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Once a bustling early Māori village,

For Te Wiki O Te Reo Māori 2021, The Southland Times has chosen six places from the Ngāi Tahu Atlas that help tell the story of our region.The Kā Huru Manu (The Ngāi Tahu Cultural Mapping Project) has mapped out more than 1000 original Māori place names, kā ara tawhito (traditional travel routes) and the original Māori land allocations in the Ngāi Tahu takiwā (area).These place names represented a significant symbol of the Ngāi Tahu historical association and relationships in...

Pākehā judge says

As the end of Māori Language Week nears, Reo advocates are firm in their position that focus on Te Reo Māori won't stop when the week is over.   One of those is Pākehā woman and Māori Land Court judge Carrie Wainwright, who is a passionate life long learner of Te Reo Māori.“I couldn't do the job that I do without it,” she says.“I have the privilege of working with Māori communities, resolving disputes, and being able to do that with a Māori thought process is ve...

Excluding non-Māori from te reo will kill it,

Former Māori Language Commissioner Haami Piripi also called Lorde’s Te Reo Māori EP a sign that NZ is progressing as a nation. Last Thursday, the Kiwi pop star released a surprise EP, sung entirely in Te Reo Māori ahead of Te Wiki o Te Reo (Māori Language Week). Te Ao Mārama, which dropped on Thursday, is a re-recording of five songs from her recently released album, Solar Power.Link to article and video: Excluding non-Māori from te reo will kill it, ex-reo commissioner says in supp...

Why do we celebrate te Reo Maori in September?

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Māori largest number of new cases

Advice given to the Ministry of Health last year to prioritise Māori for vaccines to avoid the Covid-19 virus was ignored.  That’s according to Auckland University indigenous statistics Associate Professor Andrew Sporle who says Māori should have been put at the head of the queue.“We produced the information and sent it to the ministry and there wasn't that prioritisation on the basis of a risk profile that we thought there should be,” Sporle says.“So, we would actually say t...

Kia kaha:

It takes one generation to lose a language and three generations to restore it. Ahead of Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori, Rawinia Higgins, Māori Language Commissioner, writes about why the movement to recognise and restore te reo is as important as ever.Right now New Zealanders are showing the rest of the world what kind of people we are. He aha te mea nui o te ao?  He tangata. He tangata. He tangata.What is the most important thing in the world? It is people. It is people. It is pe...

Can Pākehā caregivers provide adequate cultural support

Can non-Māori caregivers raise a Māori child in a culturally appropriate way?It’s a question that has come to the fore, again, in light of the high profile ‘‘Moana’’ case, in which Oranga Tamariki attempted to remove a 6-year-old Māori girl from the Pākehā couple that has cared for her for three years, because the agency felt they could not provide her cultural needs.Family Court Judge Peter Callinicos last week dismissed Oranga Tamariki’s application in a 145-page ruling. ...

Tuturau:

For Te Wiki O Te Reo Māori 2021, The Southland Times has chosen six places from the Ngāi Tahu Atlas that help tell the story of our region.The Kā Huru Manu (The Ngāi Tahu Cultural Mapping Project) has mapped out more than 1000 original Māori place names, kā ara tawhito (traditional travel routes) and the original Māori land allocations in the Ngāi Tahu takiwā (area).These place names represented a significant symbol of the Ngāi Tahu historical association and relationships in...

Māori language week:

Of the nearly 182,000 people employed by tech giant Microsoft, Māori make up a small group, so small the company doesn’t have an official global count.But a tāne Māori is at the forefront of its indigenous strategy and internal working group, helping put te reo Māori on the map.Dan Te Whenua Walker (Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāti Maniapoto, Tūhourangi and Ngāti Kahungunu) started his own reo journey just a decade ago, when he first became a father.Link to video and article: Māori langu...

Petition aims to change official name

Te Pāti Māori has launched a petition to change the official name of New Zealand to Aotearoa.Māori Party co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer today launched the petition which aims to change the name to Aotearoa and use te reo Māori names for all towns, cities and places by 2026."It's well past time that te reo Māori was restored to its rightful place as the first and official language of this country. We are a Polynesian country, we are Aotearoa," Waititi said."Our petition ...

Oranga Tamariki admits

Oranga Tamariki has admitted that it sometimes asks District Health Boards to keep children at hospitals longer than they are clinically required while they try to find them a suitable placement.It goes against the advice of the Children's Minister Kelvin Davis who has told the agency a child in care should only be in hospital for a medical reason. RNZ revealed in July that a child in state care, who did not require medical treatment and was not unwell, spent more than nine weeks in a ...

Air New Zealand's Maori language app,

NZ Māori Tourism and Araraurangi / Air New Zealand have teamed up for a new project to help Māori language learners spread their wings.Today they launch a language learning app, designed for learning 'te reo' on the go. Called 'Kia Rere' it is a pocket-sized guide to mihimihi and whakatauaki (greetings and proverbs) to use on your journeys.Launched in time for Wiki o te reo Māori (Māori Language Week), the app is intended for beginners and is a first step into the language.Henare Johnson, Cu...

Iwi aim to restore mana

When temperatures drop a smoke-like mist rises over the Ōpaoa River, a once vital transport link looping its way through Marlborough. The striking characteristic of the river is thought to have inspired its name Ōpaoa which translates to smoking, or smokey river. This kōrero, or story, was lost when settlers misspelt the river ‘Opawa’. It was regained almost 200 years later through the Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi settlements that included the restoration of the correct names a...

Jenny-May Clarkson offers ear

The Breakfast host got emotional on Monday morning when reading the woman's feedback on air. "I just wanted to kōrero about my fear to speak te reo Māori," the viewer, named as Tracey, wrote into the show. "I'm a 57-year-old Māori wāhine who has spent my whole life trying to learn te reo and I feel like an absolute loser because I can't and I haven't succeeded." A tearful Clarkson told the reader it was called "language trauma", when responding live on air. "It is a thing, it ...

Maori Language Week:

It's cool and dark inside Pōrangahau's 140-year-old Duke Hotel. On the mantelpiece sits a black and white photo of Ahuriri's parents and long-time locals, Flo and Baby Houkamau, cigarettes in hand. Outside, the unblinking Hawke's Bay sun has turned rolling farmland from green to gold. A brown and white pony is wandering the streets tearing threads of grass from the road edge. Two young girls are playing hopscotch on the footpath. Next to the dairy, Ahuriri's nephew, Orlando, is selling espresso...

Dream of a bilingual nation -

On day one of Te Wiki O Te Reo Māori – Māori Language Week 2021, Stuff reporter Scott Yeoman looks into the future of language in Aotearoa New Zealand and finds that at the end of a long road, there’s a destination many have in mind.“Kia ora, matua” is the greeting Dr Rāpata Wiri gets when he goes to Bunnings Warehouse in Rotorua.It’s the same at McDonald's, he says, and all over town.“It kind of blows me away.” Wiri moved to Rotorua when he was 12 years old from Te Urewera.Link...

Watch: Mike McRoberts and Oriini Kaipara

Newshub presenters Mike McRoberts and Oriini Kaipara have discussed their totally "opposite" te reo Māori journeys and the importance of the "taonga" (gift) that is Aotearoa's indigenous language in celebration of Te Wiki o te Reo Māori (Māori Language Week). Newshub Live at 11.30am host Kaipara told The AM Show's Ryan Bridge about how Te Reo was her first language, while Newshub Live at 6pm presenter Mike McRoberts didn't connect with the language until much later in life. "I was i...

Local iwi organisation in employment stoush with former employee

Demi Hunziker (Ngāpuhi) told the NZ Herald she joined the content-sharing site as a way to supplement her income, after being made redundant from her job as a flight attendant amid the COVID-19 pandemic last year. OnlyFans is a subscription platform that allows content creators to be paid directly by their audience. It's become well known in recent years for being predominantly a palace to view porn and other sexually explicit content.Hunziker's work on OnlyFans reporte...

Evolving identities:

The late Dr Hone Kaa, Māori priest and social activist, argued that the Māori concept of wairua (spirit) is best understood when the word is broken into two – wai meaning water and rua meaning two. So wairua equals two streams.In Kaa’s world, the two streams represented masculinity and femininity. Kaa believed both energies are present in all of us, and he used this concept as the basis for training in traditional Māori parenting.Mothers and fathers need to be alert to both sides of this ...

Popularity of Te Reo Māori challenge

Those behind a month-long challenge to speak as much Te Reo Māori as possible say they're staggered by how popular it's become.Today is the first day of Mahuru Māori, a month-long celebration of the language that thousands have signed up to participate in.But its beginnings were humble. In 2014, Paraone Gloyne, a Pou Tikanga at Te Wananaga o Aotearoa, made a pledge to himself: he would speak only Te Reo Māori for a month."I looked at some of the other months, you know, you've got Dry Jul...

'What the rest of the world call science':

National MP Paul Goldsmith has doubled down on his views about including Māori knowledge in education, expressing concern about Kiwis kids keeping up with the world. In a Facebook Live with National MP Christopher Luxon, Goldsmith said it was "quite right" to ensure there is reference to Māori knowledge in education, but he fears the Government is "taking about five steps too far". He accused the Government of "trying to impose it on science and maths and a whole lot of other subject...

$2.75m Mongrel Mob meth rehab funding approved

A meth rehab programme for Mongrel Mob members has been approved after the applicant argued it would combat a rising number of gang homicides and suicides, and help reduce organised crime.Details of the H2R Research and Consulting Ltd proposal have been released by the Ministry of Justice.Kahukura is a meth rehab programme for Mongrel Mob members which received $2.75 million from the Proceeds of Crime Fund.It is based at Tapairu Marae, outside Waipawa, and involves Sonny Smith, a Mongrel Mob lea...

Unstoppable movement:

Two years ago, a small pocket of land three kilometres from Auckland’s international airport became the most prominent site of a struggle by Māori, New Zealand’s indigenous people, to reclaim land confiscated by the crown more than 150 years ago.Ihumātao contains evidence of New Zealand’s first commercial gardens, where thousands of hectares were planted with kumara, a tropical sweet potato which thrived in the warm and nutritious soil. The adjacent stonefields, today a category one...

Reo Awhina

Have you ever learnt Te Reo Māori without even knowing it? Reo Āwhina provides a unique learning experience throughLink to resources: Reo Āwhina, Episode 1 | Māori Television (maoritelevision.com)...

Children's charity

A children's charity is launching a week dedicated to the protection of New Zealand’s tamariki.Safeguarding Children has planned Child Protection Week from September 5-11 to coincide with its 10th birthday.The week’s purpose is to raise awareness of the part organisations and adults play in protecting children and young people from abuse and neglect.Link to article: Children's charity launches week to promote safety and wellbeing | Stuff.co.nz...