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Whakarewarewa Maori School's most senior old pupils at the centennial. From left, Tangirau Karekare, Guide Ellen, Mamaeroa Maniapoto, Guide Kiri and Guide Rangi.
National Publicity Studios
Maori Schools Centennial
The Maori Schools Centennial organized by the Rotorua and District Maori School Committees Association was held at Whakarewarewa Maori School, Rotorua, on December 9–10 of last year. Guest speakers at the celebration included the M.P. for Eastern Maori, Mr P. Reweti, and the Education Department officer for Maori education, Mr N. F. Harré.
The celebrations attracted old pupils of Maori schools from such distant points as Cape Reinga in the north, the East Coast, Taranaki, Wanganui and Hawkes Bay. They were welcomed by the mayor of Rotorua. Mr A. M. Linton, the chairman of the organizing committee, Mr Macfarlane, who is himself an old boy of the host school, and a leading elder of the Tuhourangi tribe, Mr Matina Makiha.
A gallery of old photographs and press clippings tracing the history of individual Maori schools was arranged for public viewing by parents, old pupils and teachers of
Sister Annie, deaconess of the Maori Synod of the Presbyterian Church, talking to Mr H. R. Lapwood, M.P., for Rotorua, and Mr N. B. Hunt, chairman of the Rotorua County Council. Sister Annie worked among the Tuhoe people of Ruatahuna for 50 years and retired in 1964.
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Maori schools. This aspect of the centennial celebrations was well presented and well received; it contained a wealth of information which would have been useful to the student of Maori history and Maori rural life in the early years of this century. It is unfortunate in this respect that the anniversary was not better supported.
A variety concert was held on Saturday evening at the Sportsdrome, and each school party or school district was invited to make a contribution to the programme. The procedure was quite informal and ended with a cold supper.
The centennial weekend was completed on Sunday with a church service at St. Faith's, Ohinemutu, the Revd Te Hau officiating.
End of an Era
The 1967 Centennial celebrations mark the end of an era in the history of New Zealand education. The Minister of Education, acting on the advice of the National Committee on Maori Education announced that Maori schools would be transferred from Education Department control to Board control. The transfer would be complete by the beginning of the 1969 school year. The most important consequence of the School Board take-over, the Minister foresees, is an improvement in the quality of Maori education because existing educational resources administered by the
Mr M. Makiha, tribal elder of Tuhourangi, giving the baptismal ring to the memorial bell commemorating 100 years of Maori Schools service.
It is as well, however, to heed the warning
A group of old pupils from Ngati Porou and Whanau-a-Apanui districts pictured with their Arawa host. Haratia Rogers.
made by the education committee which prepared the report, that ‘a change of administrative control and a change of name has not altered the fact that many Maori children have special needs requiring special provisions’.
‘The Board must be awake to recognizing where these special needs exist and must cope with them adequately. An active school committee which draws in Maori parents as members is an excellent safeguard by which Maori parents can ensure that the special needs of their children are in fact discovered and provided for.
This reference extends beyond the recognized disability of the Maori child in English language and literature, to that broad, rather vague and controversial concept—Maoritanga. Here is a specific need, and an important one. The director of the English Language Institute at Victoria University of Wellington made these two encouraging observations: ‘The child whose mother tongue is not English is basically a privileged child … investment in these children is not a regrettable duty but a profitable venture.’
Critics of this point of view rely on the argument that the language is dying if not already dead, and it is but a matter of time when Maori custom and practice will also disappear. This argument of course is not true. Maori is the language of the marae, the church, the daily language of the people of the East Coast, Northland and the Urewera; and for any Maori with aspirations of a place of prominence among his people he must be conversant in Maori.
If Maoritanga is to find its true place in the schools, it is surely the Maori community that must agitate to achieve this end, and places where such agitation pays off include, among others, the small, humble, and inconspicuous school committee.
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THE
MAORI
BIBLE
CENTENNIAL
EDITION
To celebrate the centenary of the first Maori Bible, the British and Foreign Bible Society has produced two commemorative publications:
| * |
The Centennial Edition is an edition of Luke, Acts and Ephesians in Maori one page, with the most modern English translation opposite. Price: 35 cents (Post Free) |
| * |
“Lost and Found” (the story of the lost things in Luke 15). This, too, is a modern translation printed in both Maori and English and is illustrated with contemporary colour photographs of the lost coin, the lost sheep and the lost son. |
| Price: 10 for 15 cents
100 for $1.40 1.000 for $12.50 |
Post Free
(10 minimum order) |
Send cash or money order, together with your name and postal address, to:
THE BRITISH & FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY NZ (INC)
183 WILLIS STREET, WELLINGTON, c.2. PHONE 80.029When Samuel Marsden conducted the first Christian service in New Zealand on Christmas Day, 1814, he had only the English Authorised Version of the Bible, and Ruatara, a Maori chief with whom he had struck up a friendship, acted as interpreter. The translation was imperfect, but it was the first step in the long task of producing the whole Moari Bible.
The Maori language, full of poetic imagery, expressed thoughts about God closely resembling those of the ancient Jews. Maori legends were told in language well suited to the expression of Christian thought, but it was only a spoken language.
The early missionaries reduced the language to writing, and set down its grammatical forms. Within six years their knowledge was sufficient to begin translation of the Bible, and the first part to be published was the Lord's prayer, in 1820. Then the Commandments, the Beatitudes, the Creation Story and the first chapter of St. John's Gospel were translated, and in 1827 these selections were sent to Sydney and produced in one volume.
The arrival in 1835 of William Colenso, the first missionary-printer, enabled books to be printed in New Zealand, and the first to appear was a 16-
Pictured at right is the stamp issued to mark the Maori Bible centenary. It shows Bishop Hadfield's Bible. still in use at the historic Rangiatea Church, Otaki, open at the book of Deuteronomy.
