E Ihu, E Te Oranga

Album: Maori Hymns (1826)

Songfacts®:

  • Also known simply as Hymn 79 in the Weslyan Maori Hymnal of 1938, this original composition was written by John Hobbs (1800-83). Hobbs, who was born in Kent, England, traveled to Tasmania as a young man to do missionary work, but soon moved to New Zealand where in no time at all he appears to have become a fluent Maori speaker. He wrote this as early as 1826, and although it wasn't the first hymn he composed in the Maori language, it was one of which he appears to have been especially proud according to Mervyn McLean in his 1996 monograph Maori Music. >>>
    Suggestion credit:
    Alexander Baron - London, England

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