Issue 87

Te Ao o te Māori

Some nights Johnny Chambers would venture outside at Robinsons Bay, on Banks Peninsula, to gaze at the night sky and ask the universe what it had in store for him and his whānau; wife Gill and their three young sons. Johnny (Ngāi Tahu) returned to Christchurch in September 2018 after six years in Brisbane. “We’d had enough – something was calling us home,” says Johnny, who spent 27 years working as a glazier.

Gill and the boys came back first; Johnny followed about 18 months later after finishing a major building project. There were no set plans, but they both knew it was time for something different.

Hei Mahi Māra
Te Kaha o ngā Hua Raumati – The Power of Summer Fruits

The good thing about summer is that we can look forward to berry fruits which provide a great vitamin C boost along with many other minerals, antioxidants and phytonutrients crucial for our health. These include strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, cherries and boysenberries. Most important right now is vitamin D and the best part is that at this time of year our bodies make it free when we are out in the sun. There is no better way to get a good dose than working in the māra (or at the beach)!

Reviews

A Long Time Coming is an important and judicious book. As the full title indicates, it covers the period, processes and personalities involved between the Waitangi Tribunal releasing the Ngāi Tahu Land Report in 1991 and Parliament passing the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement 1998.

In retrospect, because we know a settlement package was negotiated and given effect to, and we know Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu was established as part of this, these events appear inevitable, perhaps even orderly. In eleven short chapters, historian Martin Fisher shows that to be anything but true. Instead, as he notes at p.129, “it was a minor miracle that an agreement was signed when it was.”

Aukaha
Te Waipounamu Landscapes

Mihiata Ramsden (Ngāi Tahu, Rangitāne), proud māmā to George Moki Tānemahuta and Nina Ihiroa Rākaitekura, and photographic artist with a passion for capturing and sharing stories. Creating memories is one of the most important things that anyone can do and memories are the only things that we can take with us, which is why photography is so important to me. It’s pretty much a physical memory.