Kiri Te Kanawa - Tarakihi

The first time I heard Kiri Te Kanawa was when she sang Handel’s “Let the bright Seraphim” at the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. Since I wasn’t much of an opera fan at the time that might have been it, but I remembered her name years later when I saw notice of a documentary about the recording of Leonard Bernstein conducting the West Side Story starring, among others, Kiri Te Kanawa and Jose Carreras. Simply awesome! Then she released an album with Maori Songs. I was hooked! - that was it: the joy, the rhythm, the melody, the  voice, all came together.

Tarakihi is one of the Maori Songs. http://folksong.org.nz/tarakihi/index.html accounts:

Mahinarangi Tocker, who sang with Kiri on the Maori CD says she was told by her elders that "Tarakihi is from Ngati Maniapoto. It is more than 300 years old and talks about the cicada as a huge strength. Hiding in a cave at night and coming out to sing its stories by day. It's a symbolic story of people."

E, pakia kia rite
E, ko te rite kia rite
E, takahia kia ngawari
E, torona kei waho
Hoki mai

E whakarongo ai au
Ki te tangi mai
A te manu nei,

A te tarakihi,
I te weheruatanga
o te po

Tara ra-ta kita kita
Tara ra-ta kita kita

Wiri o papa, towene, towene
Wiri o papa, towene, towene

Hope whai-a-ke
Turi whatia
Ei! Ei! Ha!

(translation)

Clap in unison,
in unison, in unison.
Stamp your feet smoothly
Hands outstretched
then back.

I listen
to the cry
of this flying creature

of the cicada
in the middle
of the night.

Tara ra ta ki ta ki ta
.... cicada noises

Quivering rear end, whirring, whirring
Quivering rear end, whirring, whirring

Knees bent
hips swaying
Ei! Ei! Ha!