Last Thursday, 9th May, the Senior Syndicate had Bob Bickerton visit with his Taonga Puoro, Māori instruments. He came to teach us more about the Māori culture, sharing his knowledge of the instruments and Māori legends. The instruments sounded iconic.

One of the instruments, the pūtatara, is part of the Tangaroa whānau. It has a large sea shell and a blowing hole. Bob told us a tale of the pūtatara being used on the beach and three days later there were five beached whales in the exact spot.

The pūtatara can be played in five different ways and is made from a large sea shell.

1. The male sound

2. The female sound

3. Another female sound

4. A child

5. The sea

Emerson

If you blow a pūtatara at sea, it gathers whales. To play it you blow on the carved wood and it makes a loud noise. Reid

The pūtatara has a male and a female voice. You must make a funny raspberry mouth shape when you blow on it. Your hand has to go in and out of the shell, making different sounds.

Willa, Alexis and Aubree

Different-sized gourds can produce different sounds because they have different capacities.

Ben

Many of the Instruments were made of found items such as driftwood, a sperm whale tooth, a pilot whale jawbone, shells, and an albatross wing bone.

One of the instruments was considered so sacred that it would be destroyed so others couldn’t use it.

The porotiti is an instrument spun on a string. It was used to help people feel better when they had achy joints or a stuffy chest from a cold. The person who was feeling sick would lie down and the porotiti was spun over their chest to make them feel better!

The small hue can be played from the nose.

By Kohekohe and Nīkau