Far North Kahika (Mayor) Moko Tepania. Photo / NZME
Māori language being fostered by council
The Far North District Council (FNDC) advertised its commitment to the principles and obligations in Te Tiriti o Waitangi and He Whakaputanga last week by saying it is “aiming to boost the use of te reo Māori within the organisation by 2025″.
A council spokesperson said the aim is to include all fulltime staff in basic te reo Māori and tikanga training (but) casual and temporary employees and those on short-term contracts under six months will be exempt from the training requirements.
The spokesperson didn’t give the annual cost involved but said there will be an additional cost (to the programme) of $40,000 per annum, which goes towards increasing the internal te reo course provision for staff.
“There will also be an ongoing, ad-hoc cost for recruitment as it applies to bilingual job advertisements.
“The extra cost will be minimal as bilingual signs will only be created when new signs are required or when existing signs are to be replaced as part of normal renewals.”
The FNDC will translate publications and resources bilingually where “Māori are the primary audience” and all other publications will use at least bilingual level-one headings for key documents such as the Annual Plan and the Annual Report.
The council spokesperson said that documents where Māori are the primary audience might include a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the council and iwi and hapū. An example would be the MOU signed in June between Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Rēhia and the council to make Kerikeri a bilingual town.
Translations will be decided on a case-by-case basis with guidance from the council’s Te Hono (Māori Development and Māori Relationships) team. MOUs with iwi and hapū may also specify when documents should be fully bilingual.
Mayor Moko Tepania gave the te reo cause a headstart last week. In a story published in the Advocate on whether a solution can be found to the dispute on Whatuwhiwhi that has led Ngāti Kahu hapū to occupy land at the centre of a controversial resource consent grant, he replied to questions by James Perry of Māori Television in Māori. This was followed by the English translation in italics.
Referring to the dispute he said:
“”I te nuinga o te wā nō te Kaunihera te hē, nō ngā Kaunihera o mua te hē. Ko tēnei e hanga pērā ana. E tika ana i roto i tēnei wāhi i a mātou me wērā atu o ngā Kaikaunihera Māori e noho ana ki wēnei turu, he nui anō ngā huarahi kia whakatikatika ai i taku Kaunihera i tēnei whare.”
“Often it is the council at fault, including previous councils. It appears to be the case in this instance too. There is much to do for myself and fellow Māori councillors who sit around the chambers to correct the errors made within this building.”
Op Shop parades in style
The Hato Hone St John Kororāreka Russell Op Shop hosts a fashion parade each year. This year, however, it was a little different.
Instead of being held in the school hall as was usual, it was conducted outdoors on the village green on the waterfront. Fortunately, the weather co-operated and there was another exceptional element added to proceedings for this year.
There was a parade of garments from FIXation, the shop in York St that specialises in repurposing old clothing, curtains, sheets and various other rummaged materials into something new and, well, purposeful. The objective is to save some of the material from going into landfill.
The FIXation segment of the show was sponsored by Resilient Russell Charitable Trust, which donated prizes to the winners. Each received a native tree in a flax container and vouchers from FIXation ranging from $200 to $50.
The MC was Crystal Anstruther Burson from CC’s Closet in Paihia who, in another first, started things off with a song before the 13 women and seven male models began parading from within the precincts of Haratu Marae.
It was a busy interior. The models were sharing an inside space with cakes being judged in a baking competition and raffle.
The clothing worn by the Op Shop models was available to purchase while three judges chose the winners of the FIXation awards.
The winner of this segment was Darryl Francis, who crafted a long coat from a continental quilt and hand-knitted scarves. She called the creation Landscapes.
She also won a merit award for her design she called Fleurs, which was made from old clothes bought from op shops. The outfit was inspired by the flowers of the markets in Nice, France.
Second was Penny Gordon with Birthday Card, a skirt made from denim and ribbon and with a velvet jacket she bought from the Whangarei op shop. Third was Paula Franklin’s dress called Playful, made from remnant fabrics and ribbons.
The other merit award went to Julia Rosie, who hand-crafted a top and skirt infusing a harakeke-design motif in the form of a panel made of bias-cut strips.
Model freezes moment in time
A scale model of Russell’s iconic Pompallier Mission is seeing the light of day after being in storage for many years.
The model depicts what thousands of New Zealanders remember as “Pompallier House”, a colonial-era, two-storeyed building complete with Union Jack balustrades on the deck.
The historic house was portrayed as being the home of Bishop Jean-Baptiste Pompallier when he was leading the Roman Catholic mission to Oceania during the time it was based in Russell.
In reality the narrative around the “Bishop’s house” was complete fiction. Research undertaken as early as the 1960s revealed the building to be a tannery and printery where Pompallier’s team of Marist missionaries worked leather, printed and bound almost 40,000 religious texts in te reo Māori.
The traditional French pise de terre (rammed earth) building is the only such building in the Southern Hemisphere. It was restored to its former glory in the early 1990s and officially reopened 30 years ago this year.
“The model predates this work which is why it hasn’t been on display. But it is a good example of how we build up and layer information from different sources when it comes to understanding how a place looked, was originally used and then how it might have been repurposed over time,” says Pompallier Mission property lead Alex Bell.
“That continual use is reflected in the building and the gardens where each generation may add a bit, remove a bit or just tinker around the edges.
“The banana plants in the model are from the 1940s when the building was used as accommodation for military officers, one of whom was a fan of the banana palm, and the legacy of that continues today in the Pompallier garden.”
Heritage New Zealand Northland regional archaeologist, Dr James Robinson, was closely involved with the archaeological excavations carried on-site at Pompallier Mission as part of the restoration project in the late 1980s.
“The model brings back all sorts of memories for me as it represents stories about the place that were promulgated but which weren’t based on historical truth,” he says.
“The excavation work undertaken included unearthing tanning pits buried by a later landslip. These tanning pits were where leather had been worked and cured for book binding, as well as archaeological evidence found within the building and other research.”
The model of Pompallier House, whose creator is unknown, is on display at the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Northland office in Kerikeri.
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