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 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...
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.
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.
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.
Roll of bendy plywood
