Iri Ani The Witch's Blog

This song is so famous in Aotearoa/New Zealand that in 2002 it got a whole television documentary Pokarekare Ana which was just about this song.

Pokarekare Ana is a love song which was first heard in the north of Auckland around the beginning of World War One. It then drifted to the East Cape, where it was modified into an action song telling of Paraire Tomoana's 1912 courtship of Kuini Raerena. It is now known and sung world-wide.

Pökarekare ana
ngä wai o Waiapu,
Whiti atu koe hine
marino ana e.

They are agitated the waters of Waiapu,
But when you cross over girl they will be calm.

E hine e
hoki mai ra.
Ka mate ahau
I te aroha e.

Oh girl return to me,
I could die of love for you.

Tuhituhi taku reta
tuku atu taku rïngi,
Kia kite tö iwi
raru raru ana e.

I have written my letter I have sent my ring,
so that your people can see that I am troubled.

Whati whati taku pene
ka pau aku pepa,
Ko taku aroha
mau tonu ana e.

My pen is shattered, I have no more paper
But my love is still steadfast.

E kore te aroha
e maroke i te rä,
Mäkükü tonu i
aku roimata e.

My love will never be dried by the sun,
It will be forever moistened by my tears.

The origins of the song are somewhat disputed. Descendants of Sir Apirana Ngäta, in a March, claimed that Pokarekare Ana originated when Ngata's very talented daughter, Tai, ran away from her studies to live with a bushman, Sam Green, in the headwaters of the Waiapu River. ('Come back girl... My love will be forever moistened by my tears'). However a 1995 death notice reports that "Heneriata Whaingata (Tai) Green, a daughter of Sir Apirana Ngata and thought to be the first Maori woman to attend a NZ university, died in Rotorua aged 90." This places her entry into university as a 17-year-old to about 1922, which was after the song had already been published.

Ngäta was a talented composer, and Paiare Tomoana used to visit him at his home at Waiomatatini. The Ngäta homestead there, Te Wharehou, overlooked the lower reaches of the Waiapu river. And Ngata and Tomoana are known to have collaborated in writing other songs like Te Opi Tuatahi.

The original 1914 Northland version was probably a verse beginning Pokarekare ana ngä wai o Hoki-anga, and was possibly set to a Dalmatian fiddler's dance tune.

A full explanation of the origin of Pokarekare Ana is given in a 1921 2nd edition of the booklet A Noble Sacrifice sold in aid of a Maori soldiers' fund. It appears that Tomoana edited this 1921 booklet, even though the 1921 edition held at the National Library has lost its cover page naming the editors. The National Library does have an earlier 1919 1st edition of this booklet which has the cover shown here, naming Pairare Tomoana as co-editor. (However this 1919 edition does not have Pokarekare Ana in it).

Narrowneck Camp was at Takapuna, Auckland. It seems Maori soldiers from different tribal areas met there and swapped songs. It is pointed out that different writing styles of each verse suggests that different hands may have helped shape them. The soldiers were at the Narrowneck Camp only after World War I had started in late 1914. And therefore the ditties would not have got to the East Coast until a year or so later. Ngata and Tomoana note that the "present form" of the song was especially associated with 19th and 20th Maori Reinforcements, who were training at Narrowneck in May-June of 1917, so it would appear that the "wai o Waiapu" phrase was not added to the song until mid 1917.

Arapete Awatere in 1973 stated that: “A composition was generally the work of a group, but centered around the person whose passion ... was its inspiration. This might be expected of a people which had a strong sense of cooperation. Most songs were composed as a group effort, even though one person was credited with the song. The same is still happening with action songs. Songs were reworked because the melody and symbolism of the words were liked, and to make the song appropriate to the new context."

In June 1917, Tomoana organised a song and dance group that gave performances to raise money for the Maori Soldiers' Fund. The members of the group prepared new action songs for these performances. It would have been through Tomoana's group that "...they took the present form with appropriate action. " (Tomoana 1921). Tomoana's concert party performed Pokarekare as an action song for the 19th and 20th Maori Reinforcements before they departed on July 7th, (as combat engineers, to construct trenches, under fire, in the swamps of Passchendale).

In July 1917, Tomoana's concert party went up to the East Cape and performed at a Waiomatatini wedding. This was when the "others" heard it sung first, and over the decades it become combined in their minds with the love poem of similar sentiment that Tomoana expressed in a letter to Kuini in 1912, and had sang in at Gisborne in 1913.

Credit was first given to Tomoana's individual effort in connection with the song is on a 1927 music sheet which says "words and music arranged by P H Tomoana."

Tomoana's grand-daughter was misled by the fading memories of the "others." But she acted in accordance to established Maori custom by attributing the song to her grandfather ...whose passion...was its inspiration (Arapete Awatere,1973). By doing this, she has effectively protected Pokarekare Ana as a cultural treasure.

The information contained here came from the New Zealand Folk Songs Website.

This version of Pokarekare Ana is sung by our own Hayley Westenra from Christchurch, New Zealand.