Understanding te reo Ma¯ori history and life perspective
Dame Rangima¯rie Naida Glavish still remembers being pulled up by supervisors for saying kia ora on the telephone during the 1980s.
‘‘Itmeans that I can live in my skin,’’ Glavish says now, of her knowledge of te reo Ma¯ori.
She never learned the language, ‘‘it just was’’. Her own grandmother put her to sleep with lullabies, shewas given emotional safety. ‘‘It is everything about unconditional love.’’
Glavish is part of a new interactive digital resource, which went live on Thursday, from the Ministry for Culture andHeritage (Manatu¯ Taonga), Te Mana o te reo Ma¯ori. The resource gives a history of te reoMa¯ori from pre-1840 when it was the predominant language in Aotearoa, through to the present day.
The ministry’s chief historian, Neill Atkinson, said the resource was aimed at educating and informing New Zealanders about important aspects of Ma¯ori history, Treaty settlements, why they have been happening, what they are trying to achieve, why they are needed, and how they can help New Zealandmove forward as a nation.
‘‘This project ... [is in] part an acknowledgement on behalf of the Crown, the New Zealand Government, ofwhichwe are employed, to recognise its own role in this story,’’ Atkinson said.
‘‘Through its actions and inaction, often whatwas indifference or negligence, in some cases outright suppression of the Ma¯ori language and discriminatory policy – especially in education – [and how that] had a hand in the fate of the Ma¯ori language.’’
Since the mid-1980s, and the WAI 11 Te ReoMa¯ori Claim, the Crown had been on a journey to redress some of the damage it had caused, Atkinson said.
‘‘That is still absolutely an ongoing story.’’
The ministry has released the resource, made in a partnership with the Ma¯ori Language Commission, to coincide with Te Wiki o te Reo Ma¯ori.
Matene Haimona, theministry’s Pou Tohu, who attended ko¯hanga reo and total immersion school, said that in order to understand the Ma¯ori world view, it was important to be able to speak the language.
‘‘If I did not know te reo Ma¯ori, my perspective of how I see the world would be totally different.’’
Te reo Ma¯ori was also amedium in which people were able to connect to their surroundings and the elements, he said.
‘‘No matter where I amin this world, I understand that Ranginui, the sky father, is always above me and I understand Papatu¯a¯nuku (mother earth) is always beneath me.
‘‘I carry with me the language that they understand nomatter where I am in thisworld. They look afterme, because I am able to communicatewith them.
‘‘That is the prestige that our Ma¯ori language has for Ma¯ori people but also Ma¯ori language speakers.’’
Language was an intangible asset, Atkinson said, and the resourcewas an important tool to continue revitalisation efforts. The resourcewould be further developed to include a timeline and biographies – one of which was with Glavish.
For her, speaking te reoMa¯ori is all about understanding.
’’It is about the life [my grandmother] gave me, the life she wrappedme up in.
‘‘But it is [about] understanding theworld, the environment she and Iwere in. It is about understanding the pull of the tide ... birds talking to each other, telling stories. [It is about] the relationship between humans and nature as it relates to one’s journey in life.’’