A university in Texas is giving a new lease of life to the hīmene Whakaaria Mai in a music video tribute to renowned US minister Billy Graham, highlighting its connection to the figure.
Māori Anglican Priest and Associate Professor of Communication at LeTourneau University, Dr Steve Elers, created the project in an effort to show the influence Graham had on the song’s creation during one of his campaigns in New Zealand.
“Not a lot of people know the history of Whakaaria Mai,” says Elers.
“I thought, you know, it would be cool to do a tribute to Billy Graham since I’m at this place where he was on the board.”
The 1959 Crusade
Billy Graham’s first crusade to New Zealand in 1959 saw more than 160,000 people attend a seven-day event at Auckland’s Carlaw Park, with thousands more attending during the remainder of his travels around the country.
Graham widely popularised How Great Thou Art during his crusades. The hymn was reportedly adapted into the Māori version known today by Anglican ministers Reverend Canon Wī Te Tau Huata, a well-known composer, and Reverend Canon Sam Rangiihu, before the minister returned to Aotearoa in 1969.
“[They] took the last verse of Te Ariki, ‘hei au koe noho ai’, which is the Māori translation of ‘Abide with me’, and they put that last verse to the tune of How Great Thou Art and Whakaaria Mai was born,” says Elers.
Witnessing the Creation
The son of Reverend Canon Wī Te Tau Huata, Te Rangi Huata, says he was in the room when it started.
“We were living in Hamilton then, and a Māori fellow called Robert Pene came to see my dad,” he says.
Huata explains that Robert Pene was an Open Air Campaigner who formed part of a group of Māori who would go out to the streets to sing and preach the gospel.
“He came and saw my father and said, ‘Look, we’re hosting Billy Graham in Auckland... and we want you to compose a song for him coming back to New Zealand’,” says Huata.
Choosing the Tune
Huata recalls his father being hesitant at first, as he wasn’t part of the Baptist denomination, but says he soon agreed.
“My dad collected his thoughts together, and he thought, what better tune to set a waiata to than How Great Thou Art? A song made well-known by Billy Graham and a song that he adopted in all of his campaigns worldwide, and so that was the tune.”
Wī Te Tau Huata is credited with composing many of New Zealand’s most enduring Māori waiata, like Ngā Iwi E and Tūtira Mai Ngā Iwi, as well as songs associated with the 28th Māori Battalion.
The waiata was made famous by figures like Sir Howard Morrison and is still used at many kaupapa Māori today, especially during tangihanga.
Learning the Māori Strum
Worship leader and LeTourneau University student Glory Griffin, who sang the cover, says she hopes to keep the memory of the song alive.
“I’m fascinated by the culture now, and I hope years from now I can still pick up the guitar and sing this song,” she says.
Griffin says she felt intimidated when she first approached the language and attempted to sing the song.
“I wanted to do it well... I was actually able to grasp it a lot faster than I thought I was going to be able to, but I definitely wasn’t perfect.”
She says she was fascinated most as a musician by the Māori strum, which is not commonly heard in the US.
“I had never heard of it, and so when he [Elers] first played it for me, I was like, ‘Oh, this sounds like it’s from another culture, is it just how Steve plays?’ Then I realised it was an actual thing,” she says.
The new version can be streamed on Youtube and across other social media platforms.
