Aitutaki

Recording sessions at Nikaupara, Aitutaki were led by Tepaki Mokotupu, who introduced most of the items, and narrated legends with which the songs are associated. Verbatim translations of most of the legends were supplied after each recording session by Simona Naku in consultation with Tepaki. The accounts in English of Te Putanga o Te Toa (item 1/8) and the Story of Raeina and the battle of Vaovaoka (item 1/145), as related by Tepaki, were supplied in typescript by Tepaki but must have been prepared by someone else, most likely the Aitutaki Resident Agent, Jock McCauley, who had been Resident Agent also on Atiu, where he established an Atiu Historical Society with the object of gathering legends from local elders. English paraphrases of the stories from items 1/23-25 were prepared from verbatim translations made at the Archive of Maori and Pacific Music, Auckland, by Mamia Tunui during a training visit in 1976.