Maori Language and Chanting

DANCES OF LIFE www.piccom.org/dancesoflife This performance documentary reveals the cultural history and diversity of the Pacific Islands — a vibrant and complex region encompassing 25,000 islands spread over 10 million square miles of ocean in which 30 million people speak hundreds of different languages and dialects — through their “dance stories,” which for nearly 50,000 years have been an expression of Pacific Islanders’ origins, their journeys, their struggles and their very existence. The program views dance through the eyes of the people who practice it as an art form and as a way of life. Keisha Castle-Hughes, the young star of Whale Rider, narrates. To learn more about Polynesian Dance, and the unique cultures which create it, visit DANCES OF LIFE, at www.piccom.org/dancesoflife.

The Maori language is one of the thirty-odd Polynesian languages. As such, it is very similar to Tahitian, Tuamotuan and Rarotongan, but it is not mutually intelligible with them. The linguistic similarities between these languages parallel similarities between artifacts from New Zealand and these islands from about 800 years ago. Together, these provide a very compelling argument to suggest that the original ancestors of the Maori more than likely came from one, or perhaps all, of these places.

Like other Polynesian cultures, Maori was an oral culture. There was no writing system of any kind and this meant that various verbal techniques were developed to record and transmit history, traditions and information that was important to maintaining hierarchies and relationships between communities, and also between people and their resources. The ability to accurately memorize and transmit this information therefore became a crucial and highly valued skill in all Maori communities. People who possessed these attributes were selected and trained from a young age to be the repositories of these records, and consequently they were considered to have mana and tapu within their respective communities.

The historical records of Maori groups were kept and transmitted in a number of different formats. These included whakapapa (genealogy), waiata (song), karakia (incantation) and korero stories. Typically, these were brought out and performed when different communities interacted with each other. Inter-group encounters tended, and still do tend, to be very formal affairs that are characterized by highly ritualized welcome ceremonies (powhiri) and feasting (hakari).

Powhiri are still a very important part of Maori cultural life today. For the most part these take place on the many marae (community meeting spaces) across the country. A typical powhiri consists initially of a karanga (call) performed by the senior women of the group to invite a visiting party to move onto the marae. The karanga consists of a high-pitched cry that is responded to with karanga from the visiting group as they move across the marae space to their seats. Once seated, this is followed by speeches (whaikorero) from the male orators of each group. The orators have turns at speaking about the purpose and nature of their visit and the relationship that the two groups have with each other.

Generally the orators attempt to establish connections and relationships with the other group through discussing whakapapa connections and shared history with them. Through the skillful manipulation of whakapapa most groups can establish that they are in fact kin relations, even if the relationships are distant. Each whaikorero speech is followed by a waiata that either the orator or other members of his group will sing. Songs that are well known and identified with each group tend to be selected. Following these formalities, the people of each group will shake hands (hariru) and rub noses (hongi). The final part of the process consists of sharing food between the parties as a final act of removing any tapu associated with the visiting group. This leaves the groups free to interact with each other.