Home › Glossary › Letter T

Taonga pūoro

Musical Instrument
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Traditional Māori instruments made from wood, stone, and bone, used in ritual and healing

Detailed Definition
Taonga pūoro’s organic sounds appear in Māori poetry to symbolize ancestral connection, land embodiment, and cultural revival; their use in karakia (incantations) makes them a metaphor for the voice of Papatūānuku (Earth Mother) and lyrical sovereignty in verse.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Māori poetic chants (waiata), taonga pūoro like the pūtōrino embody the voice of Tāne, god of forests; A contemporary Aotearoa poet describes the kōauau (a type of taonga pūoro) as “bone singing to bone”; In a bilingual poem, the pūrerehua’s whirring mimics the call of the extinct huia bird; Modern Māori poets use taonga pūoro as metaphors for cultural reawakening; A verse likens the nguru’s breath to the first sigh of Papatūānuku (Earth Mother); In collaborative performance poetry, taonga pūoro sounds punctuate lines about land rights and identity.
Additional Notes
Taonga pūoro are traditional Māori instruments of Aotearoa (New Zealand), made from wood, bone, stone, and shell; each instrument (e.g., pūtōrino, kōauau) embodies ancestral voices and natural elements—poets should approach with cultural respect, using them to explore indigenous cosmology, breath as life-force (mauri), or sound as reconnection to land and lineage.
Also Known As
Māori instruments Māori traditional instruments
Skip to main content