TUINI NGAWAI The first person I met on Makomako station was the manager. He seemed rather surprised to hear that to-day's leading Maori song-writer was at that moment working in his shearing shed, but at the name Tuini Ngawai he showed recognition. Yes, she was there. But, he added, to see her in the shed, you wouldn't believe she had composed any songs. Miss Ngawai was just finishing her midday nap on top of one of the wool bales. She looked up when I came in and fixed her very penetrating eyes upon me. The station manager had been only partly right. The black and blue shearing gang uniform evidently was not his idea of the apparel of a literary lady, but the face looking at me was at once very amused, very serious and remarkably shrewd; it betrayed a consciousness of the hidden depths of the mind that is in general more typical of writers than shearers. With unusual intensity she set about discovering who this pakeha was who wanted to translate her songs. We had a long talk about songs and about the way the Maoris to-day are singing them. Like many poets, Miss Ngawai has had words dictated to her by something outside her consciousness, ‘in a dream,’ she says. Arohaina Mai which she regards as her best song, took only a few minutes to compose. She never writes but always dictates the words to a helper. The Maori people are still wonderful singers, they sing as an entertainment; but actions to-day are often poor due to the words not being understood fully or even at all. Miss Ngawai thinks that teaching action songs in schools will be unrewarding unless the language is also taught. Miss Ngawai likes the shearing routine; she likes to live for a while with the young people and keep touch with the way they feel. She had an offer last year to train a party for a film on Maori dancing, but the producer wanted the party to consist of glamorous people. Tuini Ngawai turned it down. She doubted whether these glamorous people could do her action songs properly. Would they lift their eyebrows right up in certain passages?

Composed and Taught Miss Ngawai belongs to Te Whanauarua Tauperi, a sub-tribe of Ngati Porou. She wrote her first song—He Nawe Kei Roto—in 1933. It was a conversation piece between two lovers. It was performed informally as an entertainment action song at the opening of To o te Tonga meeting house at Tokomaru Bay. It was for this occasion that she organised one of her earliest haka parties. Her well-known Hokowhitu-a-Tu party was organised in 1939 to give a final leave farewell to C (Ngati Porou) Co boys at Tokomaru Bay. Her song for that occasion was Arohaina Mai, a melodious composition in which despair is calmed by the peace of God. Her song, ‘E te Hokowhitu a Tu kia kaha ra’ was written over a two year period. She started it, ran out of inspiration, shelved it and finally completed it in a 3-minute burst. This number was first performed at the hui to honour 2nd Lieut Ngarimu, V.C. Miss Ngawai was closely associated with Sir Apirana who used her party a great deal for fund raising. But one of the greatest tributes he paid her was when he arranged for her to teach Maori action songs in the East Coast schools. That was soon after the war. He told her that he was getting old and was in a hurry to get the job done. He wanted to stimulate the school children's interest in action songs and therefore the Maori language. For two and a half years Tuini taught action songs, songs and hakas in schools from Hick's Bay to Gisborne. This has left its imprint in the fact that the young adults of to-day throughout that area have almost a uniform style. Not being able to read music embarrassed Miss Ngawai on one occasion in Auckland just before the war when she was in Walter Smith's Maori choir which used to broadcast over IZB. When she first joined the choir she was given a big music book. Miss Ngawai sat firmly behind