Jennifer Cattermole, an associate professor at the University of Otago, and author of a new book on taonga pūoro, Echoes of Hawaiki.

A new book on taonga pūoro, Echoes of Hawaiki, explores the connections between the Indigenous musical traditions of Aotearoa and those elsewhere in the Pacific. Mark Derby talked to author Jennifer Cattermole, an associate professor at Otago University.

Echoes from Hawaiki explores how Aotearoa’s Indigenous musical traditions connect with those elsewhere in the Pacific.

Deep, sonorous booms like the language of a submerged whale. Piercing chirps and liquid peals evoking a forest of birdcalls. Hauntingly beautiful and resonant flute tones ranging from eerie and mournful to sweet and joyous. Cheery, rhythmic rattles like rain pattering on a roof.

In their wondrous variety, the sounds of taonga pūoro — traditional Māori and Moriori musical instruments — can be heard via the audio links included in Jennifer (Jen) Cattermole’s Echoes from Hawaiki. Her book is a meticulous catalogue of this country’s traditional instruments, furnished with superb colour photographs confirming that these taonga are as beautiful to look at as to hear.

For all its sensual richness, Echoes of Hawaiki is a rigorously scholarly work, a synthesis of the research the author has carried out for more than a decade as associate professor of ethnomusicology at Otago University. Her book also draws on other academic disciplines, from Māori and Pacific studies to anthropology, archaeology and even linguistics.

Unlike earlier works on taonga pūoro that restrict their focus to Aotearoa, Echoes from Hawaiki explores how Aotearoa’s Indigenous musical traditions connect with those elsewhere in the Pacific. Jen found that the names given to these instruments in different Pacific regions provide clues to their origins, as well as to their ritualistic and other significance.

“Most people take for granted that the ancestors of Māori came from central East Polynesia, but I found linguistic connections that are distinctly West Polynesian (Tonga, Sāmoa, Futuna and Niue) and similarities to music in Hawai‘i and other far-flung corners of the Polynesian triangle.

“It’s possible that central East Polynesia was some sort of hub — that people from right across Polynesia were voyaging into there, and then perhaps bringing those traditions on to Aotearoa, and Rēkohu as well.”

On top of these fascinating, although tentative, findings, Jen’s wide-ranging research has produced intriguing new questions.

“Straight-bored flutes with a single hole near the centre are something that both Māori and Moriori share, but they aren’t documented anywhere else in the world. So might they have existed elsewhere in Polynesia in the distant past and only survived here, or are they an innovation that is unique to this corner of the Pacific? I don’t know that we’ll ever find the answer to that.”

Like its broad geographic scope, Jen’s book takes a wide-ranging attitude to the definition of a musical instrument. Her book includes such unexpected sound-makers as rattles tied around the necks of hunting dogs to locate them in the bush, or whirled bullroarers for attracting dolphins.

She admits that her publishers needed some persuading to agree to this all-encompassing approach. “Anything that produces sound, and where there’s a particular function or meaning behind it for people — that counts as music for me.”

The little-known tao miheke oro, traditional Moriori musical instruments of Rēkohu (the Chatham Islands), feature strongly in this groundbreaking book, and Jen made several field trips to the islands in the course of her research.

“Last time I was there, I was having a cup of tea with one of their elders, Tom Lanauze, who was sharing his grandmother’s stories with me. He started talking about how Moriori would go out fishing for spiny dogfish and they’d have a series of shells strung on a cord that they’d rattle in the water to attract the fish. This is recorded nowhere else to my knowledge.”

Both Moriori and Māori are known to have not only blown but sung or chanted into the mouthpieces of their wind instruments, often for the purpose of specific rituals. Jen has tried this technique herself.

“The sound is surprising — it’s really, really different, and I can see why it gives those kupu such power. If you have a particular intention, like you want somebody to fall in love with you, or you want to curse someone, you transmit those kupu through taonga pūoro.”

Accounts of using these timeless instruments for entertainment are surprisingly scarce in the historical record. However, Jen evokes a scene of “people in a village sitting around in summertime, and on a raised platform there might be a group of people with different types of flutes, playing together and entertaining others.”

Originally from the small, rural settlement of Kirwee, inland from Christchurch, Jen studied classical singing and dabbled at learning various western instruments before falling in love with taonga pūoro at university, where they were demonstrated by the renowned musicologist Richard Nunns.

Now she both makes and plays these instruments as part of her own teaching practice.

“I love wandering into the hills or finding a nice stream to sit down beside, and just playing. You’re improvising along with the soundscape that you’re part of. That’s something that I really love about taonga pūoro — that sheer sense of connection that it gives you to a place.”

Jen began creating her own instruments under the guidance of her father, David Cattermole, who was “a remarkable craftsperson.”

“One of the most profound experiences that I’ve ever had was down in Douglas Creek, in Haast Pass. Dad had made a flute from a particular kind of pounamu that is only found in that creek, and we took the flute back to the river to seek its blessing.

“So I was playing away on the riverbank and I could hear the voice of another flute. It was the musicality of the river trickling over the stones, and we had a bit of back and forth — imitating, responding, elaborating on the melody.

“I’ve done quite a bit of playing beside rivers and streams, but that’s the only time the river’s sung back.”

As a Pākehā academic, Jen finds that working in such an arcane and sacrosanct field is “definitely an uncomfortable place to be sometimes. It always helps if you’ve been invited into a situation, and particularly if you’re able to work alongside Māori. Then it’s more of an exchange and a dialogue.

“I always do my best not to represent myself as an expert or as claiming some kind of ownership over this mātauranga. There is some knowledge that has to be kept private, and so there are a lot of things that I will never know, because I’m not the right person to hold that knowledge, or to pass it on to others.”

She has received only positive feedback on her book so far, “which is such a relief, because I’ve been worried, primarily because I’m a Pākehā, I’m a woman, trying to bring this knowledge together and send it out into the world in a new form. So I have been worried about pushback, but it hasn’t come yet.”

Jen is now working with others to create an online journal for the taonga pūoro community in Te Waipounamu, and curating an exhibition of Moriori music and culture at Tūhura Otago Museum, to open in mid-September, 2024.

“I’m also involved with the Hokotehi Moriori Trust, who have been working with a young musician named Ajay Peni based over in Perth, Australia. Under the name Black Robin, he and his band have been using old Moriori texts and re-contextualising them in more contemporary musical settings. It’s a really important part of ta rē [Moriori language] revitalisation as well.”

Through these collective activities, and her own handsomely-produced new book, Jen is adding to the growing chorus of elemental, ethereal music which is unique to this country.

Her research shows that the voices of taonga pūoro echo the even more ancient musical traditions of northerly islands, and carry faint memories and distant songs of farewell.

Jennifer Cattermole is an associate professor at the University of Otago. She is one of Aotearoa’s leading ethnomusicologists with a particular interest in Māori, Moriori and Pacific Island music. She is an experienced player and maker of taonga pūoro.

Echoes from Hawaiki was published by Otago University Press. 

E-Tangata, 2024