journey to Okoki. (Photograph—John Ashton). A HAKA to honour Te Rangihiroa This haka was performed at Waitara on August 8, before His Excellency the Governor-General, Sir Willoughby Norrie, and his family, by the Oaonui and Coastal young people's clubs. It was composed by Lt.-Col. Arapeta Awatere, closely following a traditional model, and honours the memory of late Te Rangihiroa. Te Ao Hou saw the haka group being trained. The teacher was a welfare officer who had travelled 45 miles to be present. The pupils, about sixty, were boys and girls from the local farms and factories. The rehearsal lasted from eight until midnight without interruption. For the first three hours the teacher took the boys' haka, and the girls, on the other side of a partition in the hall, sang and danced furiously, working up their action song. The teacher assured me he used the traditional Maori teaching method, which seems to consist in exciting in the group the emotion appropriate to the dance, and then leaving the members free to express this emotion in their own way. Technique is not forgotten. In the haka, said the tutor, young people should always kep their feet apart. Older ones, he inferred, could introduce any appropriate variations they fancied. And, ‘keep your eyes above your audience all the time until you are old enough to look at them’. For Maori youth is shy and to display the full excitement of the haka takes boldness … or lack of self-consciousness. Training in reciting the words precedes the teaching of the actions. Points of elocution are vigorously stressed—‘Pronounce the last syllable of a word, open your mouth,’—and the teacher prances in front of his group in a fierce haka with his finger pointing at his wide open RIGHT: The haka group being trained. (Photograph—National Publicity Studios).

mouth. He inspires through example; performing continually at his best he gives out his own artistry and his stirring dance movements transfer his own animation to the group. No physical drill is more exhausting than these hakas and action songs. When one of the local women suggested, after some three hours of it, that they should have a cup of tea, the teacher scornfully rejected the idea. These frequent meals were a European idea that only softened and dissipated the people. They broke down concentration. The rehearsal went on without a murmur and strangely enough, the standard began to rise rapidly. The same girls who put on something a little mediocre early in the evening gave a finely disciplined performance, and now the teacher concentrated on their action song and the boys got a brief rest. He roused the girls by making fierce gestures in front of them, and soon they dropped all self-consciousness, trickery and unnecessary elaboration, and performed the dance as it should be performed, with seriousness and strength. There was no fear then that looking at the audience would make them nervous. I was told that the whole group had only been formed seven months before, with the revival of these arts for the Royal tour. This should not be regarded as more than the simple folk art it is, and it is unjust to expect absolute perfection in dresses. It was the impetus of the young Maori party that kept this admirable form of self-expression alive and the training of these youth groups was therefore a handsome tribute to Buck's memory.