Whale songs represent the profound but oft-forgotten connection between humans, other animals, and the natural world as a whole. Whales communicate primarily through complex, expressive songs, and in The Whale Rider, these songs serve as a motif to announce contact between humans and whales. Koro Apirana laments that humans can no longer communicate with whales, as they once could according to Maori tradition. Now, on the rare occasion when the endangered whales’ songs can still be heard, they represent a lost connection to nature, a deeper knowledge of the world that the Maori can only dream of regaining.
But throughout the novel, this connection resurfaces. Kahu learns to talk to whales by singing in their language—much like Kahutia Te Rangi communicated with the ancient whale by playing his flute. More than any other, this special ability to communicate and connect helps Kahu become the whale rider of Maori legend and save her people. Even as a toddler, Kahu is sensitive to whales and their songs, which represents her special powers and destiny. She frequently gazes out at the sea, lost in thought, humming whale songs. At the end of the novel, she reveals that she can hear whales singing from a great distance and has been communicating back to them all along. Readers might even wonder if Kahu’s call is what brings all the whales to beach themselves in Whangara, or if the chapters about the herd of whales are translations of the songs that Kahu hears.
Whale Songs Quotes in The Whale Rider
The human had heard the young whale’s distress and had come into the sea, playing a flute. The sound was plangent and sad as he tried to communicate his oneness with the young whale’s mourning. Quite without the musician knowing it, the melodic patterns of the flute’s phrases imitated the whale song of comfort. The young whale drew nearer to the human, who cradled him and pressed noses with the orphan in greeting. When the herd traveled onward, the young whale remained and grew under the tutelage of his master.
I thought I saw something flying through the air, across the aeons, to plunge into the heart of the village.
A dark shadow began to ascend from the deep. Then there were other shadows rising, ever rising. Suddenly the first shadow breached the surface and I saw it was a whale. Leviathan. Climbing through the depths. Crashing through the skin of sea. And as it came, the air was filled with streaked lightning and awesome singing.
Koro Apirana gave a tragic cry, for this was no ordinary beast, no ordinary whale. This whale came from the past. As it came, it filled the air with its singing.
Karanga mai, karanga mai,
karanga mai.
“Very well,” the ancient bull whale said. “Then let everyone live, and let the partnership between land and sea, whales and all humankind, also remain.”
And the whale herd sang their gladness that the tribe would also live, because they knew that the girl would need to be carefully taught before she could claim the place for her people in the world.
Kahu looked at Koro Apirana, her eyes shining.
“Oh, Paka, can’t you hear them? I’ve been listening to them for ages now. Oh, Paka, and the whales are still singing,” she said.
Whale Songs Symbol Timeline in The Whale Rider
