Ka Mate's roots stretch deep into our past

When I started the New Zealand Folksong website a dozen years ago, I put a great deal of time into unravelling the "folk process" that has shaped and changed our old songs over the decades and centuries. I've been fascinated by the stories leading back to the origins of the sealing song Davy Lowston (derived from Sam Hall), Bright Fine Gold (from Hot Cross Buns), Now Is The Hour (from the Swiss Cradle Song), A Mother as Lovely as You (from Hoia Ra Te Waka Nei), Dugout in the True/Matruh/Vietnam/Santici, Pokarekare Ana (from Northland), He Puru Taitama (now a children's song worldwide), and Ka Mate.

The facts about Ka Mate are especially fascinating. I have been tracking the journey of this literary, historical and cultural treasure for 10 years, and the task has become easier, because most of the old historical documents from the Turnbull Library are now on the internet.

I discovered that the opening "Ka mate, ka ora" couplet, affirming the need to risk death for the long-term life of the community, had its origins in the South Pacific thousands of years ago, while the body of the haka, beginning with "Tenei te tangata puhuruhuru ..." (this is the hairy person ...) can be traced back five hundred years, with this phrase being used in subsequent centuries to describe the subject's leadership qualities, his courage and semi-divine status, his recently achieved puberty, and his hairy legs.

"Tenei te tangata" is first found as part of a waka-hauling chant associated with the chants used to haul the "Tainui" voyaging waka across the Tamaki isthmus. It gave thanks the crew's skilled and courageous commander who had navigated them out of freezing cold storms and into warm, sunny waters. "Mamau ki te taura e ... Turuki, paneke, ... Tenei te tangata puhuruhuru nana i tiki mai whakawhiti te ra ..." (Grasp the rope ... inch forward, heave ... this is the hoary fellow who made the sun shine ... ).

The boat-hauling origins of Ka Mate can also be identified by its frequent association with Toia Mai Te Waka (haul the canoe ashore).

There is evidence, collected in the 1960s, the 1900s, and even right back in 1855, of these two haka being performed together, all over the country. I watched some Waikato schoolchildren present an integrated Toia Mai/Ka Mate/Toia Mai welcoming chant a few months ago, at Mangakino.

Once the voyaging era ended, the risk of death came from intertribal disputes, and the bold, courageous leader who could change the dark stormy days of warfare into long sunny days of peace was compared to Maui slowing the sun.

Two 19th century sources tell of Ka Mate being adapted to tell this sun-slowing story. The hauling command "Upane" (all together!) was changed to the two words "U pane" (strike the head). Other old variants of Ka Mate ended with "Upoko, upoko, whiti te ra!" (on our heads, our heads, the sun shines)

A development in peace-making was the arranged marriage of a boy and girl from the rival tribes. Ka Mate was incorporated into Kikiki, an explicit wedding night chant that described the initial apprehension of this thrown-together couple, and their growing physical and emotional intimacy.

It seems Wharerangi facetiously chanted Kikiki/Ka Mate after Te Rauparaha spent time hiding under his wife at Lake Rotoaira in about 1810. Ten years later Te Rauparaha modified the Kikiki/Ka Mate chant and added it on to Haramai, a chant warning of invasion, to create a ngeri that his tribe used during their unsuccessful defence of Kawhia in 1820.

During the 1901 Royal Tour, a cinematographer made a movie of 150 Ngati Kahungunu warriors performing Ka Mate, and it became world famous.

The group's leader, Sir Timi Kara, described it at the time as ancient and universal. During that same Royal Tour, the press also gave coverage of the Whanganui performance. The correspondent for the Evening Post wrote: "The Wanganui haka followed. We caught some words about the Queen, their mother ... Then came the Kamate kamate chorus, winding up with Aue! Aue! with a long-drawn-out "e" in a hissing sound. They were mostly young fellows these Wanganuis, and as they danced and sang their flax mats rustled to the rhythmic swaying of their bodies, and their bare skins shone in the sunlight."

It would greatly assist my research if anyone could provide me with any memories they may have of that old Whanganui version of Ka Mate, or similar haka. If you go to http://tinyurl.com/oldhaka you will find full details of the Turnbull Library documents in which I found most of these facts.

In recent times, the story has taken hold that Te Rauparaha composed . There is a symbolic truth encapsulated in this legend.

Each story enhances our understanding of the other, and in the process of contemplating them both, we grow in wisdom and humanity.

However, the rise of the Te Rauparaha legend is a story for another month.

The Te Rauparaha composition story has grown since Maori have moved into the cities and since rugby was televised. I think the story fills a need for those who have both victims and allies of Te Rauparaha's massacres among their ancestors.

And Te Rauparaha in later years was a hero who stood up to the rapacious white colonists.

Te Rauparaha actually cobbled together a haka from Haramai, Kikiki and Ka Mate, but Kikiki was R18, and Haramai is longer and more difficult to memorise than Ka Mate. So the story of the longer haka has stuck to the shorter one.

John Archer lives in Ohakune and shares his views with readers, coloured by his love of the mountain life.