The Drum Making Crew

On Thursday last week, RUTU!'s pa'u making crew got started with the pa'u-making--despite the rain, at Master Drummer Ota Tuaeu's house.

RUTU! DRUM MAKING CREW (From L to R): Ota Tuaeu, Glassie Bob, Driver Paulo

Today the crew worked on turning the bendy plywood sheets (bendy because they bend and roll easily) that Ota and I bought last week--into the shape of the pa'u or bass drum..

Roll of bendy plywood

                                                                                                                                                        The completed wooden shell of the big pa'u                     

       Here's a video of the boys getting stuck into the pa'u on the first day. On the second day Glassie demonstrates his drumming skills on his Tonka-wood tokere (pate) and talks about how to get the tokere to sound good.

The Tree Cries Less & Bleeds Less When Cut at Dawn...

The RUTU Drum Masters of thee Cook Islands event is centred around the making and drumming of tokere (slit gongs) and pa'u (membrane drums). One of the things Master drum maker Ota Tuaeu and I did starting two weeks ago, was to acquire some of materials and tools required for the making of the drums. RUTU!'s in-house taunga (cultural expert, master of cultural ceremonies, researcher, ukulele master etc) Ma'ara Maeva suggested a aka-tapu i te rakau ceremony which is a cultural ritual for consecrating the wood, tools and other materials before the drum making process begins.

Taunga (master of ceremonies) Ma'ara Maeva

According to Taunga Ma'ara (based on his experience and research) our Polynesian ancestors believed in mauri ora, the living energy or  life force that existed in all living and natural things such as trees. As the sun rises it contaminates the energy of a new day with the burdens and tribulations of everyday living. Dawn straddles the chasm between PO (night) and AO (day) and therefore is the precise moment (in the day) when the life force is uncorrupted. 

The drum making wood and tools

"Hence, the tree cries less and bleeds less when it is cut (for our drum making purposes) at dawn" says Taunga Maara. Here's a short video of the akatapu-anga i te rakau ceremony that was held on Tuesday, earlier this week--at Master drum master and maker Ota Tuaeu's house--in Mangere. Excuse the video editing and out-of-sync dialogue.RUTU!'s go-to camera-people were unavailable and your humble RUTU! blogger is no Steven Spielberg. The ceremony was held at 6am. Sunrise for that particular Tuesday was predicted to occur at 0650, according to Internet sources, in case you were wondering...

Drumming, Drumming Everywhere...

In the Cook Islands, drumming plays a big role in society. Today's blog will discuss this using a variety of readily available videos on YouTube.  From a young age children learn how to drum. The video below is of Mark Short, a lawyer and well known Cook Islands drumming teacher showcasing the prowess of his own kids on the drums. Impressive, aren't they?

By the time they get to high school they're smoking good. Here's a group of Araura College students jamming.

 Inter-school and inter-island cultural entertainment competition is fierce and drumming always plays an integral role. Here's Aitutaki's winning drum dance at the Akirata Ou Festival 2014 which was held in West Auckland.

The Taakoka dance group is one of the oldest professional Cook Islands dance groups. Here's a Youtube video of their 'Kia Orana' performance at the Pacific Showcase on the Auckland Waterfront.

Drum Master Jacob Samson's Drums of the Pacific are the drummers for the New Zealand Warriors rugby league team. The boys are showing some of the rugby league guys how to drum, below.

Here is is an older video of Drum Master John Kiria's Anuanua Performing Arts Troupe in 2010.

In Aitutaki drumming features prominently in two key social events. The koni raoni and the oro toroka. The koni raoni literally means "dance around".


Each year two villages are chosen to do the koni raoni; one village does it on the day after Christmas and the other, on Boxing Day.  This is the viillage of Ureia doing the Christmas 2015 Koni Raoni. That is some seriously vibrant drumming.

In future blogs I will be conducting video interviews of our drum masters Ota Tuaeu, Jacob Samson, John Kiria and Jon Jonassen (when he arrives in early March). I will also write about the cultural (before sunrise) blessing ceremony conducted for the drum-making tools and materials.

Introducing Our Cook Islands Drum Masters

In this second blog I would like to briefly profile some of the ta'unga rutu ete ma'ani pa'u (drum masters) who will be conducting and taking part in the rutu pa'u (drumming) and ma'ani pa'u (drum making) master classes and workshops during the week of RUTU!, which runs for six days, beginning Monday, the 14th of March later this year.

Dr Jon Tikivanotau Jonassen

Dr Jon Tikivanotau Jonassen is a world reknown expert not only in Cook Islands drumming and culture but also other  Pasifika cultures. As a young man,  Dr Jonaassen or 'Papa Jon' as he's often referred too these days worked as a Cook Islands cultural entertainer in Japan. He was a member of the famed Betela dance group that toured Japan and other countries in the late 60s and 70s. 

Dr Jonassen is truly a Pacific  renaissance man. A former political science professor at Brigham Young University-Hawaii as well as a former head of the Ministries of Cultural Development and Foreign Affairs--in the Cook Islands, Dr Jonassen is a Japan-trained 5th dan blackbelt in Karate  and is a well-known and published author on Cook Islands cultural matters and composer of Cook Islands songs and music.

Ota Tuaeu

Ota Tuaeu like Dr Jonassen, is a former member of the Betela dance group. He also has a broad background that involves mainstream as well as cultural work experiences. Not only is he an experienced Cook Islands drum maker and cultural entertainer as well as musician--he is also a former New Zealand police officer, having served 25 years previously, in that capacity. 

In currently undertaking a Master's degree in Applied Indigenous Knowledge at Te Wananga O Aotearoa, Mr Tuaeu has become aware of how the demand for Tamanu wood (here's the Wikipedia link if you want to know about Tamanu)--which is used by various Pasifika and other world cultures for carving--is in danger of becoming extinct. He has become passionate about using other types of wood and timber, ones that are in plentiful supply--for the making of Cook Islands drums and carved craft work. 

As part of the drum making master class--Mr Tuaeu will be making a complete set of Cook Islands drums using South American hard woods and ordinarily-available New Zealand materials such as plywood--that will be equally as good, he says, if not better--than a set made from the traditionally favoured Tamanu wood.

Jacob Samson

Hailing from the islands of Manihiki and Pukapuka--Jacob Samson is a well known Cook Islands drummer and cultural entertainer. Mr Samson is the drum master who taught members of the Te Vaka music group the art of Pasifika cultural drumming. He was influential in helping the group achieve  a distinctive sound (including cultural drum beats) that launched the group into the realm of mainstream popularity. The drummers of Mr Jacob's cultural entertaining group, the Drums of the Pacific (DOTP) are the drummers for the New Zealand Warriors rugby league team.

John Kiria

Drum master John Kiria is a former professional dancer with years of cultural entertaining experience,that have taken him all over the world. His older brother, Tamarua, is one of the most experienced drum makers and carvers in all of the Cook Islands. Mr Kiria is the leader of the Anuanua Performing Arts Troupe, a professional cultural entertainment group that does the Pasifika and tourist circuit across New Zealand and Australia.  John's expertise is in drumming and the coordination of drumming with dancing--in Cook Islands cultural entertainment. 

I couldn't think of a better way to end this blog than by posting up a video of some of our drum masters jamming on the drums under the tree in the park next to the Te Tuareka preschool complex on Rowandale Avenue, Manurewa. Special thanks to Gerardus Verspeek for volunteering his camera skills for the video and to Mama Piri Marearai for helping with the set up work. 

Introducing RUTU! Drum Masters of the Cook Islands

Kia orana

In March, this year, Te Tuareka GOODSTORY Trust ("Tuareka")will be running  RUTU! Drum Masters of the Cook Islands. Rutu means strike or hit and pa'u means drum so, drumming in Cook Islands Maori is rutu pa'u and rutu (often shouted like "rutu!" or "ka rutu!") is the master drummer's classic call or exhortation to his ensemble--to start drumming--at the beginning of the drumming performance. 

RUTU!, the event--is fittingly, about drumming (rutu), ma'ani pa'u (making of drums) and api'i (teaching) i.e. the teaching of these skills and knowledge to the uki ou, the new generation. It is also about showcasing this drumming knowledge and skill to the Auckland public. For Cook Islanders, drumming is a joyous experience. It energises. It raises the spirit.It puts a smile on one's lips.  So, it would be crime not to let the public join in and experience the celebration of Cook Islands drums and drum mastery.  

Why RUTU!? Cook Islands rutu pa'u is known the world over, not just in the Pacific, for its distinctive vibrancy and loin-stirring vigour. Rutu pa'u is an integral part of te tu Maori (the way of the Cook Islands Maori people); it permeates all aspects of Cook Islands culture and society. 

Prancing warriors leap with agility to its vigorous beat and shy-smiling maidens sway their hips seductively to its hypnotic rhythm. On the island of Aitutaki, a wedding is a joyous occasion to be celebrated by the ora toroka (running of the wedding trucks, literally), where the wedding party's caravan of trucks, cars and motorbikes would pass through each village on the island.

The villagers with their beaming smiles though sweating in the hot sun--would dance their way to the lead truck bearing the wedded couple--and place gifts of tivaivai (embroidered bed covers), moenga (fine mats) and pareu (sarong wraps) lovingly on its bonnet, all the while hips swaying and legs swinging to the inexorable and never-ending beat of the drums.     

Your humble blog writer will be writing about people, topics and issues of relevance and interest to RUTU! over February and March. I will be profiling some of the key drum masters including Dr Jon Jonassen, Jacob Samson, John Kiria, Ota Tuaeu and others.

If you are aspiring to become a Cook Islands drumming guru pay attention to the following 'once in a lifetime' opportunity. 

Drumming apprentices will be recruited for the RUTU! drum master classes so, if you're keen on becoming one of the chosen few--keep an eye out on the promo which will appear on the RUTU Facebook page, shortly. I'll be profiling some of the successful candidates in later blogs. I'm sure many of you will be interested in who they are and why they're inspired to learn about Cook Islands drums. 

RUTU! take place at the Takitumu Cultural & Arts Society hall, in Mangere Bridge and will run from the 14th to the 19th of March. The RUTU! project crew (including yours truly) will keep you updated on progress and will provide a programme of the week's events through this blog as well as the Facebook page. So long for now and as we say in the islands, meitaki atu koe (you're better than I) and ka kite (so long).