TE KARAKA Archives - Page 50 of 77 - Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu

Land bill courts controversy

In the years since the Treaty of Waitangi, land that has remained or has returned to Māori ownership has been guarded and used as a place to endure, sustain whānau, and continue the traditions of our tīpuna. In the last 150 years around 200 laws and amendments that impact on the management of Māori land have been enacted. Whānau have had to navigate this ever-changing environment over that period.

Kā Manukura O Te Reo
A Force of Nature

“The only way our language will survive is by normalising it in everyday life. If you won’t let me speak to you in Māori in the supermarket, you are never going to normalise it, and when your kids want to learn Māori, they are going to have to learn from me because you can’t and I don’t have time for that.”

A Happy Investment

I still recall the middle-aged American’s line, a half-joke thrown into the wind as our boat flew down the Shotover Gorge at 85 kilometres an hour. “I think,” he said, “I just wet my pants.” I remember vividly, too, our driver, an ice-cool Slavic type in a black roll-neck and leather driving gloves, whose insouciant demeanour spoke of either competence or recklessness, depending on how you felt about being driven within centimetres of the canyon rocks.

Fortune favours the brave

Kimi Ākau (the Shotover River) holds a special place in the hearts of the Ellison whānau, thanks to the courage of one of their tupuna, who virtually made his fortune on this wild high country river in a single day.

He Koha – He Ngākau Aroha

Kataore was one of six groups representing the Te Arawa region at Te Matatini 2015. Their whakawātea (exit) – one of the many connections of Ngāti Pikiao to Ngāi Tahu – talked about the master carvers who traveled to Christchurch to help carve Ārai-te-uru Pā, the pā built in Hagley Park for the New Zealand International Exhibition 1906/07.

Papatipu Marae

From a series of images of the 18 papatipu marae of Ngāi Tahu.

Stories were waiting to be told

This is a big day for Bubba Thompson (Waitaha, Kāti Mamoe, Kāi Tahu, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairoa) from Te Rau Aroha Marae. Today he will present four story books to the school children. The books tell stories which are also told in the whakairo at the marae. Stories of Ngāi Tahu tūpuna unique to this area.

Toi Iho
Duality

The photo by Ngāi Tahu artist Arana Cassino Edwin is of a face coated in what looks like tar, two large eyes swimming in the blackness. They stare out from some unreachable place, registering some private horror. It’s only after a long moment that the features become obvious and you realise, with a start, that it’s Edwin himself.

Hei Mahi Māra
Recovery on track

Five years after the first big Canterbury earthquake of September 4 in 2010, I am still in recovery mode in the māra. Every time I think I have finally done the last piece of work around the place, something else in need of tidying up becomes obvious.

He Aitaka a Tāne
Tussocks offer unlikely shelter in a storm

Before human settlement of Aotearoa, the dominant cover of higher alpine grasslands was large snow tussocks of the Chionochloa family. At lower altitudes, sub-alpine grasslands were primarily dominated by short or low tussocks (less than 50 cm), including a taonga species for Ngāi Tahu – silver tussock (Poa cita) – and hard tussock (Festuca novae-zelandiae).