Ngoi Pēwhairangi

Ngoi Pēwhairangi (full name Te Kumeroa Ngoingoi Pēwhairangi , born December 29, 1921 in Tokomaru Bay ; † January 29, 1985 ibid) was a well-known New Zealand teacher and promoter of the language and culture of the Māori and lyricist of numerous songs. She was a prominent figure in the Māori Renaissance of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Life

She was born in Tokomaru Bay on New Zealand's east coast in 1921 as the eldest of five children of Hori Ngāwai, an unskilled worker and priest of the Ringatū from the Tokomaru Bay resident Hapū Te Whānau-a-Ruataupare des Iwi Ngāti Porou and his wife Wikitoria Te Karu who was descended from the Ngāti Tara Tokanui in the Hauraki region . Ie attended the local native school and was raised by her relatives in the religion of Ringatū.

From 1938 to 1941 she attended the Hukarere Maori Girls School in Napier . She was a good hockey player. After finishing school, she played for the Marotiri team from Tokamaru Bay.

Ngoi was the niece of the composer and promoter of the Māori language, Tuini Ngāwai . In the early 1940s, Ngoi toured New Zealand with the Hokowhitu-ā-Tū concert group as part of a World War II fundraising campaign . Her aunt, who founded this group, taught her how to perform Kapa Haka , which she could also use as part of her hockey game. After completing school, she returned to Tokamaru Bay and started working on her aunt's sheep shearing team.

On February 3, 1945, she married the worker Rikirangi Ben Pēwhairangi from Tokomaru Bay in Waiparapara marae. Their only biological child was a son, Terewai Pēwhairangi, and they also took on several foster children.

Ngoi taught the Māori language and headed the Māori club at Gisborne Girls' High School for three years from 1973 . In 1974 she also began teaching a course in Māori studies at the University of Waikato in Gisborne . In 1977, Kara Puketapu , the new secretary of the Department of Māori Affairs , called her in support of the Tū Tangata project . This was aimed at vulnerable Māori youths in the big cities and tried to connect them with their Iwi. She worked as a counselor for the department and was involved in the establishment of the kōhanga reo movement, which aims to educate Māori in their language.

From 1978 she was an advisor to the National Council of Adult Education . In this capacity she promoted the Māori language and culture nationwide, especially in the countryside. In 1985 she and Katerina Mataira founded the Māori learning program, which was based on a television program and the book series Te reo .

Among New Zealanders of European descent she is best known as the lyricist of the song Poi E , which topped the New Zealand pop charts in 1984 in a recording with Dalvanius Prime and the Patea Māori Club .

She died in Tokamaru Bay in 1985. Her funeral ( tangihanga ) was held in the Pākirikiri Marae . A funeral song ( waiata tangi ) composed for her by Timoti Karetu was for several years the recognition piece of the Kapa-Haka group of the Te Tumu School of Māori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies at the University of Otago .

literature

• Tania M. Ka'ai : Pewhairangi, Te Kumeroa Ngoingoi . In: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography . Volume V . Auckland University Press , Auckland 2000 ( online, accessed September 15, 2018).