Tākiri mai i te ata
Ka ao, ka ao, ka awatea
Tihei, mauri ora.
Translated, this tauparapara runs something like this:
The bird sings
The morning has dawned
The day has broken
Behold, there is life!
Tauparapara are, of course, the first words a speaker will utter as they rise on a formal occasion — with the possible except of "ahem" — and there are myriad formulations. They’re short, punchy and freighted with meaning, designed to wrest attention from whatever else might have been going on.
A catch-all English translation might be "listen here".
Te Aka, the Māori dictionary describes them as an incantation to begin a speech. The actual tauparapara used by a given speaker, it says, is a way that tāngata whenua are able to identify a visiting group, as each tribe has tauparapara peculiar to them.
Choosing the right one for the occasion is important. I thought the one above a good choice for a new year, a time of new beginnings — and appropriate to introducing an important new element in The Weekend Mix.
Tauparapara are a crucial element of whaikōrero, the art of speech-making in te ao Māori, but in a formal marae setting they are not the first words you will hear.
The way must first been cleared by women.
First up at the marae is the karanga, karaka in Kāi Tāhu dialect.
It’s the call given by tāngata whenua, the people of the marae, the hau kāinga, to approaching visitors, and it is delivered by a woman, the kaikaranga or kaikaraka.
In the guide to custom and protocol by Hiwi and Pat Tauroa, Te Marae, they say it’s the way contact is first made between host and guest, "across the physical space that exists between the two groups".
"The karanga provides a safe word pathway, along which the manuhiri may pass without fear," they write.
Next week in this magazine we’re launching a new "word pathway", a new regular column called Mana Wāhine.
It will be written by a group of local Māori women, turn about, providing new word pathways in understanding.
The column is not a karanga itself, but we hope that here at the front of the magazine, it will in future welcome readers to look at the world in new ways.
The column is part of the paper’s Public Interest Journalism Fund kaiwhakatika hourua/partnership editor project.
Both the column and other initiatives being undertaken as part of the project aim to bring a wider diversity of voices to the pages of the paper — honour that oldest of old school newspaper virtues, balance.
Balance is central too to much mātauranga Māori, mōhio Māori, and can be seen on the marae in the complementary roles of kaikaraka and kaikōrero, or between the paepae — the orators’ bench — and the kitchen.
The diversity of roles makes the whole.
Diversity is increasingly and everywhere now regarded as a strength. It means you’re covered from all angles, ready for any opportunity. On the flip side, you can tackle a problem from all sides.
Something of that approach is captured in the well known whakataukī, "Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi". Translated, it means that "with your food basket and my food basket, the people will be well".
There’s a tauparapara that touches on some of this too.
Ko Ranginui kei runga (Ranginui above)
Ko Papatūānuku kei raro (Papatuanuku below)
Ko ngā tāngata kei waenganui (The people in between)
Tihei, mauri ora!
That seems to me to invite ngā tāngata, the people, to take a 360 degree view of life, consider all angles.
The new column, Mana Wāhine, starts next week then will run fortnightly. It will speak for itself.
