Rotu Mihaka is a Senior Pouako | Pouako Matua of Te Rito Maioha Early Childhood NZ, based in Rotorua.
I timata ahau ki tēnei waiata na Whirimako Black:
"Kei hea taku reo karanga ki ōku tīpuna Hoki mai hoki mai e taku reo rangatira Ko wai rā hei arahi i a tātou e
Ngā kohikohinga, ngā uri o te motu e"
Where was my te reo Māori as I was growing up in a small community surrounded by two lakes, Rotorua nui a Kahumatamomoe and Te Roto-whā-iti i kitea e Ihenga? Mourea is the community where I grew up, where the river Te Ohautanga a Potakatawhiti flows between the two lakes.
I could say tikanga was taught in the kainga where both our parents would demonstrate or kōhete us if we did anything wrong, for example, combing hair in the kitchen, cutting nails, cutting hair and whistling at night, and the most common today, sitting on tables or pillows (Edwards, 1990). I daresay there were many more tikanga that were observed, but what about my own reo, tōku reo anō?
Meads (2003) describes tikanga in Te Arawa as the practice of knowledge. In fact, in Te Arawa there is kawa (lore) and there is tikanga (practice). Kawa is the major term that deals with the knowledge base and tikanga is the practice of that knowledge. For example, on the marae it is knowledge that women do the karanga and men do whaikōrero. Variations on how these are practised (tikanga) at different marae around Te Arawa can be slightly different. The point is the karanga is performed by women and whaikōrero by men.
Our parents were fluent speakers of te reo Māori; however, my upbringing around the spoken Māori language was strange to my ears because my parents did not speak to us; they spoke around us. Through waiata I was able to engage in the Māori language without comprehending what we were singing. As tamariki nohinohi, many of us would assemble at the local marae to practise waiata-a-ringa, haka and mōteatea.
At primary school I was called by my Pākehā name and did not realise I had a Māori name until I got married. My mother always called me ‘kotiro’ and I thought that was my name. Tamariki attending the same primary school as I were called by their Māori names and if mispronounced nobody noticed as it became the norm. We were taught English, Maths and Social Studies.
High school wasn’t any better when it came to engage in things Māori. Māori as a subject was an option, which I did not participate in. Kapa haka was an option I thoroughly enjoyed because it built whanaungatanga and singing—one of my passions. Again, this was the only Māori I got to hear, see and sing; nevertheless, I did not understand the kupu in the waiata that echoed in my ears.
From that time to the conception of Kōhanga Reo renaissance (later after twenty seven years) I still could not understand what I was singing and yet it was easy for me to grasp the kupu in the waiata because the teaching was repetitive (Hemara, 2000) and the tune was catchy. With participation in Kōhanga Reo, understanding te reo Māori sentence structures started to appear at a blur in the first instance and then became clear as years progressed.
Through wānanga (Ministry of Education and New Zealand Teachers Council, 2011), the whānau had to make a conscious effort to kōrero Māori every day to tamariki attending. This supported the kaiawhina to learn te reo Māori alongside tamariki and kaiako. I started out as a kai-awhina along with my whanaunga and my tamariki. This showed the whanaungatanga and the manaakitanga as I was learning my mother’s tongue with and alongside our kuia, tamariki and whanaunga (Ministry of Education and New Zealand Teachers Council, 2011).
Action songs, waiata for tamariki, and other forms of waiata genre I learnt as a tamaiti, began to make sense to me, as messages in waiata became clear (Mihaka, 2008). I was engaging with tamariki nohinohi and kuia in a setting where te reo Māori was spoken every day authentically in the Kōhanga (Tangaere-Royal, 1997). Ki te whakarongo to the kuia in the Kōhanga reo correcting my upside down te reo Māori must have been funny to them, but they were very patient with me and other whanaunga. This correlates to Ako (Ministry of Education and New Zealand Teachers Council 2011) as the kuia were fluent speakers of te reo Māori, articulating the language in order for the learners to grasp. This also allowed the kaiāwhina to reflect over the days learning and practice what they learnt at home with their whānau.
Along the way my own whakapapa started emerging, also learning and connecting tamariki, kai-awhina and the environment to me. My Māori cultural foundation grew stronger, enriching my te reo Māori. Recapturing Tangata Whenuatanga therefore became authentic for me (Ministry of Education and New Zealand Teachers Council, 2011).
Within my community, in the fifties through to the seventies, my generation were not speakers of te reo Māori. However, after 1982, an influx of this generation throughout Aotearoa joined the renaissance of Kōhanga Reo and learned te reo Maori alongside their tamariki (MacLeod, 2014; Ross, 2014).
I found my te reo Māori through waiata learnt as a young tamaiti that my parents instilled into me. If it was not for the resurgence of Kōhanga Reo, the kuia, tamariki and whanaunga I would still be floundering trying to understand the many waiata.
I whakakapi tēnei tuhinga ki te waiata ano na Whirimako Black.
"He karanga tēnei wai
Ki te hunga waka o Aotearoa Hapainga te koha
Te reo karanga a kui, koro mā Koia rā ka kitea
Ka mārama ki ngā whakatau Ka ū te whakapono
Ka rea te kakano"
You can find more of these stories in our free downloadable book Tōku Anō Reo Māori: My Very Own Language.
Rārangi Pukapuka | Reference List
- Edwards, M. (1990) Early Years. Penguin.
- Hemara, W. (2000) Māori pedagogies: A view from the literature. Huia.
- MacLeod, J. T. (2014) He hua rānei tō te reo Māori mō ngā rā kai te heke mai? In R. Higgins, P. Rewi, & V. Olsen-Reeder (Ed.), The value of the Māori language: Te hua o te reo Māori (pp141–150). Huia.
- Mihaka, R. (2008). Te reo Māori can be easily learned through waiata tamariki. Wellington, New Zealand: AKO Aotearoa. https://docplayer.net/29167676-Te- reo-maori-can-be-easily-learned-through-waiata-tamariki.html
- Ministry of Education and New Zealand Teachers Council. (2011). Tātaiako: Cultural competencies for teachers of Māori learners: A resource for use with the graduating teacher standards and registered teacher criteria. Learning Media. https://educationcouncil.org.nz/required/Tataiako_RTCandGTS.pdf
- Ross, M. (2014). Te reo kōrero, te reo mana. In R. Higgins, P. Rewi, & V. Olsen-Reeder (Ed.), The value of the Māori language: Te hua o te reo Māori (pp. 141–150). Huia.
- Royal-Tangaere, A. (1997). Learning Maori together: Kōhanga reo and home. New Zealand Council for Educational Research.
Acknowledgement
- Whirimako Black — Kei hea taku reo (waiata).