Author(s): Mervyn McLean

Maori History, Society & Culture | Secondhand | Music & Showbusiness

In this engrossing book, written in a deliberately non-technical way, one of New Zealand's leading ethnomusicologists, Mervyn McLean, tells the story of his fieldwork, travelling in rural New Zealand, recording traditional Maori songs over a span of more than 20 years from 1958 to 1979. He says, "I've realised that the New Zealand I saw then, and especially the Maori part of it, is a way of life now largely gone". McLean travelled throughout New Zealand, often in primitive conditions, showing extraordinary dedication and painstaking care in this important task and meeting and working with most of the Maori leaders of the period. The recordings he made, now stored in the Archive of Maori and Pacific Music at the University of Auckland, have been of great importance in revitalising Maori music in many tribal areas and have preserved the songs and the voices of many great kaumatua for their people and for posterity. To Tatau Waka includes over 80 photographs, two maps, a glossary of song types and an index of names, along with an audio CD containing 37 waiata from McLean's collection, led or performed by kaumatua whose photographs appear in the book. This honest and disarming account by a very committed and sensitive fieldworker will have strong appeal for Maori, for those who already know McLean's work, for those who knew the personalities he encountered, for anthropologists and for all those with an interest in Maori culture, traditional musics or our recent history.

VG. CD present