Moko takes to US streets 
The sale of Maori themed Halloween costumes by an American store has angered Maori leaders. Halloween Town in Los Angeles is advertising the Maori Facial Tattoo Kit for $US10. Rotorua academic Ngahihi o te ra Bidois (pictured) has contacted the store to ask for the product's immediate withdrawal, and is considering raising the issue with NZ's Human Rights Commission. "It is insulting ... what they are doing is not portraying Maori correctly," he told Rotorua's Daily Post. While Victoria University's Aroha Mead agrees the kits are disrespectful, she believes such instances of cultural appropriation are inevitable. "No one likes to see their culture being denigrated but we are aware that the moko is in the public domain," she says. 
(10 August 2006)

He maimai aroha
Haere atu koutou hei whetu te rangi, tiaho mai mo ake tonu atu. He tohu aroha ki tenei morehu kuia.
Rahera Windsor, spiritual leader of Britain’s Maori community, died May 3rd 2004 Born in Pupuke, 1925, she married Englishman John Windsor in 1951 and followed him to London. There she assumed a central role in expatriate Maori society, as a member of the Te Kauri Maori Women’s Welfare League, War Graves Commission, Victoria League and, most importantly, a founding member of Ngati Ranana (‘the London tribe’) – the Maori cultural club based at the NZ High Commission. As London’s - indeed Europe’s – resident authority on Maori language and culture, Mrs Windsor met with people as diverse as Jacques Cousteau (whom she advised on the significance of marine life to Maori), Kiri Te Kanawa and Zinzan Brooke. A week before her death she joined Ngati Ranana in singing Whakaaria Mai (How Great Thou Art) at the ANZAC service held in Westminster Abbey.
(24 June 2004)
    

Returning the gaze
Early European explorers of the Pacific created a cult of the South Seas - Sir Joseph Banks, for example, had his portrait painted wearing a Maori cloak over his European dress. Now the Pacific refocuses the gaze onto the explorers.
(21 April 2001)

Robber Robbie
That's "my intellectual property on his shoulder," says leading haka specialist Pita Sharples, referring to the tattoo sported by Brit singer Robbie Williams.
(5 January 2001)
          

Go native?
A beer ad showing beach babes "going native", (doing a haka), has been withdrawn from British TV after being branded insensitive and racist.
(11 December 2000)
   

Edge stories in Ireland 
Rangimoana Taylor and a Ngati Ranana group are among the storytellers to be powhiried onto a marae recreated by Dublin school pupils for the  ninth Scealta Shamhna (festival of story-tellers),  highlighting New Zealand and immigration.
(2 November 2000)

Secret History
An Italian monk's stinging criticism of British mistreatment of Maori has been published in New Zealand for the first time - more than 100 years after it was written. Written by Benedictine monk Dom Felice Vaggioli, it details the "abominable behaviour " of British colonisers. The British government was so incensed it asked Rome to destroy all copies, but a handful survived and were largely forgotten until a translation project began 6 years ago.
(21 August 2000)

Hitting sex criminals where it hurts
Maori activist Titewhai Harawira has recommended a traditional Maori punishment for sex criminals to ensure that they don't re-offend: Her solution: tying flax around the offender's penis and pulling until the penis drops off. "I'm sick of all this liberal rubbish ... we should go back to what they did in the old days." Dismissing caution that the action may be inhumane she said it would be a "powerful deterrent."
(16 August 2000)
      

Happy Days inspires Maori playwright Briar Grace-Smith to tell New Zealand stories 
"New Zealanders are becoming bolder and prouder about who we are. We're no longer looking overseas for our theatre.  We're telling our own stories and feeling good about it. And not just Maori"
(13 May 2000)
             

Aussie museum to return Maori heads
The return of heads from the South Australian Museum in Adelaide later this month marks another milestone in an ongoing campaign to repatriate all the tattooed heads of Maori from museums and galleries all round the world
(5 April 2000)
           

Oceania merge the edges with log drums and electro beats
Former leader of Killing Joke Jaz Coleman joins Maori singer Hinewehi Mohi in a high-tech fusion on their eponymous debut. "This isn't a fashion record for me, or a passing flirtation with another culture," says Coleman, recently named composer in residence at Prague Symphony Orchestra, "I'm committed to Maori music. I love these people."
(15 June 2000)

 
Scots bemused
"The strangeness of New Zealand is brought home to us the very first night of the tour. We’ve just bought our first round in a bar in Paihia, when this Maori guy rolls up to us in a wheelchair and asks: 'Do you want to hear the pig joke?'".
(30 December 2000)
             

Moko-Maori
"Ta moko exposes more than the revival of a tradition - it reveals the beauty of Maori past and the promise of Maori future." - photographer Hans Neleman in Moko-Maori Tattoo.
(2000)
             

Return to the homeland 
The remains of 12 Maori — known as koiwi tangata — were recently returned to New Zealand having been part of the Welsh national collection at National Museum Cardiff. Research has shown that the remains were originally obtained from Ahuahu, or Great Mercury Island, which is the largest in the Mercury Islands group, located off the north-east coast of the North Island. Te Papa's repatriation manager Te Herekiekie Herewini said it was important to return the ancestors to their original community in New Zealand: "This is significant for Maori as it is believed that through the ancestors' return to their homeland, the dead and their living descendants will retrieve their dignity, and also close the hurt and misdeeds of the past," he said. Meanwhile, officials from two museums in Sweden have handed over the remains of five indigenous Maori people to their New Zealand counterparts in a ceremony held at the Natural History Museum in Gothenburg. Museums across Europe have been repatriating human remains taken from indigenous burial grounds during colonial times. 
(16 November 2009)

Moral repatriation 
More than a dozen mummified Maori heads could be returned to New Zealand once a French bill is approved by the Senate in Paris. "The Maori heads that are still dispersed in European and US museums have a history that reminds us of the worst hours of colonialism," read the summary of the draft bill. France's culture ministry blocked the return of a Maori chief's head from a museum in Rouen to Te Papa in 2008 saying the move could mean that France would have to return mummies to Egypt. The culture ministry has said, however, that it favours the current proposal. "During the colonisation of New Zealand, Europeans became interested in these tattooed human heads, a Maori tradition, and private collectors began a real hunt for heads that became the object of a barbaric trade," the bill said. Returning the heads is "an expression of respect that we owe to the beliefs of a population that has been calling for the return of these heads in order to bury them in a dignified way that is respectful of Maori traditions", one senator said.
(28 June 2009)

Whiti te ra 
The 'Ka Mate' haka has been officially designated the intellectual property of Ngati Toa in a compensation agreement signed in Wellington. Ngati Toa was compensated for its decades of use by the All Blacks, and wider grievances dating more than 150 years, with a multi-million dollar settlement. The dance and its words were composed by a notoriously aggressive Maori chief, Te Rauparaha (1768-1849), who headed the tribe and controlled the lower North Island and northern part of the South Island until British colonisers arrived in 1840. The first compensation deal to include intellectual property, it does not give the tribe the right to veto use of the haka or allow it to claim royalties for its performance. In 2006, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade formally complained about a television commercial for Italian car company Fiat featuring black-clothed women imitating a haka, dubbing it culturally insensitive and inappropriate. 
(10 February 2009)

Revolution in the wananga 
Maori educator and chairman of tertiary institution Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi Professor Graham Hingangaroa Smith was a key speaker at the World Indigenous People's Education Conference in Melbourne held in early December. A proponent of a self-described "education revolution", Professor Smith was the first teacher of a Maori school. The system has grown from a single school in 1988 to a network of more than 80 government-funded schools. His leadership also sparked the emergence of Maori studies at universities. "We needed more Maori choices in the educational smorgasbord. It was both a reactive and proactive move," Smith said. "We cannot talk as indigenous people about our socio-economic redevelopment without a prior education revolution." 
(13 December 2008)

Te Reo goes Google 
Google Aotearoa has been launched to coincide with July's Maori Language Week (Te Wiki O Te Reo Maori 2008), with more than 8750 words translated. Potaua Biasiny-Tule, 32, and his Puerto Rican wife Nikolasa, 35, of Rotorua have been directing volunteers from throughout New Zealand translating search pages. A spokeswoman from the Maori Language Commission said 29 people had been part of the team working on the project during the last year, including three key translators. "It is a huge resource for Maori living overseas who are raising bi-lingual children or who are developing their own proficiency," she said. The next step would be to allow search results to be translated directly in Maori, although this was not expected to occur for some time. To use the new interface, visit google.co.nz and click on the link to search in Maori. 
(24 July 2008)

Maori treasure in Ireland 
The extensive Maori art collection - part of a larger ethnological collection of exotic Pacific art - at Dublin's National Museum includes, the Meyler collection, pieces Captain James Cook acquired on his voyages and items donated by Irishmen who were involved in the Maori Wars. One of those soldiers was Captain Meyler, who donated a "particularly attractive" greenstone tiki and a rare whalebone weapon. Irish Arts also describes a "small carved feather box covered with spiralling patterns and a pair of heads linked together by a protruding tongue ... an exquisite example of Maori technical craftsmanship." Other artefacts in the collection range from canoe prow ornaments and utilitarian paddles to basalt and greenstone adze used for tree felling and carving out canoes. 
(June 2008)

Dawn ceremony
Maori dancers performed a traditional dawn ceremony opened by a conch shell in St Mark's Square, Venice, to celebrate New Zealand's participation in the Art Biennale.
(7 June 2001)
             

Flamin' right?
Fire poi are "trendy, hypnotizing and arty", if a little confused: "The toys draw their name from the Maori people of New Zealand. Barred from speaking around men, Maori women invented poi dancing as a way to communicate, according to legend."
PDF Copy
(4 April 2001)
          

Robbie not guilty
Too guilty to keep a Ferrari sports car, but OK with flying his New Zealand tattoo artist to Glasgow to create his tenth tattoo...
(12 December 2000) 
    

Roaring fun
"In Australia and New Zealand, long ago, it was called a 'bull roarer' and used to scare away evil spirits; Native Americans made it hum during rain ceremonies; South American fisherman swirled it over rivers to drive fish toward their nets. Around the globe, generations have whirled this stick on a string."
(24 December 2000)
             

Moko on film
Jillian White's Moko, a short documentary featuring the first contemporary man to wear moko, included in Sundance 2001. Felicity Morgan-Rhino's short Donuts for Breakfast, is also on the programme
(5 December 2000)
              

Edge art in Montana
From Los Angeles, Aucklander Giovanni Intra ponders globalism and edge art in the Montana exhibition, Te Ao Tawhito/Te Ao Hou: "the mysticism of international exposure - a conceptual blankness of distribution for its own sake - had replaced the desire to fully comprehend and be loyal to ones own landscape and culture." 
(9 September - 23 December 2000)
           

BBC1 haka use stirs reaction
BBC1 uses the haka amongst a series of segments featuring multicultural imagery used to re-brand the British TV Channel, attracting reaction in NZ. Maui Solomon: "The Western culture, having all their own stories, are starting to mine indigenous stories for their appeal. That's what I find objectionable - if they're just taking it for granted, if they're not acknowledging the guardians of that knowledge and that culture." For a fuller discussion of Maori culture in a globalised world and reposts to the reaction see the updated NZEDGE Hot story: Te Maori Ki Te Ao.
(6 April 2002)  
          

Claiming the treasure 
Auckland Maori performing arts group Te Waka Huia has claimed the national title and the Donald McIntyre Trophy for the fourth time at the biennial Te Matatini National Kapa Haka Championships in Tauranga. Thirty-six teams combined dance, drama, storytelling, poetry, movement, coordination and song into a 25-minute performance perfecting every discipline including whakaeke (a choreographed entry), moteatea (traditional chant), poi, waiata-a-ringa (action song), haka and whakawatea (exit). Te Waka Huia was established in 1981. Festival chairman Selwyn Parata said Te Waka Huia epitomised the high calibre skill, expertise and discipline demanded of world-class kapa haka. "Te Waka Huia, Whangara mai Tawhiti [second place] and Te Kapa Haka o Te Whanau a Apanui [third place] are exemplars of our indigenous innovation — which all New Zealanders can share and celebrate." The first national festival was held in 1972 at Rotowhio, Rotorua. 
(18 February 2009)

Te Rauparaha's war cry 
The all-Maori team first performed a haka against Surrey in Richmond in 1888 where they, according to the Illustrated London News, "cavorted about in ostrich-feather capes and tassell'd caps in a device of novelty and excitement for the sizeable gathering." The all-white first All Blacks prefaced their immortal 1905 epic against Wales in Cardiff, reported the South Wales Daily News, "amidst a silence that could almost be felt, the Colonials stood centre-field and sang their weird war-cry." In the Guardian's sports blog this week, Frank Keating has queried the relevance of this sporting war dance writing that "the haka has had its day" and that "an occasional and once diverting wheeze has long passed its sell-by date." New Zealand reporter Duncan Johnstone has a different perspective writing that before the All Blacks beat Wales 29–9 in Cardiff this week: "The haka was again sensational ... The entire squad stood locked in an eyeball stare with their rivals for a full two minutes and referee Jonathan Kaplan tried in vain to budge them for the kickoff." The All Blacks next play England in London for the final leg of their UK tour, just one victory away from their third Grand Slam.
(18 November 2008)

Futures in the heavens 
Bethany Edmonds, 26, is a Maori artist about to leave on a scholarship for New York University to study the conservation of traditional textiles; Kipa Rangiheuea works at the Auckland Museum. Both are proud to be Maori and discuss the importance of their culture and June's Matariki, Maori New Year, with Kerri Ritchie of the ABC's 'Word Today' programme. Edmonds believes the Maori culture is becoming stronger in New Zealand. "I practice cultural things pretty much on a daily level. I use the Maori language as much as I possibly can," she says. Rangiheuea says there has been a shift from traditional ways of acknowledging Matariki. "Matariki is a more entrepreneurial time for Maori to celebrate Maori in business, Maori in the arts," he says. "The stars are shining bright and we are optimistic, but nonetheless we have to plan for our future and the years ahead." 
(9 June 2008)

Shadows at Pataka 
Porirua's Pataka Museum is building on ties with the American Haille Ford Museum in an exhibition of North American Indian prints called 'Crow's Shadows', put on in conjunction with Wellington's International Festival of the Arts. Curator of the exhibition, American Rebecca Dobkins first connected with indigenous people from New Zealand when she curated a Hallie Ford exhibition of Maori weaving in the 2005 Toi Maori: The Eternal Thread, which saw Maori weavers demonstrating at the museum. Pataka says they are expecting thousands of visitors for the exhibit, which offers the widest range of work by Native American artists seen in New Zealand for more than a decade. The show opened February 16 and runs through June 8. 
(24 February 2008)

Farewell to a literary legend
Hone Tuwhare, one of NZ's most distinguished and best-loved writers, has died in Dunedin aged 86. Tuwhare was the first Maori poet to be published in English (No Ordinary Sun, 1964) and one of the leading figures in the Maori cultural renaissance of the 1970s. Born in Kaikohe of Ngapuhi descent, Tuwhare spoke only Maori until the age of nine. He began writing in 1939, combining ancient Maori myth with contemporary political issues in a uniquely accessible style. Maori Party MP Hone Harawira said Hone Tuwhare was a writer who could "say what people really felt in their bones…You just have to look at his poetry to see his love of people and his deep sadness at the impacts of man on the world." Tuwhare won two Montana NZ Book Awards for poetry in 1998 and 2002, and was given honorary doctorates by the universities of Auckland and Otago. He was made NZ's second Te Mata Poet Laureate in 1999. 
(17 January 2008)

Master carver shares message 
Maori master carver James Rickard held a workshop at the Victor Oteyza Community Art Space in Baguio City, the Philippines, this month. He spoke about the need for indigenous artists to protect their works from globalisation, encouraging the Asin carvers in attendance to "meet it [globalisation] at your own terms, your own price, and at your own time". Rickard has been a Maori master carver for 34 years and currently teaches at the Te Puia Wananga Whakairo woodcarving school. His tour of the Philippines has so far encompassed Paete, Laguna and Asin. "Some of us have gone to North America," he says, "but I want to come to Asia where our ancestry begins." 
(10 October 2007)

Reign of King Tuheitia officially begins 
King Tuheitia, the seventh Maori monarch, has marked the official start of his leadership after a year of mourning for his mother and predecessor, Queen Dame Te Atairangikahu. Thousands of Maori and dignitaries travelled to the Turangawaewae Marae in Ngaruawahia to hear King Tuheitia's first public speech, which focused on the importance of children's education. "As parents and grandparents we need to nurture the next generation to excel in all that they do, pursue excellence and be tireless in their determination," he said. He also stressed the need for continued learning in adults: "As we commit to our Maori way and world view we open doors to peoples of all cultures, their language, knowledge and even create the potential for trading opportunities alongside the Maori economy." The Maori royal line dates back to 1858. 
(21 August 2007)

Ten years of te reo 
Te Kohanga Reo o Ranana in London is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. The centre was established in 1997 by a group of parents who wanted their children to retain their NZ heritage and identity while living in the UK. Classes are held every Saturday on the fourth floor of NZ House, where children learn te reo, pepeha (tribal sayings), whakapapa (genealogy) and waiata (song) from a group of volunteers. "Kids are always going to ask their parents where they're from if they know they have different ancestry so this helps them out and gives them a sense of pride and self-esteem," said Melissa Christie, who has two sons at the centre, in the NZ Herald. "We live in a very multicultural society over here and lots of children here speak more than one language so it's nice for our children to be able to say who they are and where they're from in Maori." The kohanga's anniversary celebrations will include a commemorative magazine, ball, hangi and inter-tribal games. 
(18 February 2007)

Queen mourned, King crowned
The Maori Queen, Dame Te Atairangikaahu died on Tuesday 15 August aged 75 after a 40-year reign. Dame Te Atairangikaahu was the sixth monarch of the North Island tribes who formed the King movement in the 19th century in response to the encroaching powers of British settlers. At her tangi, Prime Minister Helen Clark hailed Dame Te Ata as a pioneer in obtaining a land settlement for her people under the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand's founding document. An estimated 100,000 mourners came to Ngaruawahia to pay their final respects to the Queen. Rain fell on Turangawaewae as the Queen was laid to rest alongside her ancestors on Taupiri Mountain. As tradition dictates, the Queen's successor, her son Tuheitia Paki, was crowned at Turangawaewae shortly before her burial. Messgaes of condolence came from Queen Elizabeth and other notable royal dignitaries and Heads of State. Obituaries ran in The New York Times, The LA Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Scotsman, The Chicago Sun Times, and The Boston Globe among others. 
(21 August 2006)

Imitation, inspiration or appropriation? 
2006 has seen a rash of advertising and design taking inspiration - with varying degrees of offensiveness - from Maori art and culture. An Italian ad for the Fiat Idea showing a group of black garbed women performing a mock haka has gone to air despite warnings of cultural insensitivity from NZ diplomats. According to Brad Tattersfield of NZ's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, "we advised the advertising company that the use of Ka Mate in this way was culturally insensitive and inappropriate. MFAT advised the advertisers to either use a Maori group or a haka composed for women. However, the advertising company indicated they were proceeding despite this advice." In the US, an American developer's proposal to build a Maori-themed apartment complex in Texas has divided Maori opinion. While activist Ken Mair calls the plan "cultural theft and possibly theft of intellectual property" author Alan Duff thinks Maori have bigger problems to worry about: "Greece is not up in arms because Las Vegas did Ancient Greece themes in their casinos. Why are we so precious about things that don't count?" Finally, cult US fashion brand Paul Frank has released a T-shirt print titled 'Warrior Julius,' depicting its distinctive monkey mascot with a full facial moko. 
(4 July 2006)

Moko mokai return home
Three preserved heads (moko mokai) of Maori warriors have been returned to NZ by the Kelingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow. The action comes after a worldwide search for Maori remains by Te Papa Tongarewa. Maori specialists at Te Papa are working to ascertain the tribal origins of the heads, so that they may be returned to their ancestors for proper burial.
(24 June 2004)
  

Old school meets new
Laird Blackwell, Chair of Humanities at Sierra Nevada College (US), his wife Melinda, and a small group from the institution are the first ever non-Waitaha students to be invited to study at the sacred Whare Wananga O Waitaha school in NZ. The Waitaha claim to predate Maori as NZ’s indigenous people. “They want to expand the sacred Whare Wananga to the people of the world,” says Blackwell, who met Waitaha chief elder Makere Ruka Kete Hurako and her husband Peter while on leave in NZ last year. “[Now] they're trusting us to be part of this process.”
(30 December 2004)
    

Maori 3G deal secured
Pan-African cell phone operator, Econet Wireless, signs a deal with Maori to operate their license for running third generation mobile phones. The license was set aside last year by the New Zealand government for Maori, who claimed the spectrum as part of their rights under settlement of historical grievances.
(17 October 2001)
           

Backwards into the future
"The past is not found in the days gone by, but in the days that sit in front of us," says Moana Jackson, stating the Maori view of the past during the opening address at the International Conference on Conflict Resolution, Peace Building, Sustainable Development and Indigenous Peoples.
(24 December 2000)
         

Maori Mystique
The Washington Post's Kid's section "web@tlas" spotlights Australia and New Zealand, inviting readers to "take a peek into the world of the Maori - including the intricate tattoos that they're known for" by linking to the Maori Culture website. For an edge story exploring ta moko and the world's interest in Maori culture, see NZEDGE HOT.
(14 August 2000)