Urupā

from Pōneke by Ruby Solly

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about

The Bolton Street Cemetery was intended to be a town cemetery for Wellingtonians from all denominations and ethnicities including those from the Catholic, Jewish, Māori and Presbyterian communities. During the 1800s, many of the headstones were carved from wood, including some with phonetic Māori which can be seen at the chapel. In 1967, Wellington City Council passed an act to build a motorway through the centre of the cemetery. Despite extensive protests, in 1978 the highway was opened and as a result around 3,700 remains were exhumed and reburied in a mass grave. Some of which were tīpuna of my family. This piece is a koha for those who cannot rest easy as they believed they would.

lyrics

Bring us your dead,
bring us your bodies,
and we will put them to rest
under one blanket of earth.

We can be an urupā,
we can be a house of life,
we can be a cemetery.
So bring us your bodies,
bring us your dead.
and we will put them to rest
under one blanket of earth.

Bring us your cars,
bring us your horns,
and we will take your dead
and we will take your bodies,
all three thousand,
and pull the blanket from over them.
They are wrapped together now
in the arms of lovers
they do not know.
Bring us your bodies,
for to us they are just
the dead.

credits

from Pōneke, released June 5, 2020

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about

Ruby Solly Wellington, New Zealand

Ruby Solly (Kai Tahu, Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe) is a musician, writer and taonga puoro practitioner living in Pōneke, Aotearoa. Her first album 'Pōneke' explores the hidden histories of Wellington as well as the part that the environment plays within the recording and composing process. ... more

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