I had never heard of this song until I received this submission to my website page on teacher taunts:

"I grew up in New Zealand where there is a famous folk song called Pokarekare Ana, we sung a version like this about our teachers about when corporal punishment was allowed. Pokarekare Ana, I had a squashed banana I threw it at my teacher, It hit her in the face. She said "Come here", I said "No, Fear" "Because you're gonna hit me in the rear!"
-Siobhan ; 9/24/2007; http://www.cocojams.com/teacher_taunts.htm


-snip-

Since I had never heard of this song before, I turned to my friend Google to find out if there were any websites about this song. Well, as of this date, Google lists 13,500 website pages of Pokarekare Ana lyrics.

Imo, the most thorough website that I found on this song is John Archer's website:
http://folksong.org.nz/pokarekare/index.html
New Zealand Folk Songs

Here are that song's Maori lyrics and an English translation:
[These lyrics actually came from http://awanderingminstreli.tripod.com/pokarekareana.htm . This site credits New Zealand Folk Songs for the lyrics and its somewhat abbreviated material]

M¨¡ori

P¨­karekare ana
ng¨¡ wai o Waiapu,
Whiti atu koe hine
marino ana e.
E hine e
hoki mai ra,
Ka mate ahau
I te aroha e.

Tuhituhi raku reta
tuku atu taku r¨©ngi,
Kia kite t¨­ iwi
raru raru ana e.

E hine e
hoki mai ra,
Ka mate ahau
I te aroha e.

Whati whati taku pene
ka pau aku pepa,
Ko taku aroha
mau tonu ana e.

E hine e
hoki mai ra,
Ka mate ahau
I te aroha e.

E kore te aroha
e maroke i te r¨¡,
M¨¡k¨±k¨± tonu i
aku roimata e.

E hine e
hoki mai ra,
Ka mate ahau
I te aroha e.

English

Rippling are
the waters of Waiapu,
cross over girl
'tis calm.
Oh girl
return here (to me),
For I shall die
because of love (for you).

I have written my letter
I have sent my ring,
So that your people can see
(that I am) troubled.

Oh girl
return here (to me),
For I shall die
because of love (for you).

My pen is shattered,
I have no more paper,
(But) my love
is still steadfast.

Oh girl
return here (to me),
For I shall die
because of love (for you).

(My) love will never
be dried by the sun,
It will be forever moistened
by my tears.

Oh girl
return here (to me),
For I shall die
because of love (for you).

-snip-

But I suppose that I should have used the Mudcat search engine first. Why am I not surprised that there are a number of Mudcat threads about this song?

And why am I also not surprised that GUEST John Archer {whose website on New Zealand folk songs I provided above} started a Mudcat thread in 2004 on this song: thread.cfm?threadid=69609#1181872
Origins: 'A Mhuire Mh¨¢thair' - NZ Maori tune?

Ah! Mudcat! You've proven once again that you're a repository of and a discussion forum for English language as well as non-English language folk songs.


**

See this YouTube video clip of Pokarekare Ana:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koi_f3fB2h8
Hayley Westenra - Pokarekare Ana

Added: October 14, 2006
From: 555th

There are 206 text comments to date for this video.

**

Now that I've learned that one English title for this Maori folk song is "Come By Here", I can better appreciate the wit of the school yard taunt that Siobhan sent me.

Thanks to Siobhan for that example. And special thanks to GUEST John Archer for his wonderful website.

I'm not sure if John Archer still posts on Mudcat. I certainly hope so.