Billy T james

Who was Billy T james?

Billy T james AKA William j\James te tai toko was born 17 january 1949. James was of waikato tainui and and clan campbell, This  meant he was half Maori half Scottish which he talked about quite often in his comedy routines. 

James joined the maori volcanics snow band in the 1970’s and performed around the world. Prince tui teka( a famous Maori actor) encouraged James to start a solo career which later had him in high demand for his performances. 

James made his stage name Billy T James because it was something Australians could pronounce. 

I find that this is a poor effort on Australians and other peoples part for not trying hard enough to be able to pronounce James’s name correctly. Although if he kept his name it may have caused a drop in james popularity with foreigners such as Australians because they just wanted to see some comedy.

What he did?

In 1980 James appeared on a variety New zealand TV show which proved great success for him allowing him to start his own TV show in 1981. In the same year he was was named the New Zealand entertainer of the year. I have watched a few of james’s videos and I believe that this award was rightfully earned. 

His entertaiment

When performing his comedy routines and TV shows James would focus most of his jokes on maori stereotypes among others about different ethnicities and races. At the time William’s jokes were viewed as funny and non harmful, but if these jokes were used today myself among many other people think people would be offended by his racial but unharmful jokes. 

While watching his videos I believe that he tends to belittle maori including himself. But this is different when you watch the video a “Billy T James History of Nz” James acts as the maori who made first contact with the british settlers. While interacting with the Maori the settlers treated them like they were stupid then james proceeded to speak perfect english and reply to what they said causing the british to look on in shock. I found this to be hilarious and it goes to show that the maori were as capable as the British which treated them like savages. Thsi is the video.

His death

In 1998 James suffered a heart attack and underwent a quadruple bypass operation which was unsuccessful. In 1989 a heart transplant was performed on James which proved to be successful. He returned to the stage in 1990, but his return was short lived. James died of a heart attack in 1991 in the green lane hospital Auckland.

Trip to Lake Ianthe

 This week we went to Lake Ianthe to collect some kuta and kiekie. Kuta is a type of reed-like aquatic plant that grows in lakes across Aotearoa. When collecting the kuta we pull it up from the base of the stem to get the whole reed. The kuta is collected in this way to make it easier while weaving. After the kuta has been collected it is dried in the sun then it will be ready to weave into mats. While collecting the kuta we had to get into the water and other people in the class decided to go for a bit of a swim. When we first arrived we started off with a karakia before we started collecting any plants. The water was very cold and everyone had goosebumps as they stepped into the water even Sa pati who had been walking around in a short and singlet prior to the kuta collecting . While we were collecting the kuta afew people were a little nervous that an eel would bite them because we had seen one under the nearby jeti when we first arrived.

We also collected a kind of vine-like plant called kie kie. Kiekie can be easily recognised by its glossy flax-like leaves. The proper way to collect the kie kie is by snapping one of its branches and then peeling away all the leaves. Morgan was chosen to go into the bush and snap off a branch for us to pull the leaves off of. Once the leaves were removed we were told of two white lines that ran parallel down the length of the leaf. We separated the rest of the leaf from the white lines and placed the leftover pieces of the leaves under the kiekie so they would return to papatuanuku. Now that we only had the white pieces matua Joe was going to boil them then dry them in the sun. The kiekie pieces are then plated with toitoi. 

Hangi vegetable prep

 

Vegetables for the hangi

On Thursday we went to whare manaaki and started food prep for the hangi that would be eaten on Friday night. I spent most of my time chopping up vegetables with a big sharp knife. We had lots of vegetables that had been bought by student’s families to contribute to the hangi. There were cabbages, kumara and potatoes which I bought. For the cabbages we would peel some leaves off to use underneath all the kai when placed in the baskets. This was done to have more moisture to steam the food and to protect the bottom of the bags of food from the hot coals underneath. The leftover heads of cabbage had their stalks removed by cutting a circle around the stalk then pulling it out, which proved to be quite difficult, Then chunks of butter were placed in the holes left by the stalks to make the cabbage taste even better because the butter will melt through the cabbage when cooked to make it moist.I have cabbage quite often with my dinner since my family grows plenty in our garden and I quite like it. With the kumara and potatoes we cut off odd rotten parts that stuck out then cut the potatoes and kumara in half. The kumara were surprisingly dense and slightly difficult to cut with the knives and was even more difficult with the smaller knives, But on the other hand the knives glided through the potatoes like butter. The potatoes and kumara were put in bags made from cheesecloth, Cheesecloth is usually made in a sort of sleeve like design so we cut it off the rest of the cloth and tied one end, placed the potatoes and kumara in the makeshift cheesecloth bags and tied the top up to keep the vegetables in. The bags of potatoes and kumara were left to sit in buckets of water overnight to help steam the rest of the food inside the hangi.