Q1: You lived in Pūhoi for a time. Is this where your interest in the community’s unique music and dances began?
I knew of the music and dance prior to moving there but it was an added intriguing aspect to the move. As soon as I moved there, I quickly got to know the musicians. I was running an international community music conference in Auckland and we had a great evening when I took them all to Pūhoi to listen to the music.
Q2: Can you explain for the neophyte why it is unique?
Approximately 50 million people emigrated from Europe to the ‘New Countries’ in the 19th century. They were rich in their local folk ways — dialect, costumes, dance, songs etc — but these tended to get lost in the homogenous mixture as they settled in and were faced with building up the skills of survival and so on. Apart from in their homes, nobody knew their songs or dialect and so it’s only in rare cases that ‘language islands’ such as that at Pūhoi continued the traditions. Other pockets of culture opened up when groups of people such as sailors, gold miners and bush workers were isolated for long periods of time. In such cases, their own distinctive musical repertoires — sea shanties for example — developed.
Q3: How did you get involved with it at that time?
I quickly started recording and videoing the musicians and made two CDs of music plus a video for the University of Auckland.
Q4: And you’ve retained that interest and your working relationship with international authority on Deitsch, Dr Ralf Heimrath. When did the two of you decide that there should be a book?
Having completed my book Bohemian Journey in 2013, I realised that Pūhoi historian Judith Williams had been collecting rhymes and song lyrics from the old people in the dialect. By this stage I was quite familiar with the tunes so I suggested to her that I try to put them together because the musicians had always said that the tunes were originally songs with words that had since been forgotten. I had some success doing this with around nine songs when Judith alerted me to the existence of tape recordings made by Werner Droescher. I knew that he had been working in Pūhoi on the linguistics of the dialect but I hadn’t realised that he had also recorded songs. We then both discovered that he had recorded the centennial anniversary celebrations in the Pūhoi Hall in 1963, when the community sang some of the old songs. These recordings changed everything because I was then able to transcribe directly from the recording rather than rely on Judith’s interpretation on paper.
Then four more songs came to light from German publications. They had been collected in 1974 by Erich Baumann, who had been in a party of Egerlanders visiting Pūhoi. Gradually I realised that there was an official dialect still spoken in Germany by the old Egerlanders and that there was a dictionary that was at variance with Judith’s spellings. I also realised that some of the songs were published already in Germany. This was not surprising since these songs had been brought from Europe and quite likely could continue to be sung over there. Other sources were found and we then had about 15 songs. As we thought about the possibilities of a publication we wondered how the dialect could be taught and the use of phonetics seemed part of the answer. In about 2019 I located the best person in the world on the phonetics of this dialect — Ralf Heimrath — and he has been a marvellous help since. Both his parents and his wife’s parents are Egerlanders so one of them knew many of these songs from childhood. He was able to fill many of the gaps of information gleaned from the old people such as missing words or lines and, most importantly, he brought the academic knowledge of the dialect as a written language. During the Covid lockdowns he and I worked on it via email daily. I always knew that there was potential for a book of some sorts and the potential gradually became realised over the 10 year period. It is also being published in Germany.
Q5: What did researching and preparing it entail?
There were many overlapping stages: interviews with the old Bohemians, searching audio-tapes, developing a knowledge of the published repertoire (mostly in Germany), becoming intimately conversant with the tunes, transcribing the sounds to the music notation, notating the phonetics for each, writing a singable text for each, getting accurate translations of each in English and German, and getting to know and understand the families of the respondents — why was it that they had remembered the songs whilst others had forgotten them? We had enormous help from Jenny Schollum of the Puhoi Historical Society and others sent us photographs and answered many questions.
Q6: Having these musical scores, and the lyrics in English and Deitsch, is surely a treasure for future generations. How important is it that it be documented in this way?
This means they can be performed and become living taonga but are always available as an archival source.
Q7: Can you tell us about the dudelsack and how difficult it is to play?
It was almost impossible when I tried to play an old 19th century one. I realised it needed attention so I took it to a maker in Czechoslovakia who restored it. I got him to make me a copy and returned the old one, which is now played by Diane Barnes in Warkworth. It’s not that difficult to get going to start with but like all instruments, it is a study in itself to play really well — and in Europe they do.
Q8: Do you have a favourite song, and why?
I like them all in different ways. I have learned a lot from arranging them for my group Folkworks.
Q9: What about a favourite dance? Are the steps challenging to learn?
It’s easy to get going but more difficult dances can be challenging.
10: The last fluent Deitsch speaker from among the Pūhoi settler descendants has died. These songs will endure though, do you believe?
I think they will — now that they have the chance. Aural traditions and folklore have been lost because of modern technology, but that same modern technology is also recording them for the sake of posterity.
