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No. 53 (December 1965)
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LETTERS

Hoani Waititi

The Editor,

Te Ao Hou.

On behalf of those who are now at Mt Crawford, and were formerly members of the Maungawhau Maori Culture Group at Mt Eden Gaol in Auckland, I wish to ask ‘Te Ao Hou’ to convey our deepest sympathy to the relatives and friends of the late Hoani Waititi:

We mourn the loss, and pay homage to the memory of a Brother, Tutor and Rangatira who visited and worked amongst us with our betterment in mind.

Haere e hoa! Haere ki te korekore, haere ki te wahangutanga o te tangata, haere ki te Po tiwhatiwha!

D. PARANIHI

(former secretary,

Maungawhau Group)

The Editor,

Te Ao Hou.

May I express my deepest grief at the death of Mr Hoani Waititi. I had known him for only one year, but have yet to meet another man governed so completely by a burning idealism to help his people. His energy, his forthrightness, his wisdom, his humanity: all these qualities made him the most sincere and memorable of men.

The good he has done Maoridom is beyond estimate. By working towards the future he envisaged, we, the morehu, must make certain that his name, and the ideals for which it stands, are never forgotten.

He pononga nui i te haha Maoritanga. Ka mate ahau i te pouri.

I. K. MITCHELL (Auckland)

A Maori Language Radio Station

The Editor, Te Ao Hou.

Has anyone ever suggested a Maori Language Radio Station?

I have several Welsh relations and I visited them last year. One of them, though a very quietly spoken middle-aged school teacher, is actually, beneath his respectable exterior, a wild Welsh Nationalist.

He told me that when the BBC first started broadcasting to Wales many Welshmen were very worried—they saw in the constant use of English over the air a threat to the Welsh language. English would be in everyone's home all the time and children would grow up never hearing Welsh spoken by anybody except their parents.

But the BBC turned out to be the very opposite. Radio and television were the major cause of the rejuvenation of Welsh.

The BBC was very generous of time and expense to its Welsh Service and gradually less and less needed to be broadcast in English and more and more programmes of all kinds used Welsh. My cousin was the first BBC rugby commentator in Welsh and he had to invent a few new words to make it possible. Now both BBC Television and Independent Television broadcast to Wales in Welsh, and a television studio game first played in Welsh has its English imitation!

Broadcasting rescued the Welsh language from the pulpit and the kitchen. In those places Welsh was a fine and a wonderful language, but it was not used in the rest of modern life; the industrial revolution had left

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it behind. It took radio and television to help it find the words and the ways of talking, so that Welshmen are now able to use it for everything. While I was in Wales I saw and heard on TV alone (but could not understand alas) features on industrial relations and a strike, slum clearance, church architecture, welfare work, politics, teenage problems, and Christmas shopping. I sat through studio games, interviews, listened and looked at Eisteddfod winners, and innumerable advertisements. And of course I could have (if I had understood) kept up with local and world events and learnt about the weather. Never an English word spoken, and only 114 miles from London.

In New Zealand we have a great number of small broadcasting stations and so we have a golden opportunity to make one, say IZC Rotorua, a Maori language station, with everything except the recorded artists using Maori as the spoken word.

Expense? Heavy at first compared to other local stations. The station would need a staff of translators, typists of Maori, Maori announcers, programme producers able to produce in Maori, able to improvise, experiment, develop new ideas and unearth new talent; it would need technicians able to understand Maori or able to put up with everything being done in Maori, and roving reporters out at important occasions, both Maori and national, giving special coverage for Maori listeners. And there is the problem of convincing advertisers that advertisements in Maori are not useless and are worth paying the extra they will at first cost to produce. The quality? Who knows? Surely the talent is there. We know we have the musicians and singers already. The effect? Pride in our other New Zealand language. Assistance to all who are learning Maori. A healthy development of the language, no longer just a language of the marae

and the old people.

I look forward to the day when I tune in to my favourite station and hear the announcer say, ‘Kei te whakarongo koe i nga Pitara e waiata ana i te waiata nei, “A Hard Day's Night”.'

LLEWELLYN RICHARDS (Te Kaha)

Mervyn McLean's Study of Maori Music

The Editor, Te Ao Hou.

I feel deeply touched at the letters which have appeared on the above subject and I am profoundly grateful to the writers. I think that I should explain to them why I have acted as I have done.

Many people, perhaps even most, will believe as these writers do, that to accept payment for my transcriptions and articles would be no more than fair return for the work have put into them. I am quite sure however that others would say, ‘There you are; just as I thought; he's making money out of our songs.’

Most of us know that this sort of thinking is wrong, but mistaken or not it was, without any doubt at all, the greatest single barrier encountered by me when I began recording Maori songs. Again and again the question was raised and always I gave the unqualified assurance that I would not ‘sell the songs for money’. Nearly all of the singers accepted this and recorded their songs; and posterity will be grateful to them for doing so. I know quite well that payment for the transcriptions would be payment for my own work and not for the songs themselves. But some of the people whose songs I have recorded, and many others whose songs I would like to record, would not see it this way. My own very strong conviction is that mistaken' as these people may be, I must respect their wishes. I believe also that many things in life are more important than money and for me personally it will mean much more to be able to carry on with the work of preserving and studying Maori music, than to accept a few pounds now that might create difficulties later. So to Amy Hill, Hirona Wikiriwhi, Tahi Tait and other well-wishers who may feel as they do. I extend my warmest thanks for their efforts and the hope that they will see now that I could not act otherwise.

MERVYN McLEAN (Invercargill)

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David Merito of Whakatane, a second year student at the School of Physical Education, University of Otago, has been elected president of the Physical Education Students' Society for the coming year. Another Maori, Logan Berghan of Ahipara, was elected as the representative of the third year students on the group's executive.

Two other Maoris are at present attending the School of Physical Education. They are Lewis Maxwell of Auckland, formerly head prefect at St Stephens College, and Douglas Pye of Otorohanga. There are four others who have already completed the course and gained their diplomas in physical education. They are Leslie Williams, a teacher at Avondale College; Rarawa Kohere, a teacher at Mana College; May Paki, a teacher at Queen Victoria School, and Warren Riwai, who is at present studying at Christchurch Teachers' College.

Eighteen-year-old Haare Mete of Kaitaia was a member of a women's gymnastics team which recently visited Vienna to take part in an international gymnastic festival. One of the team's items made use of poi. with Haare leading the group.

As a result of a new law passed in 1963, the annual number of legal adoptions of Maori children has dropped to a little over a quarter of the previous figure.

The law, which was passed to wipe out a legal distinction between Maori and Pakeha, rules that Maori child adoptions must be handled in the Magistrates Court instead of the Maori Land Court.

Though some improvement in the number of adoption cases being handled is now being noticed, the figures are still disturbingly low.