CONCERTED EFFORT

Te Ao Hou, September 1963, Page 8

CONCERTED EFFORT by G. M. O'Halloran ‘This concert had better be good,’ he heard a truculent young voice say, ‘that's all I can say.’ ‘Yeah, they reckon there's a pakeha joker in it too,’ same the reply. ‘E ki! What does a pakeha joker know about action songs?’ ‘I dunno but that young Kiri's back from Training College and she says some of them pakehas in her club are pretty good.’ From his position inside the hall doorway he watched the speakers as they lounged against the porch uprights. He remembered Kiri saying that the teenagers of her district were not ‘real’ Maoris, and that they had lost all their interest in Maori culture. Maybe tonight their ideas would change. For himself, Maori culture meant nothing to him as such, but as part of a developing New Zealand culture, sure, that was really something. Well, he thought, better have a look backstage and see if Wi and Roy wanted a hand. Must be just about time. He walked through the slowly filling hall, conscious of the stares of the gathering crowd, marking him as a stranger. ‘I just love these Maori concerts, don't you Mavis?’ he heard on the way. ‘Oh yes, but I like the hakas better than the action songs. They're always the same old thing like Manu Rere and all those. But when you see the men with their tongues poking out n'that, I get all goose-pimples!' He moved on thinking, someone else may see something a bit different tonight. ‘Kia-ora koutou,’ he said, raising his voice slightly above the rustle of piupius, ‘how's it going?’ ‘G'day. Wondering whenya goin’ to show up. Taking some Maori time eh? Gotya shorts?' ‘Course he's got them, Kia-ora e hoa, how wouldya be?’ With more good-natured bantering from the rest of the hurriedly-changing concert party, he quickly got into his shorts, and fastening the piupiu Sue had given him, he went over to Roy and Wi to ask them if they wanted a hand with anything. ‘Kia-ora Ruaumoko, all set for the big show?’ He smiled at the nickname Wi had given him. ‘Better have a brandy before you go on boy. Stop the butterflies eh!’ He swallowed the brandy gratefully, and asked if any help was wanted. ‘Kao, she's right mate, you've got enough to worry about anyway. Have another brandy.’ Minutes later in bustled Jacko the emcee. ‘O.K. boys and girls, smokes out, on stage, G'day ‘Ruaumoko’. Give ‘em the news.’ Before he could reply, Jacko was gone, with a grin and a wave, to give Rhoda a hand zipping up her pari. Once on stage he felt the warm glow of the brandy and when Jacko had finished his introductions, he managed to step to the front of the stage with some confidence. ‘He's a pakeha!’ he heard down one side of the hall. ‘He's white!’ he heard down the other. He's a New Zealander, he thought as he went carefully through the motions of explaining the history of the action songs that the party were singing for the audience tonight. ‘Kia kaha e hoa,’ he heard Kiri whisper behind him in the front line of girls. Now he was finished and the concert was under way. The first part of the programme passed in a blur of actions, pois, chants and the exhilaration of singing rhythmically with the ghostly, multi-blob-headed crowd in the hall voicing their approval. Half-time came at last and with the curtain down the party grinned at one another, knowing that the show was going over well. ‘Showing these west coast fellas eh?’ said Mihaka, wiping the sweat from his shining forehead.

‘Wait till Ruaumoko hits them, then they'll know all about it, eh?’ said Aroha, hitching up her piupiu. ‘You don't worry about her boy, she can't even keep her piupiu on properly,’ said Josie. ‘Must be on to that good-looking toa in the front row,’ giggled Ra. He grinned, knowing that the girls were only trying to keep his mind off worrying about the second half of the concert. They had helped and inwardly he thanked them for it. ‘O.K. boys and girls, smokes out, on stage. Good luck, boy.’ There was Jacko again and the curtain was up. Four action songs, two chants, and this was it. ‘Shyyyyy eh!!’ he heard the idiomatic sound breathed from where he stood at the front of the stage. ‘He's going to lead the haka!!’ ‘Ko te iwi Maori e ngunguru nei!!’ Dramatically he let the phrase start low and build to a terrifying peak just as old Te Tatau had taught him. ‘AU—AU—AUE! HA, HI!’ came the solid roar of qualification from the forearm-punching front line of men to his right. Quickly the rhythm took control of his vocal articulation and physical actions. Automatically his tongue rippled and his eyes rolled in defiant pukana. Unconscious of the rising current of sound from the hall, he brought the haka to its thrilling climax and leaping high into the air he landed out in the darkened building amid pandemonium. ‘Champion!’ ‘Beauty!’ ‘Fabulous!’ ‘Incredible!’ He vaguely heard the storm of praise that followed. The rest of the evening passed blankly for him, with only two comments standing vividly in his mind. ‘E kare, I think maybe we'll get the tribal committee to get that club started, eh? By crikey, that lazy Meta wants to go too!’ ‘Certainly Joselyn, you can join the school Maori club if Miss Whaanga says it's alright for a white girl to join. It should be after tonight.’ Two Maori projects are included in the latest list of grants from Golden Kiwi lottery profits. St Joseph's Maori Girls' College, Green-meadows, has been granted £1,500 toward a filtration plant for its swimming baths, and Raukawa Tribal Executive, Palmerston North, has been granted £7,861 toward the cost of the Maori Battalion War Memorial. Mr Ted Sheffield, the husband of the late Mrs Colleen M. Sheffield, has given us permission to publish this poem which was written by her shortly before her death in the tragic accident on Brynderwyn Hill last February.