Tribute to Ngoi Pewhairangi from a pakeha friend

Tu Tangata, Issue 24, 1 June 1985, Page 15

Tribute to Ngoi Pewhairangi from a pakeha friend

Ngoingoi Pewhairangi was the kind of character around whom legends build. Although emphasising and practising humility above all other virtues (she always entered her marae through the back entrance), she was regarded as a queen by the people of Tokomaru Bay. She was wise and quietly eloquent in serious matters. Often she spoke in a near-whisper and people had to strain to catch what she said; but strain they did and all other conversation ceased. She also had a devastating tongue in repartee and a wholly original sense of humour. Some of the images I retain of her: Ngoi at a Kotahitanga meeting at Mangahanea Marae, speaking last but to greatest effect, describing her own people as having to live like seagulls on the cliffs of the coast. Ngoi in the kitchen at Pakirikiri late at night, composing a song with her women, trying out lyrics, experimenting with bursts of melody. Ngoi at a city restaurant arguing with the owner that she wasn’t going to pay for her omelette because the eggs were off. When the owner called in the police, she called in the local health inspector. She offered to pay if the others owner, policeman and health inspector were prepared to swallow mouthfuls of the omelette. They were

not. The constable spat his out in his helmet. Ngoi greeting a busload of inebriated and sleepy rugby supporters returning from Gisborne, including her husband Ben: “Hello, here comes my wet dream.” Ngoi describing how their truck was stripped of its wheels when she and Ben were sleeping in it, returning home one night from Te Puia Springs: “You stop them.” “No you.” She was three things above all else. A community leader for whom people would have done (and did) anything. A superb and patient teacher. And the finest Maori composer of her time. In the pakeha public mind she will be best remembered for Poi E and E Ipo. But her best waiata and powhiri, such as E Hara Tenei, have already passed into the standard Maori repertoire. In this role she stepped into the shoes of her beloved aunt, Tuini Ngawai, to whom she bore a startling resemblance; and she revived the wonderful custom of writing songs to commemorate occasions as they occurred. Ngoi is irreplaceable. To her, my greetings and the saddest of farewells; to the bereaved, her orphans, my love and sympathy.