Aro-Mind

A friend has raised (on Facebook) a number of questions about marking vowel length in Māori language texts. Particularly she asked whether vowel length should be marked when quoting the texts of other writers. Here are some responses: Firstly, the author of the text decides how the text ought to be written. Hence, the author decides whether to mark vowel length in Māori language texts or when using Māori words or phrases in English texts.   Having said that, however, it is important that vowel length is correctly marked in Māori language texts. The reason for this is that vowel length changes the meaning of words. For example, tāua is not the same as taua; kāinga is not the same as kainga, and so on. Vowel length should also be marked when indicating singular or plural forms. For example, te tangata (singular), ngā tāngata (plural); te kuia, ngā kūia, and so on. My preferred method of marking vowel length is by use of the macron (not double vowel).  There ...

In Māori storytelling of recent years, I have seen a couple of things that are worth noting and offering a comment about. The first is the tendency in some productions (I stress, some) to idealise Māori culture and people, particularly historical Māori culture, ancestors and the like. There is a tendency to see ancestors as all wise, all knowledgeable, as perfect even rather than seeing them as humans who have lived lives albeit, in some cases, extraordinary ones. In some of my classes, I have counselled students not to put their ancestors on a pedestal and have said things like "we are just as brilliant and just as dumb as they were, we are just as beautiful and just as ugly..." The point is that we ought to see our tupuna, and our Māoritanga generally, honestly and truthfully, for the fulness of their humanity. We ought to be honest about their failings as much as their strengths. A second point concerns the preoccupation with outward expressions of our culture rather ...

It was my pleasure to participate in the final plenary session today at the Museums Australasia conference, Aotea Centre, Auckland. Here are my points: Of all the things that can be said about the museum, the theme in my mind is the idea of the museum as   a story telling institution – it creates and presents stories.  We have to understand with great depth and clarity that the process for the creation of story and the story itself represents a series of decisions that we, as museum leaders, directly or indirectly make on the pathway toward mounting exhibitions and other encounter experiences audiences have with our collections. This decision making process is a multidimensional 'space' involving a range of sometimes conflicting issues, urgencies, concerns and opportunities . Understanding what those issues and opportunities are and more importantly how to negotiate and address them is critical to our success. Some of these conflicting priorities include: the balanc...

As a recent entrant to the world of museums, I was delighted to discover that the word ‘museum’ arises from the ancient Greek word Μουσεῖον which is interpreted by Wikipedia, at least, as ‘…a building set apart for study and the arts’. It goes further to say that a museum is ‘a place or temple dedicated to the Muses’( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum )  The artist in me delighted in this discovery and was prompted to look further into ‘the muses’: The Muses, the personification of knowledge and the arts, especially literature, dance and music, are the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (memory personified). Hesiod's account and description of the Muses was the one generally followed by the writers of antiquity. It was not until Roman times that the following functions were assigned to them, and even then there was some variation in both their names and their attributes: Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Euterpe (flutes and lyric poetry), Thalia (comedy and pastoral...