TRANSCRIPTIONS OF AUTHENTIC MAORI CHANT part six by Mervyn McLean To avoid any appearance of commercialising the songs, Mr McLean has declined to accept payment for his work in preparing this series. The song transcribed in this issue is the famous Te Aitanga-a-Mahaki oriori ‘Po po e tangi ana tama ki te kai mana’. It was recorded for the writer by Turau and Marata Te Tomo of Ngati Tuwharetoa tribe at Mokai on 9 September 1962 (item 124), and this is the version followed in the transcription. It has also been recorded by Turanga Mauparaoa of Ngati Manawa tribe (item 44), and another recording is available on Folkways L.P. disc FE 4433 ‘Maori Songs of New Zealand’ side one, band one. No details about the singers are given with this recording. The word oriori (also popo, whakaoriori and whakatakiri) is usually translated ‘lullaby’, but this is an oversimplification as these songs had the very serious purpose of teaching history to the child. In his book ‘Games and Pastimes of the Maori’ (1925: p. 121) Elsdon Best quotes an example upon which he comments, ‘Here is a composition that differs widely from what we would deem a suitable song to sing to an infant. The matters referred to in it could not be learned by the subject for many years and would not be understood by her until she was well grown. We must conclude that this was a method employed in the preservation of tribal lore; also it would familiarise a child with names mentioned in traditions, and myths which such a child would be required to learn in later years’. To this it might be added that the tunes of oriori are usually uncomplicated and this would aid learning and retention. For discussion of the oriori as a literary form, the reader is referred to the prefaces of Parts One and Two of ‘Nga Moteatea’ by Apirana Ngata and to the article ‘The Oral Literature of the Polynesians’ by Bruce Biggs in ‘Te Ao Hou’ No. 49. Like most oriori, the song in this issue is melodically very simple and gains most of its musical interest from the rhythms. It is chanted almost entirely on the intoning note with only occasional excursions one note up or two notes down. When pitch changes do occur it is usually to act as marker devices as in the oriori ‘Pinepine te Kura’ that was transcribed in part two of this series. The entire structure is in fact very similar to Pine-pine te Kura' though less consistent. Readers may remember that ‘Pinepine te Kura’ had two regular musical phrases to each line of the melody with ‘markers’ to distinguish them, and there were a variable number of notes between these two patterns. The oriori in this issue follows the same system. There is a fairly regular pattern beginning each line, usually: though sometimes with additional notes, depending on the number of words to be fitted in. The end of this phrase is signalled by the descent to B. The last four notes of this pattern also occur at the end of each line where they act in the same way as the drag figures in waiata to signal the end of one line and the beginning of the next. As in ‘Pinepine te Kura’ there are a variable number of notes between these two phrases. The amount of extra material sandwiched between the two regular phrases seems to follow no fixed rule and appears to be determined solely by the number of words that have to be fitted in. The length of the notes seems to follow vowel lengths fairly exactly—mostly there are only two durational values, long and short—and the rhythmic grouping of the notes, though largely duple, is often modified by word division. Descents to B are usually either fairly straightforward repetitions of the first marker figure, or occur after long notes. Nearly always, they are on unstressed notes. As in waiata, performance of the song is continuous with no pauses or breaks for breathing between lines.