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It's official:

For Professor Rangi Mātamua, a Tūhoe astronomer who has become the go-to on Matariki and the Maramataka (Māori lunar calendar), Thursday was a day of absolute elation.The bill making Matariki an official public holiday passed its final reading on Thursday afternoon, which means Aotearoa will have its first Matariki public holiday this year, on June 24.Te Pire mō te Hararei Tūmatanui o te Kāhui o Matariki (the Matariki Public Holiday Bill) received 77 votes in favour, with National and...

More than one in six Māori can now speak basic te reo,

More than one in six Māori can understand and speak at least a basic form of te reo, and nearly a third can understand it, a survey has shown.Information from Stats NZ revealed 17.62 per cent of Māori aged 15 and up could speak te reo at least fairly well. That was the highest rate since the early 20th century.The survey was answered by nearly 8500 people of Māori ethnicity and/or descent.Link to video and article: More than one in six Māori can now speak basic te reo, highest since ear...

Tariana Turia:

Moana Jackson’s bio in Imagining Decolonisation says everything about the man.“Moana likes telling stories to and for his mokopuna and hopes they will grow up in a land where Te Tiriti is finally seen as the base for respectful political relationships. Then there will be other stories to tell.”Moana adored his mokopuna, and he was a gifted storyteller. His life’s work was for them. Such was the humility of the man that he never presumed to speak for or of anyone else. Yet,...

Moana Jackson —

Moana Jackson was a quietly spoken intellectual and Māori leader who challenged the Crown with his incisive writing and analysis. But he was also a kind and generous man who cared deeply for his people. Aaron Smale reflects on a life that will go on giving.When I first got to know Moana Jackson I was drawn to his immense intellect and gentle demeanour. But what I often found strange was that he always wanted to know what I thought. He once sent me a draft of something he was writing and asked f...

Moana Jackson:

No New Zealand leader’s legacy has ever seemed so important.He’s the person who, like others who’ve paid intelligent attention to the Treaty, understood the power sharing in that 1840 deal — and he’s the one above all others who has explained how such a travesty was made of that arrangement by the waves of white colonisers bringing their comfortable and hopelessly faulty assumptions about white superiority.That made him unique. And he was all the more distinctive because of his gen...

Justice Joe Williams:

I went to Moana’s tangi on Saturday. It was at Matahiwi marae, not far from Hastings. I was part of an ope of a hundred or more predominantly Māori judges, lawyers and law students from throughout the country.It was a predictably large tangi, skilfully led by Moana’s hapū — Ngāti Hāwea, Ngāti Hori and Ngāti Kautere — and the wider iwi, his beloved Ngāti Kahungunu, the source of most of the stories he drew on when he taught.Tūhoe had brought him down from Waimana the day b...

Couple at centre of Māori land occupation

The couple, who purchased the land more than 10 years ago, weren’t aware of its cultural significance until a local Hapū began camping on their property.The section is in the coastal community of Ahipara at the southern end of 90 Mile Beach.What was supposed to be a paradise to retire to, the beach side property has become a nightmare for the pair.Link to video and article: Couple at centre of Māori land occupation desperate for solution (1news.co.nz)...

Culturally significant site

Over 60 hectares of land, including culturally significant sites, are being transferred into iwi ownership.Kākā Hill is being transferred to Ngāti Koata ownership via an agreement between shareholders involved in the Maitahi Village development.Koata Ltd chief executive Hemi Toia said in a statement about the arrangement that Kākā hill had significant cultural history for local iwi, and was believed to be the site of an urupā (graveyard). He said ownership of the hill was “incredibly sig...

Mauri stone laying at Te Āwhina Marae

Twenty new homes for whānau are to be built at Te Āwhina Marae in Motueka – the first stage of a proposed $28 million redevelopment.The new homes are to be constructed as part of a $12.3m papakāinga development, in a partnership between the marae and Te Puni Kōkiri – Ministry of Māori Development.It is the largest papakāinga project Te Puni Kōkiri has supported, with the Government investing nearly $10m.A mauri stone laid on the grounds of the marae at dawn on Monday marks the lo...

Whangārei school goes above

Manaia View School is part of Fonterra’s Milk for Schools, Fruit in Schools and KidsCan food programs, and also has a breakfast club to ensure students are able to learn with full bellies. Principal Leanne Otene told Breakfast families are “most definitely” doing it tough, adding that "most schools across New Zealand will have children and whānau who are struggling at this time". "It’s about responding to that need and ensuring that we’re doing everything we possibly can so that our t...

Almost 500 children,

The agency says it is improving its care but has previously "acknowledged the vast improvement needed in compliance" across its social work practice.This was noted by the Independent Children's Monitor, in its recent inaugural annual report, that found Oranga Tamariki was fully compliant just two percent of the time across all 12 of its own practice requirements, and that it still lacks the data to know if it's taking proper care of children or not.It was compliant across six or more practice re...

Cree singer to perform anthem

A composer, DJ and "huge" hockey fan from Quebec's most northerly Cree community will perform Canada's national anthem at Montreal's Bell Centre before Saturday's game, in East Cree, French and English.Pakesso Mukash has been busy translating the lyrics into his language, and trying it out on his baby girl."I've been singing it to my daughter every night for the last three weeks, and thankfully she's not sick of it," said Mukash. "She actually does fall asleep to the anthem every night."Link to ...

“It’s About Damn Time”:

Thirty-two-year-old Ashley Callingbull has been the first many times: the first kid from her First Nations territory in in Alberta, Canada, to model professionally; the first Canadian and Indigenous women to win the Mrs. Universe title in 2015; and now—as of last week—the first Indigenous woman slated to appear in an issue of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition.“It feels great to be the first for a lot of things, but it’s so important that I’m not the last,” Callingbull told ...

Auckland Council

Auckland Council will start formal consultation with iwi and urban Māori from next month on the creation of Māori seats in time for the 2025 election.But a decision on how many wards will be established and their make-up will be left to the incoming council and mayor elected in October’s local body elections to decide. And that doesn’t sit well with Independent Māori Statutory Board chairman David Taipari.Link to article: Auckland Council set to kick-off consultation on Māori seats ...

Māori Public Hearing

Māori Public Hearing on Livestream...

Stepping up

There’s no good reason for any of us to be applauding the way power is shared in Aotearoa — especially in view of what was agreed at Waitangi in 1840, and especially given how so many Māori have fared since then.Fortunately, the injustice, unfairness and inefficiencies have been a frequent focus for some of our leaders including leading thinkers, most notably Moana Jackson and Margaret Mutu. That focus has been particularly powerful and clear-sighted since an independent Māori gro...

The flickering genius

When I reviewed Auckland Art Gallery’s Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art exhibition in April last year, I described it as a mind-opening experience. The 300-work exhibition, spanning seven decades of art-making by 110 artists, was an invitation to a wānanga on Māori cosmology and worldview. In its assertion and provocation, it also felt as if a cultural bombshell had landed in the venerable central city institution. Now the experience of that landmark exh...

'I just don't know where it's gone':

There’s no pulling punches in talk around the rising cost of living in Aotearoa.Putting food on the table, filling your car, keeping a roof over your head – life has become a struggle for many Kiwis.And those bearing the brunt of this perfect storm of rising living costs, a pandemic and a war in Europe? Many of them are working in our hospitals, our supermarkets, our care homes – the critical workers who held the country together on the frontline during Covid lockdowns.Link to video a...

National Maori Authority calls on a boycott of XERO

The Chair of the National Maori Authority, Matthew Tukaki, has called on Maori organisations, Iwi and Hapu to pull any products, software or investments from some of New Zealand’s richest businessman after David Seymour thanked the for donating to his party on the eve of mounting a campaign against Maori through the calling on of a referendum. In email to party faithful ACT Party Leader David Seymour thanked Rod Drury, Graeme Hart, Stephen Jennings, Craig Turner, Grant Baker where he also ment...

'Not wanting compensation,

The Māori hearing for the 'Abuse in Care' Royal Commission of Inquiry has closed but for many of those who came forward to speak over the past two weeks, their horrifying experiences in state care continue to haunt them.A panel of Māori experts heard from 25 witnesses. Among the panel was Paora Moyle (Ngāti Porou) who spoke to Te Ao Tapatahi today about the overarching themes during the inquiry.“I've heard about human rights abuses, ethnic cleansing, genocidal practice. I’ve hea...

In search of a place

She once thought she wanted a waewae firmly planted in both worlds, but dedicating a year of her life to study te reo full-time has finally given Meriana Johnsen a safe space to exist in te ao Māori.A large black and white photo hangs on the back wall of our wharenui at Mangamaunu marae. The shaded image shows our tīpuna in their Sunday best. They’re sitting on the mahau, the front of the meeting house, all dressed in white. On one side, they are flanked by settlers of the Anglican faith, th...

Study ties present-day Native American tribe

A genomic study of Native peoples in the San Francisco Bay Area finds that eight present-day members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe share ancestry with 12 individuals who lived in the region several hundred to 2,000 years ago.Reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study challenges the notion that the Ohlone migrated to the area between A.D. 500-1,000, said Ripan Malhi, a professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who led the research...

Historic site restoration

Historic sites in and around Tongariro National Park are to be restored by Ngāti Tūwharetoa hapū as part of a new Jobs for Nature project.The sites include the Opōtaka pā site on the banks of Rotoaira and Te Pōrere Redoubt, both culturally and historically significant to the Tūwharetoa hapū Ngāti Hikairo and listed by Culture and Heritage NZ.Opōtaka is the kāinga and pā overlooking Motuopuhi at Rotoaira, where Hikairo chief Te Wharerangi sheltered the Ngāti Toa warrior and chief Te ...

Covid-19: Māori now have highest rate of community cases

Dr Bloomfield's latest update comes a day after the government announced sweeping changes to its public health protection measures.Dr Bloomfield was confident at his last briefing two days ago that the Omicron outbreak had peaked in Auckland, and case numbers are also slowing in other parts of the country.He said today that analysis confirmed the significant drop of cases across Tāmaki Makaurau and all three DHB areas, accompanied now by a drop in hospitalisation case numbers.In ...

Food banks are a godsend,

That's Rena*, a single mother of five, who recently joined The Salvation Army's new Kiwi Kai co-op in Clendon, Manurewa.As a member of this fledgling co-operative scheme, she gets a large box of fruit and vegetables every week for $15 plus discounts on other essentials like eggs and mince - including $2.25 for milk, which is almost a dollar less than in the supermarket.Members also receive a raised garden box set up at their home, courtesy of the Whenua Warrior community gardening charity, that ...