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MŌ TĀTOU, Ā, MO KĀ URI A MURI AKE NEI – FOR US AND OUR CHILDREN AFTER US By Matiu Wikaira, Technical Forester, Ngāi Tahu Forestry Limited “I te timatanga mai ko te kore – In the beginning there was nothing” Since their arrival from Polynesia, Māori, the Indigenous people of New Zealand, have maintained…
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In a world that is constantly changing and with every decision we make requiring Covid consideration, things that are familiar and unchanged become even more important, providing some sense of “normality” in our lives. TE KARAKA is one of those constants – a taonga appearing in whānau letterboxes at regular intervals for more than 20 years.
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It’s been an extraordinary year with the Covid-19 Delta variant consuming our every move, and as we race towards the 90 percent double vaccination milestone across the country, a new strain is pushing its way around the world.
If we don’t protect ourselves now then what is the point of “Mō tātou, ā, mō kā uri ā muri ake nei”. It’s incumbent upon us to be intergenerational and that means safeguarding the whānau, the whakapapa and our health in a pandemic world.
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Makarore is the correct spelling for the Makarora River which flows into the northern end of Lake Wānaka. Manga, or maka in the Kāi Tahu dialect, means stream.
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I remember my māmā speaking te reo in our whare. I don’t remember what she said, only that she was telling me off. But I also remember times when tamariki at our school spoke more reo than we learnt in class and feeling left behind; feeling like I could never learn this and as a five-year-old told my parents I wanted to move into an English-speaking class.
Looking back at my five-year-old self, I wish I had told her that it was her birthright to freely speak her mother tongue and that a few mistakes is part of learning, a part of life.
“E hau nei tō reo pōhiri, ki ngā iwi puta noa i ngā motu e toru – o te Ika, o te waka, o te papaonekura, kia huihui ai tātou…”
The opening lines to ‘Te Matatini ki te Ao’ by Rob Ruha and friends, which became the theme song of the 2019 Matatini Festival of the same name. The last Matatini held in the ‘before Covid-19’ time and space which now seems, for some, a lifetime ago.
Not many people can say they have physically built their own home, and you certainly wouldn’t expect a young wahine with no building qualifications to be one to say they have, but Georgia-Rae Flack (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe, Waitaha, Rapuwai, Hawea) of Karitāne can say exactly that.
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In December 1834 three young Kāi Tahu visitors to colonial Sydney sat before a german-born French artist. Using charcoal, graphite and watercolours, the man produced a series of head and shoulder portraits that capture the trio’s natural beauty and their tā moko. Who are these tīpuna and why were they in Sydney? Who was this artist and why was he in Sydney? And what is the enduring significance of their encounter?
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The art of Māori weaving, under threat 40 years ago, is celebrating its survival against overwhelming odds in a world first exhibition, Te Puna Waiora: The Distinguished Weavers of Te Kāhui Whiritoi.
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Along the southern edge of the Lower Waitaki River, a team of kaiaka taiao, or indigenous rangers, have been hard at work clearing scrub, establishing native plantings and monitoring an extensive network of traps. Whiria Te Waitaki is a restoration project led by Te Rūnanga o Moeraki, weaving together aspirations for the health of the catchment, and creating career opportunities for their whānau.
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