Ruia ruia opea opea tahia tahia
Ki hemo ake Ko te kaka koakoa
Kia hemo ake Ko te kaka koakoa
Kia herea mai Te kawai koroki
Kia tatata mai
I roto i tama pukorokoro whaikoro
He kuaka he kuaka marangaranga
Kotahi manu i tau atu ki te tahuna
Tau atu tau atu
Kua tau mai
Kia hemo ake Ko te kaka koakoa
Kia herea mai Te kawai koroki
Kia tatata mai
I roto i tama pukorokoro whaikoro
He kuaka he kuaka marangaranga
Kotahi manu i tau atu ki te tahuna
Tau atu tau atu
Kua tau mai
Scattering, gathering, forming a single unit
Exhaustion rises up
It is the rope koakoa (the cry of the bird)
Bringing you here to me
The chattering of the flock
Come close together
From inside its throat
A marauding party
A godwit that hovers
One bird has landed on the sand bank
It has settled there
They have settled here
Exhaustion rises up
It is the rope koakoa (the cry of the bird)
Bringing you here to me
The chattering of the flock
Come close together
From inside its throat
A marauding party
A godwit that hovers
One bird has landed on the sand bank
It has settled there
They have settled here
“ … Now cracks the noble
heart – good night sweet prince
And flights of angels sing
thee to thy rest.”
Horatio (body guard to Hamlet),
William Shakespeare
Ralph
Hotere, a soaring spirit now lifts off the white sands of Parengarenga to soar awhile
and like kuaka, the brave godwits cut a trail across a vast ocean.
I got to
know Ralph Hotere while he was an Arts and Crafts Specialist Teacher working in
Northland schools. I was at Matauri
Bay. A quiet, unassuming man whose
strength lay within. His other strength was his spirit of
generosity, he had a giving soul.
For three
days of the Queens Birthday break 1973 at the inaugural
hui of The New Zealand Maori Artists and Writers Association (later Nga Puna
Waihanga), Hotere together with Hone Tuwhare, Para Matchitt, Arnold Wilson,
Katerina Mataira, Buck Nin, Sandy Adsett, Witi Ihimaera, Harry Dansey, Pat
Grace, Jim Moriarty, Barry Barclay, Ngapo Wehi, Tuini Ngawai, Ivan Wirepa
(opera) … John Taiapa, Tuti Tukaokao, Pakariki Harrison, Lyonel Grant and about
a hundred others inscribed a permanent stamp on the New Zealand Art
landscape. This was the start of a
movement which quickly spread with an immediate impact culminating some years
later in Te Maori going off shore to The Metropolitan Museum in New York and
other international venues before returning home.
One of
the conditions of the Hui was for of us to submit some original work; visual,
performance, literary, in music or song, dance or photographic. There I was admiring works by artists and one
a print by Hotere. The whare kai, overnight had been transformed
into a veritable gallery for the Hui.
Without knowing that Hotere was me, I made a casual remark to Rei Hamon,
“… wouldn’t mind one of Ralph’s works.” Overhearing me, he said, “… it’s yours.”
Some ten
years later when I visited him at his Aramoana home I gave him a copy of my
poem, ‘Jonathan Blue’ about a seagull with a broken wing. He treated my offering as a taonga.
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Hotere
leaves a rich and evocative legacy to a nation mourning his flight of no
return. And on the day of his funeral I stood
before his eighteen meter long mural in The Auckland Art Gallery, a work of
legendary length and strength to pay my respects. I was joined in karakia by many others.
It
wasn’t always here. Up to 1996 it sat
rather clumsily at The Auckland International Airport without travelers knowing
its deeper meaning so that year the work was deaccessioned and placed where it now
hangs; the migratory godwits returning home from a long journey; sons and
daughters coming home.
A tiny
man, a big heart, a man who will be remembered as a giving man. The outpouring of grief this week is
understandable as we followed his flight from Dunedin to Mitimiti and beyond. A Maori, a Maori New Zealander who straddled
the worlds of the avante garde of international art yet kept the integrity of Te
Ao Maori, the rich Maori dimension of wairua, literature and cosmology; a
silent spirituality in this work. He was
able to fuse together the old and new worlds, Day and Night, Maori and Pakeha,
young and old but he also evoked the passions of an international following.
What
does it stand for; kuaka is a metaphor for the journey, endurance, courage and the
fortitude of a tiny bird against the odds.
Right
now, thousands of these tiny birds are
gathering from around the country and in just a few days and nights at
Parengarenga, they fly off as a flock making a prodigious journey with their
little hearts and great spirit over some 18,000 kms nonstop to China and then
on to Alaska. Next November they return.
The
mural is Hotere, it reminds me of a giant weaving with its never-ending warps each
strand like the strings of a banjo, linking to the many dimensions of poetry,
dance, ecology and cosmology; weaving darkness and light, above with below,
things internal and external and the songs of home forever effervescent in our
hearts of a ‘sweet prince and the flight of angels sing thee to thy rest,’ …
ah, home. We are left, not bereft but a
nation richly blessed.
Haere
Ralph …
Taku kuaka e rere atu nei
Taku kuaka e rere atu nei
He
kuaka marangaranga
Kotahi
manu tau atu tau atu
A
lone bird appeared on the horizon
Others
followed to form a flock
To
take wing to circle
And
once in flight … to soar
Goodbye
Ralph.