Tag Archives: Maori

Running Paths Of History

Running Paths Of History

New Plymouth-based ultra-distance runner Lisa Tamati and Australian travel journalist Chris Ord recently ran 140km from the desert outpost of Hermannsburg to Alice Springs — retracing the route taken by stockman Hezekial Malbunka when…

Kairuku Comes Alive

Kairuku Comes Alive

The full skeleton of an ancient penguin that roamed New Zealand 25 million years ago has been reconstructed by experts from the University of Otago and North Carolina State University. Standing about 1.3m tall,…

Affecting Festival Lineup

Affecting Festival Lineup

One of this year’s New Zealand International Festival of the Arts features will be the New Zealand Opera production, Hohepa, which premieres on 15 March. It tells the tragic tale of Maori chief Hohepa Te…

Talented Teen Enchants

Talented Teen Enchants

Director Pietra Brettkelly’s documentary Maori Boy Genius, which premiered at this month’s Berlinale, tracks 16-year-old Tuhoe prodigy Ngaa Rauuira Pumanawawhiti as he attends summer school at Yale and applies to study there full-time. “Ngaa carries…

Taking Back History

Taking Back History

New Zealand ambassador Rosemary Banks and French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand presided over a solemn ceremony at Quai Branly museum in Paris where 20 Maori ancestral heads and bones were given back to New…

Secret Poi Swinging In NY

Secret Poi Swinging In NY

New York fire poi dancers are flouting fire restrictions and meeting stealthily on top of city rooftops to attend secret classes, where students are careful to remove any traces of their activity afterward….

Pupils Staying Strong

Pupils Staying Strong

Students from Fendalton Open-Air School in Christchurch are the first group members — calling themselves Faultline Fiction — of the Guardian site to vividly recount what happened when earthquakes struck their city, changing their…

One Legendary Queen

One Legendary Queen

Transgender icon Taumaranui-born Carmen Rupe has died in Sydney, aged 75. Carmen was born into a family of 13 and was known as Trevor Rupe for about the first 20 years of her life….

Deck the Halls

Deck the Halls

On Election Day I worked at the Waiohiki Arts Village with my nephew Lawrence Kingi-Miki, Nathan Rose, Gerard Gunn, and Tipu Tareha. We were digging…

Calling Australia Home

Calling Australia Home

Almost one in five Maori — or 151,000 of the total population of 815,000 — now live outside New Zealand, with most — 140,000 — calling Australia home. An increasing number were born in…

Inspired By Ancestral Loss

Inspired By Ancestral Loss

New Zealand actor Charles Chan writes about his role as Wang in the play The Bone Feeder — which was on at Auckland’s TAPAC in November — for a story in The Malaysian Star. The Bone…

Geothermal Goodness

Geothermal Goodness

“When I first see Shane Beattie engulfed in clouds of steam, sweat running in rivulets from beneath his white chef’s cap,” Wanda Hennig writes in an article for South Africa’s Independent Online, “he looks…

Restitution of History

Restitution of History

France will return some 20 mummified heads of Maori warriors still held by its museums back to New Zealand at a ceremony in January. The restitution follows a four-year political struggle which ended in…

Pioneering MP

Pioneering MP

Whetu Trikatene-Sullivan, New Zealand’s longest serving female MP has died in Wellington, aged 79. Trikatene-Sullivan, of Ngai Tahu, was Labour MP for Southern Maori for 29 years, from 1967 till 1996. She famously travelled…

Spirituality Curved in Bone

Spirituality Curved in Bone

A selection of “amazingly beautiful” hand-crafted bone carvings from Auckland-based gallery The Bone Art Place feature on American industrial design blog site Core77. “They are soft and warm to the touch yet the finish…

Maori Manuscripts Memorialised

Maori Manuscripts Memorialised

A collection of 19th Century manuscripts written by Maori to record life before the arrival of Europeans has been officially listed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World New Zealand register. The collection of 147…

Reverence for Heritage

Reverence for Heritage

A more “tranquil” New Zealand adventure is sought by the Wall Street Journal’s Paul Baylis, who takes a kayaking daytrip on Lake Taupo to see the Maori carvings in the rock face…

Bringing Life Force to Nevada

Bringing Life Force to Nevada

Hastings-based full-time Maori dance company Kahurangi recently performed at the Carson City Library in Nevada as part of a theatre in education tour of Canada and the United States. A performance by…

Maori Forefathers Return Home

Maori Forefathers Return Home

The remains of three Maori people, kept for 13 years in boxes in Lund, south Sweden, have been returned to a delegation from Te Papa led by the museum’s Kaihaut? Michelle Hippolite and representing…

Dignity for Relics

Dignity for Relics

“For decades, New Zealand has campaigned for museums to repatriate the mummified and heavily-tattooed heads of Maori warriors held in collections worldwide — now it must decide what to do with the gruesome but…

Beneath the Kahungunu Flag

Beneath the Kahungunu Flag

Nga mihi. It’s a bit late to be saying Happy New Year and all that, but take my best wishes anyway. Well another sparkling Waitangi Day has passed with the synergy sapping ‘Harawira factor’…

Displaced in New York

Displaced in New York

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa was amongst those present at the annual Christmas night dinner in the baronial Lincoln Center duplex of Sissy and Max Strauss in New York. Each holiday, more than a hundred…

Big Man in Front

Big Man in Front

Hawke’s Bay prop Clint Newland, 3, has signed a three-month deal with Irish side Leinster. “He’s a big man,” Leinster coach Joe Schmidt said. “He’s 6ft 3ins, 130 kilos, so we think he’s pretty…

2025 and smoke-free

2025 and smoke-free

New Zealand has unveiled an ambitious plan to make the country smoke-free by 225, wiping out smoking in all public places. The only other country with a similar policy is Finland, which plans to…

Return to the Land

Return to the Land

Ethel May Helmbright — for some years a homeless fixture in Waikiki until she was hospitalised last year unable to remember her name — may well be the key to her estranged family’s land…

On Race and Harawira

On Race and Harawira

Senior Lecturer at Victoria University’s School of English Film Theatre and Media Studies Dr Alice Te Punga Somerville discusses Maori party MP Hone Harawira’s recent comments about intermarriage in the Guardian. “Harawira stated to…

Progress Continues

Progress Continues

The New Zealand Government’s recent endorsement of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has been welcomed by UN indigenous human rights expert Professor James Anaya, who says good progress is being…

Centenary Clash

Centenary Clash

The New Zealand Maori side has beaten Ireland in Rotorua 31-28, the match part of a series to commemorate the centenary of the formation of the first official Maori rugby team in New Zealand….

Maori Across the Tasman

Maori Across the Tasman

More Maori live in Australia than in New Zealand according to leading population expert Australian Professor Peter McDonald. Studies show there are about 110,000 Maori in Australia, representing about one in four of all…

Pharaoh’s Rod

Pharaoh’s Rod

It’s been one hell of a start to the year. I left you last in January at the gates of Parihaka and I feel like I’ve been foot down and motoring hard ever since….

Thinking Outside the Ball

Thinking Outside the Ball

“As I tumbled down the mountainside in a gigantic beach ball filled with water, feeling somewhat like I was in a washing machine, it occurred to me that there had to be…

Picking Up the Protocol

Picking Up the Protocol

“New Zealand may be best known for adventure tourism including sky diving, bungee jumping, gliding and ‘Zorbing’ ó rolling downhill in a 10-foot-tall inflatable sphere cushioned with water.” Yet the most enriching part of…

Practice of Love

Practice of Love

It’s been one of those years. I feel like I’m still in planning mode and woosh, its gone, done and dusted. These last few months have given me the worst of times and the…

Feast for the Eyes

Feast for the Eyes

“If it’s culture you’re after, make a beeline for the North Island,” writes the Examiner’s Molly McCahan, suggesting in particular, a trip to Rotorua, “considered the centre of Maori culture.” “Today around 35 per…

With breath for peace

With breath for peace

Richard Nunns, an authority on Maori traditional instruments or taonga puoro, performed the Gillian Whitehead composed “Hineputehue” at Luther College, Minnesota with the New Zealand String Quartet last month. Dunedin based Whitehead wrote “Hineputehue”…

Fantasy Land

Fantasy Land

ABC’s new series, Legend of the Seeker, is being filmed in New Zealand, taking advantage of the surreal midland setting. “They have a real respect for nature,”says the shows star, Bridget Regan. “We film…

Slippery Subjects

Slippery Subjects

Maori eel catching methods are related in a new book about migratory animals by American artist and author James Prosek, who spent time in New Zealand studying the fish. Bird, Butterfly, Eel is designed…

Revolution in the Wananga

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…

Islands Preserved

Islands Preserved

New Zealand tourism is as much reliant upon maintaining the highest environment standards and preserving the Maori concept of kaitiakitanga – guardianship of the land and the animals – as it is giving visitors…

Facing New Partnerships

Facing New Partnerships

New Zealand’s population makeup may one day number more Asians than Maori according to a new study called, ‘Asians in New Zealand: Implications of a Changing Demography’, launched in Auckland this month. Authored…

Maori Role Models

Maori Role Models

New Zealand is a model for Canada in improving its relations with indigenous populations. By adopting lessons from the Maori experience, a report by the Winnipeg-based Frontier Centre for Public Policy is urging a…

Reclaiming the Moko

Reclaiming the Moko

Maori heritage claims the walls at the Massachusetts Peabody Essex Museum. Thirty large format images of moko by award-winning Dutch photographer Hans Neleman make up the exhibition. Kimiora Ereatara Hohua describes the story of…

Mighty Totara of NZ Rugby

Mighty Totara of NZ Rugby

All Black and NZ Maori legend Pat Walsh has died of cancer aged 71. Renowned for his versatility, Walsh played 13 Tests in four positions between 1955 and 1963. He served as…

Familiar tastes in France

Familiar tastes in France

NZ rugby fans in France have been able to enjoy a taste of home at Le Maori Cafe in Lyons. Owned by Aucklander Tai Pepere, who played rugby league for French club Catalans…

Moko in Vogue

Moko in Vogue

A French fashion designer’s use of moko in advertisements for his latest collection has caused a stir in NZ. Jean Paul Gaultier’s campaign shots, featuring male and female models with Maori facial tattooing, have…

Potential World Heritage Sites in NZ

Potential World Heritage Sites in NZ

UNESCO is considering three NZ locations as potential World Heritage Sites at the request of PM Helen Clark, who is also NZ’s Minister of Culture and Heritage. The Waitangi Treaty Grounds, Kerikeri Basin and…

New Zealand National Anthem in Maori

New Zealand National Anthem in Maori

Take a listen to this beautiful rendition of the New Zealand national anthem on Maori.

First in Flight

First in Flight

Nelson’s Ngati Koata has become the first Maori tribe to venture into the airline industry. The iwi aims to launch a Nelson-based passenger charter service in the next three to four months, and…

Icon and Storyteller Who Inspired All

Icon and Storyteller Who Inspired All

Veteran actor and filmmaker Don Selwyn has died aged 71 after a long illness. Selwyn was a founding member of the New Zealand Maori Theatre Trust and He Taonga Films, and was…

Haka Faux Pas #46

Haka Faux Pas #46

The haka continues to be flavour of the month in international marketing circles. This time, an English women’s rugby team has caused controversy by including an image of a topless haka in their fundraising calendar. Canterbury Women’s…

Manaakitanga and other matters

Manaakitanga and other matters

Years ago, it would have been the late 70’s, and I was working on an arts employment project with Para Matchitt and Jacob Scott at Otatara, the arts campus of the then Hawke’s Bay…

Indigenous Art in the Spotlight

Indigenous Art in the Spotlight

The Musée du Quai Branly, French President Jacques Chirac’s long-awaited €235.2 million shrine to indigenous art, was officially inaugurated on June 21 in Paris. The Quai Branly boasts a collection of 300,000 works from Africa, Asia, Oceania…

Poi Reaches New Audience

Poi Reaches New Audience

The traditional Maori poi has surfaced in Penticton, British Columbia. 22-year-old Penticton native, Donalee Davidson, teaches poi classes in her home city and tours the world performing her own interpretation of the art. “You…

Reo of the Nation

Reo of the Nation

I left you last as I was on my way to the inaugural Parihaka International Peace Festival. There is something uplifting about the name Parihaka itself. For me it triggers memories of the early…

Top Gun

Top Gun

New Zealand has its first Maori defence force head with the appointment of Major-General Jerry Mateparae. Mateparae will be promoted to lieutenant general when he replaces Air Marshal Bruce Ferguson in May. “I’m immensely…

Conference Finds Common Language

Conference Finds Common Language

Hamilton hosted the World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education in late November, an event which drew more than 3,000 attendees from all over the world. The delegation from North America’s Kodiak Island is keen…