A Guest Post by Luigi Cappel
My best friend on Substack discusses New Zealand's Patea Māori Club
Hey folks,
There’s a saying that you never remember the origin story of some of your best friendships. The more you think about it, the fuzzier it gets. The same goes for my best friend on Substack—Luigi Cappel from New Zealand. We started our writing journey around the same time in early 2022, but I can’t quite recollect how we stumbled across each other’s newsletters. One common point we share is that we recommend music from the pivotal moments of our lives. Luigi and I have long been supporting each other on Substack and it gladdens my heart to see him in the comments.
Today, mi casa, su casa! Take it away, Luigi!
Kia ora. Greetings from New Zealand.
Nikhil and I share a passion for music and I’m glad to do a guest post for ‘What’s Curation?’. In My Life is an autobiography with a soundtrack of 500 songs that have formed a background to my life to date.
Many years ago, I used to sell scanning systems to supermarkets. My market was every large owner-operated supermarket in New Zealand, and I spent a third of my time traveling by plane and car around this awesome country.
One of the little treats I would allow myself, was to visit secondhand shops wherever I went, looking for collectibles, like old books, musical instruments, records, and magazines. Most of New Zealand’s small towns were well off, but there was one town on the North Island, Patea in Taranaki, which always felt tired and sad when you drove in.
There was a statue of a waka, or Māori canoe as you came into the town. The Māori people came to New Zealand hundreds of years ago on large canoes and most can name the canoe that their family or iwi descend from, and where it landed in New Zealand.
There was high unemployment in this town, and unless it was benefit day—when people were able to collect their unemployment or other benefits and went into town to do their groceries— there wasn’t a lot going on. At least for this traveler to see.
But behind it all, there was a thriving Māori community, and if there is one thing they love, like me, it is their music. In 1967, a group of people belonging to the Methodist Church started a cultural group called the Patea Māori Club. They performed locally and brought the community together.
In the 1980s this group, together with music and hip-hop producer Dalvanius Prime started recording their music and the group became very popular, touring around the world, displaying their culture with dance and music.
In 1984 they released a single that would hit Number One on the New Zealand music top 50 charts, called Poi E.
Poi are a bit like pom poms. They are round balls made of swamp plants, or raupo, with strings made from the fibers of the flax plant. The poi are incorporated into action dances, producing great visuals and rhythms. Kids in New Zealand make them at school, and they are part of our country’s indigenous Māori heritage.
This hit song brought Patea Māori Club into the limelight and helped a lot of people financially, and brought pride and unity to the area. Whenever I drove through, I would think of this song, and it has become a Kiwi icon.
This short interview tells a bit of the story.
At the time of writing (October 2022), New Zealand is hosting the 2021 Women’s Rugby World Cup (postponed because of COVID) and teams from all over the world are competing for the title of world champion. Rugby is our national sport, and it is exciting to see that the women are playing to a very high standard. Tens of thousands of people are turning up for the matches.
For the opening match at Auckland’s famous rugby stadium, Eden Park, filmmaker and Academy Award winner Taika Waititi, of Jojo Rabbit, the Thor movies, and some great Kiwi movies, like Boy, and Hunt for the Wilderpeople, opened the match, introducing the Patea Māori Club.
The club and supporters had made thousands of poi, which were given out to the crowd, and they joined in the performance from the stands, prior to kick-off.
The stands erupted with song and poi dancing, which was a wonderful introduction to the world cup series. It took me right back to those days, driving through the tired dusty looking town, where times were tough, but pride was there aplenty.
And this is what happened a couple of weeks ago.
Thanks for subscribing to and reading ‘What’s Curation?’ and I hope to see you all on
In my Life.
—Luigi Cappel.
Thanks so much for the opportunity to share Nikhil. Substack is indeed a community and the friends we make here are part of that connection. I really value the connection we have made.
As a footnote, the Black Ferns won the 2021 Women's Rugby World Cup on the weekend and they did it with such style. The poi were waving in the biggest crowd ever to attend a women's rugby match. Over 42,000 people at Eden Park and over a million watching the game. Every moment from the kick off was a celebration and at the end, nobody went to their car parks, they stayed and celebrated, even being led by players like the amazing Ruby Tui, in singing Maori songs. They were fierce, they were joyful, they were Kiwi.
This was fantastic. I felt like I was transported to NZ.