Manu Tiria

Manu tiria,

manu werohia

Ki te poho o Te Rāka

Ka tau rērere

Ka tau mai (i) te Ruhi

E tau e koia

Koia, koia

Ko tara-rauriki

Kī mai i Māui

Ehara i te Whitu,

Me te Waru e

E tau, e koia, koia!

Bird of the planting time

bird of the ground-breaking time

upon the chest of Maui’s father

Landing after a long flight

Settling here right up to February,

it will land at our kumara digging time.

Dig, dig!

The first kumara shoots

From Maui are already filling out,

But don't plant them in November

Or in December

Settle down and dig, dig!

Ancient planting chant

James Cowan wrote in 1905

Of our summer visitors, the migrant shining cuckoo is particularly well known to the southern Maoris. It arrives in about October, and leaves our shores again for its winter quarters in northern Australia and New Guinea about the end of February. The Southland Natives call it "Te Manu-a-Maui" (Maui's Bird), because its notes when heard in the spring are a signal to begin the planting - Maui being the tutelary deity of the gardens and cultivations.

Its song is construed as a command to the kumara-planters —

Ko-o-ia, koia, koia;

Tiria, tiria, tiria;

Whatiwhatia, whatiwhatia,

bidding the people dig away, break up their mother earth and prepare the soil for the reception of the seed kumara.

There is a very ancient planting-song called "Te Tewha-o-Maui" used on the occasion of kumara-planting in the Rotorua District, particularly on the island of Mokoia. It is rather curious to find that a portion of exactly the same song is heard in the extreme south, where the Murihiku Maoris (in Southland) put it into the mouth of the shining cuckoo.

Legend says that it was from Maui that the Maori ancestors first heard the kumara-planting incantations. The demi-god transformed himself into a bird and sang this tewha as he sat perched on the handle of a digging ko. So this song is therefore of great antiquity.