Northlander Joy Ngaropo-Hau, pictured here with husband Lou at their Hokianga home, has recently translated an 1849 book on beekeeping from te reo Māori into English. Photo / Amanda Trayes
Northlander Joy Ngaropo-Hau, pictured here with husband Lou at their Hokianga home, has recently translated an 1849 book on beekeeping from te reo Māori into English. Photo / Amanda Trayes
Telling the stories of the North is a passion for te reo Māori translator Joy Ngaropo-Hau, whose recent work has included unravelling the mysteries of a 173-year-old text on bees and beekeeping
Pulling up at the home that Joy Ngaropo-Hau shares with her husband Lou is an immediately arresting experience.
Beyond the expansive lawn in front of the couple's distinctive octagonal house lies the most spectacular view, with the head of Te Hokianga-nui-a-Kupe below and the endless sea beyond. Ngaropo-Hau (Ngāti Te Reinga) was born and raised on the harbour's northern shore, at Waihou near Panguru, and Hokianga is her home.
She's worn many hats in her working life - teacher, kapa haka exponent, te reo Māori TV consultant and presenter - and today works from her Ōmāpere home as a te reo Māori translator, mainly on projects that help tell the stories of her beloved Hokianga, Te Tai Tokerau.
Although Ngaropo-Hau is now in semi-retirement, one of her recent projects exemplifies a determination and openness to continued learning that have been common threads throughout her career.
"It was the biggest challenge I'd ever faced in my translation work, and my biggest learning curve," she says, of her work on Ko Nga Pī.
Published in 1849, the 21-page book explores the "customs and processes around caring for bees, processing honey and their wax" and was written in te reo Māori by the Reverend William Cotton.
While he wasn't the first to introduce honey bees to New Zealand, Cotton is largely credited with introducing the skills of beekeeping to the North Island. He was a friend of George Augustus Selwyn, and after Selwyn was appointed the first Anglican Bishop of New Zealand, Cotton joined him as his chaplain in the missionary party that landed here in 1842.
Joy Ngaropo-Hau has worn many hats in her working life - teacher, kapa haka exponent, te reo Māori TV consultant and presenter - and today works from her Ōmāpere home as a te reo Māori translator. Photo / Amanda Trayes
Selwyn initially set up residence at the Te Waimate Mission, now a Category 1 historic place cared for by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. Te Waimate Mission had been established more than a decade earlier by the Church Missionary Society.
It was here that Cotton - a passionate apiarist who had developed a strong interest in bees and beekeeping from childhood - received his first hives in New Zealand from Sydney in 1844. (Cotton had tried to transport hives on his voyage from England to New Zealand, but unfortunately the bees didn't survive the journey.)
As part of his efforts to promulgate beekeeping skills among Māori and Pākehā in New Zealand, Cotton also published several works, including the 1848 A Manual for New Zealand Beekeepers, which ran to more than 100 pages, and Ko Nga Pī.
Ngaropo-Hau understands Cotton began learning te reo Māori on his voyage to New Zealand, taught by a Māori deckhand. However, after undertaking the translation of Ko Nga Pī, which was commissioned by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, she considers his education in te reo was incomplete.
"There were wrong words used; there were words that didn't make sense, so I got a bit hōhā with it," she said. "But when things get tough, I'm not one to give up."
Ngaropo-Hau is a lifelong speaker of te reo Māori. She recalls that her parents, who had been punished for speaking the language, didn't directly speak te reo Māori with her and her siblings growing up as they wanted to spare their children that same ordeal.
"But they used the language when they wanted to speak about something they didn't want us to know about - and we understood."
Ngaropo-Hau studied te reo Māori at secondary and tertiary levels, and her approach to the language and its translation has been influenced by many experts. At secondary school, for example, she was taught by renowned writer and teacher Arapera Blank.
"There are many people whom I regard as our experts in te reo. However, [I work] on good advice from one of them who says, 'Always work with another translator for quality assurance and to ensure excellence'."
Ngaropo-Hau drew particularly on this advice when tackling the challenging Ko Nga Pī, enlisting translation assistance from her son-in-law Adam Whauwhau, who is kaiako of te reo Māori and head translator at Te Kura, formerly The Correspondence School.
The book's subject matter added another layer of complexity to translating the text, she said.
"I didn't know any of the processes to do with beekeeping. I had to get books from the library - manuals in English for beekeeping - which I found helpful, but it was still difficult, especially with the age of the book.
"But between Adam and I we got the translation to a point where we were really satisfied. And at the end of the project I was so proud that I hadn't given up, which ultimately gave me more confidence in myself as a translator."
Joy Ngaropo-Hau - a lifelong te reo Māori speaker - recently translated the script for Whina, the biopic of another Hokianga kuia, Dame Whina Cooper. Photo / Amanda Trayes
Ngaropo-Hau also recently translated the script for Whina, the biopic of Dame Whina Cooper starring Miriama McDowell and Rena Owen. Despite the script running to 120 pages, she says the project was a far simpler undertaking and gave her the cherished opportunity to honour Dame Whina, whom she connects with through whakapapa on her father's side.
"She is our Karani," Ngaropo-Hau said. "Tainui [film producer Tainui Stevens] wanted someone with the same dialect as Whina and I enjoyed being able to use the dialect that I'm familiar with and is from my home."
Ngaropo-Hau is a passionate advocate for the language of the North. She worked as a translator, advisor, subtitler and presenter (on the show Kuia) for many years at Māori Television and is a certified translator through Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori (the Māori Language Commission). However, she narrowly missed passing the written section of the commission's certification assessment on her first attempt.
"So I waited another two years, and then I challenged Te Taura Whiri. I said, 'I'm not coming back to sit the test again until you get an assessor from my area', because none of the assessors were from Northland. I said, 'It's not fair, because some of the words I used, they were not familiar with'," she said. "So then I had two assessors who were familiar with my mita, hence I passed."
Ngaropo-Hau gained her translation certification at 60, in keeping with a life spent learning.
Determined that their four children would be fluent in te reo Māori but aware of a shortage of teachers, the couple trained to become teachers themselves. Ngaropo-Hau commuted to Auckland from their home in Kaikohe for the year of training when their youngest child, Te Ao Marama, was still a baby; her husband followed several years later.
In 1995 Ngaropo-Hau spent a year in night classes undertaking Dynamics of Whanaungatanga, a programme that was pioneered by the esteemed Hokianga and Catholic Church leader the late Pā Henare Tate and provides a framework for wellbeing based on te ao Māori principles.
Recently Ngaropo-Hau translated 12 storyboards that form part of the interpretation at the Raiātea Motuti Resource and Archive Centre, which houses a collection of Māori and Polynesian artefacts, and objects relating to the history of the Catholic Church in New Zealand - most of which were collected by Pā Tate.
"That project felt like an opportunity for me to give back," she said. "It was a privilege."
Another privilege of translation work is being able to do it from the Ōmāpere home she and Lou made their permanent base around five years ago. The couple first met 50 years ago in Christchurch as foundation members of the kapa haka group Te Kotahitanga, and the couple were there for the award-winning group's 50th jubilee celebrations last year.
Keeping your mind on work in such an idyllic spot, admits Ngaropo-Hau, takes discipline. Warmer than the sun shining outside on the day of our visit is the aroha, manaakitanga and stories the couple share with their many and frequent visitors.
"We've come home; it's beautiful and we love it," she said. "My heart is in the stories of where I come from."
■ This article is kindly republished from Heritage New Zealand magazine's Spring 2022 issue: https://www.heritage.org.nz/resources/heritage-new-zealand-magazine. Words: Caitlin Sykes, Imagery: Amanda Trayes
