Maori Songs or Poems may be classified under several headings according to the theme and circumstances under which they were composed.

(1) Lullabies (Popo, ara, oriori)

When a child was born, a child of chieftain lineage whose ancestors performed feats of valour, a lullaby would be composed by its mother, father or grandparents. Some of the most famous Maori poems belong in this class.

The narrative would open as far back as Hawaiki, the feats of arms, the catastrophes would be recounted, and then would come the migration to these islands; the famous ancestors would be mentioned and the battles and disasters that happened here.

If perhaps an unavenged defeat or insult lay somewhere on the child's ancestral line, he or she would be incited to deeds of valour.

Associations of his ancestors with the brave chiefs of old would be recited and sometimes curses would be showered on the heads of the doers of the evil deeds that brought defeat and disaster upon the child's ancestors. Scholars are delving into waiatas of this type for allusions that will confirm historical data found in the tales of olden times. It is a well known fact that there is much Maori lore, the lore of the Whare Wananga—House of Learning, of the priests of the various tribes, contained in these poems.

(2) Laments (nga waiata tangi)

The majority of the Maori poems that have been recorded fall under the heading of laments. They are laments for the dead who may have died through sickness, accident, murder or some other disaster. In this class many of the most famous Maori songs are to be found and poetic style reaches its highest excellence. Genealogies tracing back to Hawaiki also occur in these laments. The lament of Turaukawa, a great chief from Taranaki (Nga Mokaka, p. 322) the lament of Rangiuia, the last of the priests of Te Rawheoro, the greatest of the Houses of Learning of the East Coast, for his child Tuterangiwhaitiri, are two of the greatest Maori poems recorded. Some of the greatest poems are the laments for Te Heuheu, killed by a land-slide at Te Rapa, Te Heuheu's lament for Rapaka and the lament for Tupoki, killed by Ngati Maniapoto at Parawera.

(3) Satires (nga patere, nga kaioraora)

Satires are works containing ridicule, curses, boasting or jeering. Here page 7 may be found some of the really base expressions of the language, curses are flung from party to party. Stories are told of low and base deeds perpetrated in the olden days. These poems are similar in cadence to hakas, they are recited in the savage style of hakas. The words are given emphasis by the hands, the body and facial expressions. When a patere is chanted on the marae it is almost as if the performers are engaged in battle, so greatly does the frenzy of the words excite them, even in these Pakeha days the Maori blood is then really whipped up.

(4) Love Songs (nga waiata whaiaipo)

Most of the songs of this type have disappeared. They lasted but a day and vanished with the death of their composers. Some have stayed and are sung today.

The vocabulary of affection is found in these songs. There were other expressions contained in these songs good enough perhaps for the cannibal days but requiring some toning down in the more modest modern times. Expressions of this sort were not peculiar to Maori in the embellishment of love ditties but find their parallel in Pakeha literature. Shakespeare is not free of them, but then he lived in the days of Queen Elizabeth, when such unrestricted expression of ideas about the relationship between the sexes was tolerated and often quoted in the assemblies of the rich and the great.