The origins of the music
Although the settlers at Pūhoi came from the historic country of Bohemia (a kingdom in the Holy Roman Empire and subsequently a province in the Habsburg (Austrian) Empire), with Prague as its capital, their language was based on the historical region of Egerland (in the far northwest of Bohemia). They did not speak High German but rather a dialect they called Deitsch. Werner Droescher identified Deitsch as North Bavarian and the map opposite indicates the Egerlander dialect’s linguistic region as a sub-area within North Bavaria. Just as a Geordie accent will reveal that a person comes from Newcastle in the northeast of England, so Deitsch can place people as being from an area around Staab, near Pilsen. Many of the settlers came from the neighbouring town of Chotieschau, now Chotěšov. The accompanying map shows the area of the Egerlander dialect as being between the borders of Bavaria, Saxony and Bohemia.
The songs reproduced in this book are first in Deitsch, with a phonetic guide to pronunciation, and then English (accompanied by literal translations of the Deitsch in English and High German). Many have an archaic quality as they are not songs from the late 19th century when the Pūhoi settlers arrived, but rather from much earlier times. They had already been passed down through many generations before immigration to New Zealand. Der wos döi bayrisch Duadl will hom (Who wants Bavarian Dora must have, p. 48) with its changing metre of two and three beats is a traditional dance that was first copied by Thomas Kunz in 1825 from the Gubernial Collection in Bohemia. It was collected as part of a capturing of traditional folk music of the region so it can be assumed that it had already been sung and danced to by several generations.
Bearing in mind the age of these songs, they can give clues to what life was like in the region the Pūhoi migrants came from. Unlike England, which was the first country to industrialise, economic and social change was slower in central Europe. However, even the Habsburg (Austro-Hungarian) Empire, which controlled the deeply conservative and rural region of Bohemia, was affected by revolution in 1848. Bohemia itself experienced armed conflict during the Prague uprising of that same year. The Habsburg Empire prevailed and successfully regained control and centralised during this time, with Vienna becoming the official centre of power. The middle of the 19th century was a very unsettled period in Europe, which may have been the driver of much of the emigration at that time, especially if conscription was a likelihood.
But all this was perhaps far removed from the subjects of the traditional songs. They describe village life with its traditions, customs and folklore as well as the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. For many, time was measured by the annual calendar that moved from one anniversary or feast day to the next, usually tied to the church year and frequently related to agricultural practices. For example, Salzmann and Scheufler noted that fields were to be ploughed by Saint Gregory’s Day (12 March), cabbages and turnips were to be sown on Saint Mark the Evangelist’s Day (25 April) and transplanted on Saint Vitus’s Day (15 June). Another important day was associated with Easter (see Maia custom on p. 68).
Arrival in Pūhoi would have been a huge shock to these settlers but they came and developed the land as a society bonded by their language, their Roman Catholic faith and generations of communal and traditional folklore practices.
The land they settled had been sold to the government by Te Hemara Tauhia, leader of Te Kawerau/Ngāti Rongo hapū of Ngāti Whātua, and it was his people who built the first shelters for the new arrivals and helped them with food during the lean early years. The relationship between the two groups was generally cordial and in 1872 the Auckland Weekly News describes a ‘Great Native Festival at Puhoi’:
Maori and pakeha had assembled, and seemed resolved to make the most of an enjoyable day. Te Hemera, the host of the occasion, and his kindly disposed and amiable wife, Miriam, did their utmost to make those who had accepted their invitation feel themselves truly welcome; and hospitality to its greatest extent was bestowed on one and all. A dinner was served, the entire preparation having been performed by natives in their own ‘kapa maori’, the cookery whereof was all a gourmand could desire . . .
Reporters were equally interested in the ‘exotic’ culture of the Bohemians. In 1866, only three years after their arrival, a reporter for the Daily Southern Cross wrote:
The cottages and clearings are scattered along the banks of the creek . . . It is essentially a ‘poor man’s’ settlement but nevertheless prosperous and sound, politically.
On Sundays and holidays [i.e. anniversary days] the inhabitants, who are chiefly from Bohemia and South Germany, put on their German habiliments, and while listening to their Teutonic dialects, and viewing their characteristic costumes, one might fancy oneself again in Schwar[t]zwald, or amongst the mountains of Carinthia.
That same year, Captain Martin Krippner (1817–1894, see p. 104) enlisted all the single men of Pūhoi and five of the married men to join his 3rd Waikato Regiment (made up of European settlers based in and around Cambridge) to fight in the New Zealand Wars in Waikato. Happily, they were never actually in combat but as a result each received 50 to 60 acres of land and so founded a second Bohemian settlement at Ōhaupō, near Hamilton.
The enigmatic Captain Krippner (born in Mantau, Bohemia) is credited with being the person who organised the Pūhoi settlement and encouraged his fellow countrymen to immigrate to New Zealand. Krippner arrived in New Zealand in 1860 with his English wife, Emily Longdill, and their children and a few other families, including his brother Johannes (Hans).
Emily began teaching the Pūhoi children in 1863. The children were taught using their dialect, Deitsch. However, recognising that the language of the future in New Zealand was English, from 1884 lessons were taught exclusively in English, and Deitsch became the vernacular language spoken at home and in the bush.
Until the beginning of the First World War (1914–1918), the villagers usually communicated in dialect. Following the outbreak of war, German was the language of the enemy and it was advantageous to speak English in public. Dialect thus retreated further into the domestic realm. With improvements in transport and infrastructure, dialect-speaking inhabitants began moving away from Pūhoi. There was also an influx of non-German-speaking people into the area, with more mixed marriages as a result. These changes meant that the use of the dialect was further reduced and English became the main language of the Pūhoi community.
From the 1930s onwards, fewer and fewer people in Pūhoi spoke Deitsch. Then came the Second World War (1939–1945) and it was once again prudent to hide one’s German roots.
At the 1963 centennial celebrations of the first Bohemian arrivals at Pūhoi, Werner Droescher recorded the old settlers singing some of their traditional songs, but by 1969, he commented:
. . . things have changed . . . Life has become quieter. The once typical Egerländer festivities have now given way to a typical New Zealand life: agricultural shows, cricket and rugby matches. Only for the annual jubilee [held on 29 June] many of the relations come back to their old home and the old dances are once again danced by the elderly folk.
The importance of singing and dancing
Dancing in the Pūhoi hall was popular for many years and the musicians of Pūhoi were expected to play the latest colonial dances such as the waltz and the polka. By linking several of the old songs, a medley could be compiled of sufficient length for the duration of these dances. Two examples in this book are the instrumental dance medleys Summer air in May waltz (p. 28) and Schedewy polka (p. 30). No doubt these more traditional sources for dancing were popular because the dancers would have remembered the tunes and words of the old Bohemian songs.
The use of song melodies for dancing illustrates the popularity of this activity. Father Silk, their parish priest, wrote that, ‘Dancing has unfortunately come to stay, not only in Pūhoi but also wherever a few individuals can be gathered together.’11
Dancing in the hall was complemented by dancing in the home, an old Bohemian custom. If there was no instrumentalist available, they could dance to their own singing (surely another reason why these songs have survived for so long). This collection, therefore, contains some dance music, and where song texts are known, these have been included.
The Pūhoi settlers were noted for their love of dancing at the time and there are many accounts of dancing in the early years.
I have witnessed dancing in many countries — the cross-road break-down, Ireland; the Highland fling, Ayreshire; the Spanish fandango, Mexico; but nowhere have I seen dancing so thoroughly gone into so heartily as in Pūhoi. All ages from 7 to 70 assemble in the dance-room, and as long as the fiddler is able to wield the bow or the piper squeeze out a note, so long do they tread to the measure of the Reichstachel [Reichsapfel], Dumadum [Umadum], etc. It is no uncommon thing to have dancing continued unceasingly night after night for a week . . .
Forgiving a colonial reporter for misspelling the names of the dances, it can be seen how traditional Bohemian dances using the old tunes and songs continued in Pūhoi throughout the rest of the 19th century.
New generations then wanted the latest dances — the polka and waltz being especially popular. The old dances were still enjoyed for particular occasions, such as the anniversary day of the Bohemian settlement at Pūhoi (29 June), weddings, and perhaps a special birthday of one of the ageing settlers, but it was the new dances that were now popular.
The Bohemian flair for music ensured that most dances employed the services of Bohemian musicians. These musicians looked to the traditional songs that they knew and joined songs of similar tempo and metre together to create medleys suitable for the new dances.
By the late 20th century, some of the third-generation Bohemians would still have recalled the words, perhaps singing along with the band — just in time to be recorded by Werner Droescher and others in the 1960s. Today, dances in the Puhoi Hall featuring the traditional dances are infrequent, but Bohemian dance groups, including those for children, continue to keep the traditional Egerlander dances alive.
The dialect of Pūhoi’s settlers
When we hear someone speak in a way that is different to ourselves, we might think of where that person is from; Scotland, North America or a region within a country, such as the north of England. In other words, she or he speaks with an ‘accent’. An accent can also denote social class. While we all speak the ‘King’s English’, to a New Zealander, King Charles himself speaks with an accent that is recognisable as an English person from the upper classes. Happily in English there is no change in spelling across the wide range of accents we hear, unless the sounds of a particular accent are required for a special situation, such as in a play or film. The words are spelled the same way regardless of how they are pronounced.
German is written more phonetically than English. What you see is what you say, and what you hear is what you write. There are no silent letters and no various possibilities for pronunciation as with ‘ough’ (enough, ought, cough, though) in English. The spelling of each word is strongly indicative of the pronunciation and if there is any variation, a letter may have an umlaut to indicate a change of sound, as in die Mädchen (the girls). So in singing the text of a new song, whether it is in Deitsch or High German, the spelling is always a helpful guide as to how to pronounce the language reasonably accurately.
As a dialect of German, the written words of Deitsch reflect this process. The spelling gives clues to the pronunciation of the dialect because the people of Egerland spoke their language in a different way to other parts of Germany.
The phonetic symbols also seen in the songs take this process a step further because a phonetic character or group of characters precisely provides the pronunciation required.
The following tables give English speakers a guide to the pronunciation of Deitsch and German words through the spelling of a word, and for additional accuracy the phonetic alphabet has been provided. Note that the phonetics have been shown for all the songs.
Deitsch, also known as the Staab dialect, belongs to the North Bavarian sub-dialect of Austro-Bavarian, which again can be subdivided into Core-Egerland (Kernegerland), South-Egerland and finally the Staab Dialect (Deitsch).
Inevitably, Deitsch has ceased to be the native language of Pūhoi’s inhabitants. It is a relic of a bygone era but has been preserved in different ways; in collections of old songs, in poetic writings, or as audio recordings of spoken texts. Metaphorically, the Deitsch language island of Pūhoi has sunk beneath the waves of the English language. Occasionally, some elements are fished out of the water and brought to light. These dialect songs can be seen as linguistic and musical treasures that have been raised from the deep.
