MAORI FOLK TALES

Te Ao Hou, March 1969, Page 52

MAORI FOLK TALES by Margaret Orbell Blackwood and Janet Paul, $2.25 reviewed by K. Dewes Pakeha readers or students of Maori language will find some enjoyment and educational value in reading this anthology of 18 stories, which Margaret Orbell has labelled generally as folktales. Details of source references and footnotes should be appreciated, a necessity which was lacking with the recorders and translators such as Taylor, Shortland, Grey, Davis, White and Locke. Both Pakeha and Maori should admire Margaret Orbell's ability in reading Maori language and her competency in translating it into English, and her academic knowledge of Maori culture, all of which provide some necessary background in research with written oral traditions (oral fluency in language and practical knowledge of culture are necessary prerequisites for the study of oral literature). The 18 stories in this publication were collected by six Pakeha collectors and they are from about six Maori tribal areas (or five canoe areas) from different parts of New Zealand; nine were previously unpublished, four which were previously published in Maori have been re-edited from manuscripts, and the rest are re-edited from previous publications. Except for two titles in Maori, the editor has been responsible for all titles in both Maori and English, and accompanying each title is the name of the informant, the title or district, and the date of collection or recording. Some notes are provided on the sources of Maori texts, i.e., on the recorders, previous publications or manuscripts and informants. Competent translations in English are printed opposite each page of the original Maori text, in which most long vowel sounds are indicated by the macron. Footnotes, in English only, provide explanatory material; there is an alphabetical listing of works cited by the editor and a very short glossary is added. For one who has not learnt Maori very long, Margaret Orbell has done a good job. Her efforts should provide encouragement to students interested in this field, more so too because we have most sympathetic publishers in Paul's and others in New Zealand. Language classes in Maori will find the collection of stories most helpful because the translations in English on opposite pages facilitate immediate cross-checking — learners will find it useful in extending their vocabulary and comprehension without the aid of a tutor or a dictionary. Though the general reader will find the translations are as close as possible to the original texts, the English is natural and readable; one could not say the same thing overall for the translations of early collectors. Academicians who may not classify this publication as a scholarly work should admit to fair techniques of editing already referred to above, and that the stories not only belong to New Zealand but also provide an insight on some of the stories that were told in pre-1900 Maori society; the creative writer in English, who is ignorant of Maori, also has a reasonable base to work from. But this collection perpetuates some of the things indulged in by all collectors. Each story, which can stand on its own, has been selected from various sources without an integrating theme(s) and outside of tribal contexts. Because of the latter point, Ngati Porou readers, for example, will not be inspired or emotionally moved by the Mohi Ruatapu collection. It would appear that the stories have been selected to agree with Margart Orbell's concept of folktales as she discusses it in her introduction to ‘Maori Folktales’. One wonders why the Mohi Ruatapu stories were included. Was it primarily because he was a tohunga of a Ngati Porou school of higher learning? Mohi Ruatapu's reputation as depicted through these stories is tarnished; for example, the story of Ihurahirahi (p. 54), the woman who discovered the famous Kapuarangi fishing ground is inadequately told. Was this his fault, or the method and circumstances of written recording, or the inhibiting influence of writing on an expert in oral tradition who needed inspiration and so on from an appreciative audience and critical peers? So the publication also suffers from a methodological weakness in that the theory of folktales is a Pakeha (western) one; it

is not based on the Maori view or Maori categorisation of oral tradition. A further restriction is the confinement of the introductory remarks, selection and annotations to written sources only. (Research students and teachers are slaves to written documentation, and so oral traditions, which have surprisingly persisted today are overlooked and ignored.) Though one does realise some of the difficulties involved in research work of this kind, it would have been most helpful to have added such aids as a map locating each story, the tribes, the district of the informant, and place names; parallel traditions relevant to each story such as whakapapa (genealogy) and so on, and footnotes in Maori for language students. Let's have more of this, but with a Maori biased theory, terminology and headings, single or connected themes that are tribally based and not restricted to written records. Kia ora, Koro Dewes