He wai! The place of waiata in extrapolating tūrangawaewae

Abstract

How can waiata declare and perpetuate one's belonging to place, to türangawaewae? Waiata are commonly performed at pöwhiri following, and in support of, whaikörero. Within this context, place is central to waiata. Waiata's purpose is to complement the whaikörero, ultimately expressing identity and broaching responsibility for, and the significance of, place. The use of language through waiata articulates türangawaewae-a place to stand-and contextualises cultural identity. This paper investigates the significance of waiata in how the performance of song extrapolates türangawaewae, and consequently how waiata can evoke cultural identity and why this is important to place. Consideration of the deeper meanings of waiata through its ability to refer to place, and because of this its power to communicate the importance of place, are investigated using three select waiata.

Pōwhiri: The ritual of encounter

“…Ultimately, it is an expression of individual and collective identity, and connectedness to land and place. The language used in the waiata tautoko conveys one’s tūrangawaewae or ‘place to stand’, thus contextualising cultural identity (Smith, 2017). Dunbar-Hall and Gibson (2004: 70) state that ‘a person’s conception site, the region from which a person or group of people come, the physical sites formed by historical personages during the creation period, all contribute to constructions of individual and group identity’.…”