Kīngi Īhaka

Sir Kīngi Matutaera Īhaka MBE JP (18 October 1921 – 1 January 1993), known to his family as Matu Īhaka, was a New Zealand clerk, interpreter, Anglican priest, broadcaster and Māori Language Commissioner.

[1] Īhaka was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 1970 Queen's Birthday Honours, for services to the Anglican Māori Church.

[5] Īhaka wrote a New Zealand version of the carol "Twelve Days of Christmas", which was published as a picture book in 1981 with illustrations by Dick Frizzell.

Pukeko in a Ponga Tree became well-known and widely performed, and a fortieth anniversary edition was published by Penguin in 2021.

[8] The song's verses describe the gifting of a pūkeko in a ponga tree, two kūmara, three flax kits, four huhu grubs, five big fat pigs, six poi a-twirling, seven eels a-swimming, eight plants of pūhā, nine sacks of pipi, ten juicy fish heads, eleven haka lessons, and twelve piupiu swinging.