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A Song in Exile.

The Chant of Hoani Papita.

One of the refugees who sought shelter in the Taupo Country after the attack by the British troops on the people of Rangiaowhia village in the Waikato War, early in 1864, was the chief Hoani Papita (“John the Baptist”), of the Ngati-Hinetu clan of Waikato. Routed in the skirmish, he and some of his people fled through the swamps to Maungatautari, and thence to Taupo. His lands were lost, confiscated by the Government, and he lived the rest of his life at Taupo. This is a lament he sang for his old home and his friends. It is a favourite chant among the Waikato and Taupo tribes to-day. The song bears the impress of an earlier origin; the reference to Tokaanu and the hot springs formed part of a song by an olden South Taupo poet.

The lament is also known as Te Kooti’s mihi for his distant tribe and homeland when he was in exile in the prison-isle of Wharekauri (Chatham Island), 1866–68. It was peculiarly appropriate to his condition as a prisoner of war:

E pa te hau, he muri raro,
He homai aroha.
Kia tangi atu au i konei
He aroha ki te iwi
Ka momotu ki tawhiti, ki Paerau.
Ko wai e kite atu?
Keiwhea aku hoa i mua ra?
I te tonuitanga, ka haere mai,
Tenei ka tauwehe, ka raunga-iti au.
E ua e te ua, e taheke
Koe i runga ra-e,
Ko au ki raro nei, riringi ai
Te wai i aku kamo.
Moe mai, e Wano, i Tirau,
Te pae ki te whenua,
Ki te wao tutata ki te kainga kua hurihia.
Tenei matou kei runga kei te toka ki Taupo;
Ka paea ki te one ki Waihi,
Ki taaku matua nui
Ki te whare-koiwi ki Tongariro,
E moea iho nei.
Hoki mai, e roto, ki te puia nui
Ki Tokaanu,
Ki te wai tuku kiri o te iwi
E aroha nei au-i-i.
On Tongariro’s side.

[Translation.]

Blow soft, ye northern breezes,
With love and sorrow laden,
Ye fill my soul with sadness
For kinsfolk far away,
For those beyond dread Paerau
The mountains of the grave.
What eye beholds them there?
Where are my friends of other days,
The days of my youth and fame?
They’re separated far from me,
My pride is shorn away.
Rain on, O rain! Unceasing,
Downpouring like a torrent;
As falls the rain’s cascade,
So flow my tears.
Sleep on, O Wano!
In thy grave at Tirau,
Beyond yon mountain ridge,
Where the high-woods shade our olden home.
Here we rest upon a lakeside rock
By Taupo’s waters; we were cast
Upon the sandy Waihi shore.
Yonder my chieftain parent sleeps,
He rests in the dark burial cave
Return, my soul, to the soft soothing waters,
The great plashing hot-springs of Tokaanu,
The pools wherein my kinsfolk laved their limbs.
The people that I love.

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