Aro-Mind

In 2015, I have been involved an initiative whose focus and goal is the revitalisation of the Te Reo Māori in Hauraki. It has been interesting for me to return to the world of Māori language revitalisation, one which has taught me a number of things - chief among them being a renewed respect for teachers of the Māori language. Teaching a language is an art form and just because one can speak the language does not necessarily mean that one can teach the language.  I'm a good example of this fact. So, great is a my mihi to those Māori language teachers out there. There are those who, like me, speak the language but are not necessarily involved in Māori language revitalisation. With the recent move to establish a new Māori language governance entity, my vote is for those resources to go into the hands who are actually attending to the tasks of revitalisation, not those merely who speak it now and then. I agree with Tīmoti Kāretu when he says don't give the resour...

Humans are storytelling creatures. All day, every day we tell ourselves stories. We live awash in stories. Whether our own private stories bubbling away in our minds or advertising billboards, we live our lives 'in story'. And stories influence deeply our experience of the world and our interpretation of it. Stories influence us powerfully, so much so that the story we hold about the world becomes our world. In this sense, we create our own world through the stories we tell ourselves.

Kōpaki is the custom of commissioning a taonga (often a greenstone mere) to commemorate, to memorialise and to communicate a particular issue of deep significance to a people. When one community has an issue of great significance with another people - an issue that the first community wishes to 'keep alive’ -   a kōpaki (which means ‘to envelope, contain’) is obtained for this task. The kōpaki is taken to the marae of the second community and with great ceremony it is placed before them. It is spoken to by the first people and at length - so that the issue is clearly understood. If the recipient community agrees to address the issue placed before it, if they agree that they will do something about it, they will send someone to uplift the kōpaki from the marae ātea. In doing so, they are expressing their commitment to address the issue. The issue itself might be resolved on the day - in which case the kōpaki is returned on the day and the matter comes to an end. If the issue takes a...

In other writings, I have described three key themes in iwi/Māori history since the 19 th century as follows: A Journey of Survival – the response of iwi/Māori communities to the ravages of colonisation in the quest to meet the basic necessities of life The Quest for Social Justice – the quest by iwi/Māori communities for justice, for the alleviation of grievances, to achieve an empowered position in society The Desire for Cultural Revitalisation – the desire for the knowledge and culture of one’s forebears to be continuously alive in succeeding generations, the active response to language and culture loss To these three themes I have added the following: The Realisation of Creative Potential – iwi/Māori communities beginning to create anew based upon what we have rather than what we have lost or suffered, the move to explicit creativity and opportunity Iwi/Māori communities have always been creative including through the period of colonisation. Sometimes the responses have b...

I've had a quick look at  Gareth Morgan 's 'Talk Treaty' website and some thoughts have come to mind. (Haven't looked through it all yet.) I suggest that we ought to distinguish between the overlapping categories of Māori culture and people as an ethnicity in New Zealand society and the ‘constitutional status’ of the tangata whenua of Aotearoa represented in the Treaty through tino rangatiratanga.  The former is to do with the experience of a population of people in New Zealand  who were and are socially and culturally constructed in the face of ‘Pākehā’. This is an ethnic and cultural group called ‘Māori’ who have a shared experience of Aotearoa-New Zealand in the 19th-21st centuries. The latter, on the other hand, refers to the entire continuum of indigeneity-tangata whenuatanga first established during arrival from Polynesia, recognised in the Treaty of Waitangi (in tino rangatiratanga) and in a state of renewal today. This continuum is based upon a set of ideas,...

Iwi/hapū/whānau are in a period of deep reorganisation and redevelopment signalled most particularly by the settlement of Treaty of Waitangi claims. The settlement of Treaty claims offers a handy ‘marker point’ in our contemporary history. Iwi/hapū/whānau seek to bring about a new ‘post-settlement’ future for its members that is both inspired and informed by the history and culture of their forebears together with the circumstances and opportunities of contemporary and future realities. The chief difference between the pre and post-Treaty settlement realities is this: whereas iwi/hapū/whānau have been in a conflicted relationship with the Crown/Government since the 19 th century, tangata whenua communities wish to move to an empowered position in their relationship with the Crown, Government and the world at large. This is the movement from victimhood to empowerment, from grievance to opportunity, from a preoccupation to uphold and defend a culture to creating anew. Overall, iwi/hapū/w...

A couple of days have passed now since we arrived back to Istanbul having attended the 100th anniversary commemoration of the ANZAC landings at Gallipoli. The entire experience was, from beginning to end, moving, inspirational and emotional. As 10,000 of us lay outside in our sleeping bags, with barely enough space to lie flat, the night was passed by screenings of documentaries on the Gallipoli campaign, military historians retelling key stories and offering interpretations, music and song and a beautiful speech by youth ambassador Caitlin Pāpuni-Mclellan. The programme drew us into the history and moving reality of Gallipoli. At one point in the early morning, the MC announced, "it is now  3am , and 3000 men began to slip quietly from their ships into landing boats to begin the journey to shore." Silence, except for the lapping of water on the beach. The Australian short film 'The Telegram Man' was played just before dawn telling the story of the man whose task it w...

Reasons for Art Extracted from http://www.incredibleart.org Marvin Bartel, a retired professor from Goshen College, Indiana has listed his reasons for having art in the schools: A reason for art is to tell stories, events, myths, beliefs, and literature. A reason for art is to convince, inform, inspire, criticize, persuade, make the world a better place (Guernica by Picasso - Faith Ringgold). A reason for art is to perform rituals, work magic, pray for protection, pray of success, for fertility, for cures for sickness, for prosperity, etc. (tribal fetish art - modern advertising). A reason for art is to enhance a religious ceremony (stained glass in Gothic church - tile of Mosque). A reason for art is to help in meditation as in the contemplation of nature. A reason for art is to create personal and group identity, inspire, school, cultural, and/or national identity, loyalty, and spirit (flags, mascots, logos). A reason for art is to tell how people used to look and behave. A reason fo...

Last night, I attended a Māori arts and culture policy consultation event for Auckland City. Not surprisingly, it prompted me to think about my views of Māori artmaking and how public policy ought to respond to and enable it. It was an opportunity to share a few thoughts…. and so here are some of my points, in brief, shared at last night’s event: A concern that New Zealand’s view and vision of the arts is too small, consequently NZ continues to underinvest and devalue the arts. Significant opportunities for New Zealand are therefore missed. New Zealand’s vision for the arts, in my view, remains too small. It is not informed enough of the potential role that the arts can play in a successful society, economy and culture. This issue has to be addressed by artists and public policy makers equally. Artists, too, need to be challenged with respect to the place of the arts in a successful society and the ‘public good’ that is generated by the arts. Auckland City becomes a powerful advocate f...

I think Rodney Hide and the NZ Herald should be honest and just come out and say they are anti-Māori. Stop mucking around and just make it clear. This is clearly the intent here without saying it directly. Rodney Hide is critical of a 'refloated Paganism'. He is also critical of Government agencies which seem to have been duped by Māori into spending tax payers/public money - as if Māori aren't tax payers or members of the public - on such spurious Māori schemes as erecting carved pou on two bridges, one in Waikato and the other in Hauraki. It is disingenuous of the NZ Herald to say that 'pou are to be admired' and then let Rodney Hide spend the entire article complaining about the lack of information available about the pou on these bridges. Instead of explaining why the pou ought to be admired (what 'strikes' him about the pou, as he says), he informs us of his frustrated search for information and tells us about 'secret histories', suggesting that...