Ma¯ ori isn’t being ‘forced’ on NZ
We’ve just stopped suppressing the language, writes
Ilive in Aotearoa New Zealand, but I grew up in New Zealand. One of my great-grandfathers was a man called Ben Keys. During the turn of the 20th century he travelled the country mapping tribal lands. His diaries are in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington and his maps are still used today during Treaty settlements.
He spoke fluent Ma¯ ori — not just what is commonly understood now as Ma¯ ori but several different dialects, most of which are extinct now.
In 1908 he married Katarina Rangikawhiti Te Mihiarangi Butts. They had eight children. All his children spoke te reo. This was three generations from me.
His daughter — my grandmother — was Mavis Gwendoline Keys. She was born in 1920 and grew up ashamed of her Ma¯ ori heritage, as being mixed race was seen as lesser. She spoke te reo but would have died rather than let mainstream New Zealand know it.
Oddly enough my granddad Douglas Dell, the man she would marry, grew up trilingual as he not only spoke English, but also Ma¯ ori and Egyptian. This was two generations from me.
My dad is Ken Dell, born in 1944. He grew up in Te Puke and due to local Ma¯ ori playmates, his dad’s and his grandparents’ influence, grew up bilingual in English and te reo.
When he was 7, he was caned for the grand crime of having a private conversation at school, one that he and his mate held in Ma¯ ori. Government policy on the Ma¯ ori language at the time was the Native Schools Act, which came into force in 1867 and was repealed in 1987.
The policy basically boiled down to beat the language out of the child. This was rigorously enforced. My dad never spoke te reo Ma¯ ori again at school.
He was also discouraged from speaking it when he joined the military. Unlike today, the military of the 1960s-80s didn’t embrace the Ma¯ ori warrior ethos it does today.
Dad still speaks conversational Ma¯ ori but he’s never forgotten or forgiven being beaten for speaking his native language and the betrayal when his mother sided with the school. This was one generation from me.
So from 1867 till 1987, there was an Act to suppress a people and their culture, heritage and language. Under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, this is considered an act of genocide and a war crime, but here it was government policy for 120 years.
It wasn’t until the early 1980s that it started to become common to hear te reo Ma¯ ori on the TV — the humble ‘kia ora’, and even those words were considered controversial.
In 1987, when the Act was repealed and te reo Ma¯ ori was made an official language of New Zealand, it hadn’t been enforced in over a decade but it didn’t mean that te reo was going to make a comeback.
Nor was there any attempt to promote Ma¯ ori, it just meant that the
attempts to suppress it became covert rather than overt. Funding for Ma¯ ori language classes just didn’t happen in many places, and they often didn’t exist at schools or, if they did, only if there was interest.
From 1987 to the mid-2010s there was lip service paid to te reo Ma¯ ori, mainly with replacing a few place name signs so they were bilingual.
It wasn’t until 2004 that there was a te reo Ma¯ ori TV channel. And until the last decade there have been few classes on Ma¯ ori culture or history taught at schools past Waitangi Day and Ma¯ ori language week. Even then, those lessons are about a primitive stone-age people, which isn’t incorrect but it doesn’t tell the whole picture — covert rather than overt.
So the true irony of people claiming Ma¯ ori has been forced upon them because it’s spoken on the TV, added to the national anthem, seen in place names and used and pronounced correctly a lot more often now, is overlooking the fact that for 100 years English was literally beaten into their fellow New Zealanders at school. It was actually, physically, forced upon Ma¯ ori children for generations.
My name is Gary Dell, I was born in 1972. I grew up in Browns Bay in Auckland during the 70s-80s. My dad never spoke Ma¯ ori around me — no one did — and as such I barely speak a word. I can remember people who would pretend to have Greek or Italian heritage rather than admit to having had a Ma¯ ori ancestor. Mixed race was still seen as lesser.
I went to high school in 1985-88 and the language options at those schools were Japanese and French. My wife, who went to school in the Far North, is a Pa¯ keha¯ and she speaks more te reo than I do, but then her school actually taught it due to a large Ma¯ ori population.
My name again is Gary Dell, I look Pa¯ keha¯ , I am of Ma¯ ori descent, I claim Ma¯ ori heritage, I’m on the Ma¯ ori roll for the elections. But I don’t speak the language. This is my generation. Ko tenei taku pepeha poto ki te taha o¯ to¯ku¯ Pa¯pa¯.
Ko Ngongotaha to¯ ku¯ maunga Ko Rotorua to¯ ku¯ roto
Ko Te Arawa to¯ ku¯ waka
Ko Ngati Whakaue to¯ ku¯ hapu¯ Ko Tama Te Kapua to¯ ku¯ rangatira Ko Mavis Keys to¯ ku¯ kuia
Ko Douglas Dell to¯ ku¯ koroua
Ko Ken Dell to¯ ku¯ pa¯ pa¯
Ko Vivian Lake to¯ ku¯ whaea
Ko Gary Dell to¯ ku¯ ingoa
Ko Te Raro O¯ Te Rangi toku marae Te¯na¯ koutou, Te¯na¯ koutou, Te¯na¯ ta¯ tou katoa.