Restrictions Due to Ownership

Te Ao Hou, June 1964, Page 35

Restrictions Due to Ownership The most important of the remaining barriers to the passing on of the traditional songs is that of song ownership. Here again, if there is to be a revival of interest in Maori chants there will have to be further relaxation of the traditional restrictions on performance. Often it will be found that a singer is quite willing to give out a song that belongs to his own family, but draws the line at passing on a song that belongs to someone else even if he knows perfectly well that there is no-one else who can sing the song. This rather exaggerated respect for other persons' property is admirable in its way but often results in songs becoming needlessly extinct. Most songs belong not to the individual but to the tribe, and fears are often entertained by the members of one tribe that their songs will get out to another. Most of these fears are however groundless, and so need not be a barrier to the transmission of the songs. Generally the singers of one tribe are not much interested in the songs of another tribe unless there is some connection with them. In the past, rather than risk their songs getting out of the tribe, many singers preferred to let songs die with them. Now, fortunately, a more liberal attitude is becoming the rule, and singers are beginning to make the survival of songs their first concern. Only one further barrier to transmission need be discussed, and this is the bogey of commercialisation. Honest attempts to preserve traditional chants are being hindered because the cry is raised that money will be made on them. The origins of these fears are quite easy to see. Firstly, collections of traditional texts such as those of Grey, McGregor, and more recently, Apirana Ngata and Pei Te Hurinui, have appeared with a price set upon them. The surprising thing is that there are still people who consider this to be evidence of commercialisation. Even if the compiler receives nothing for his work it should be quite clear to anyone that it still costs something for paper, for printing, for binding and for distribution. Since the books cannot be distributed free it is not very reasonable to complain that they commercialise their contents. Secondly, recordings made by the N.Z.B.C. and by the Maori Purposes Fund Board have been broadcast. Again people have jumped to the conclusion that the songs concerned have been sold. The truth is that beautiful as these songs are, their commercial value is small. Even if their worth becomes more generally recognised they are unlikely ever to have much popular appeal. Having discussed the conditions which stand in the way of song survival, we must now turn to the means for song preservation.