“The policy of excluding Māori from tours to South Africa began in the 1920s — and by the 1930s, there was a big switch over from rugby union to rugby league among Māori footballers in some parts of the motu.” — Ryan Bodman.
“There’s the satisfaction of taking a lump straight from the earth and making something that you can fire and use to eat or drink out of, rather than going to the Warehouse or buying something that's been made in China or wherever.” — Baye Riddell.
“While I get the fact that an Indigenous party is a positive reflection for New Zealand about how we've evolved, if that Indigenous party is never in a position to exercise influence over the way that the country can go, then what is the point?” — Nanaia Mahuta.
“There are always people who say I’m not a proper Māori because I don’t go to a marae. Well, the way I look at it, some people have a religious faith but don’t necessarily go to church every Sunday.” — David Seymour.
“An excessive number of items on the coalition’s list buy a culture war that Pākehā New Zealand isn’t ready for. Believe me when I say that te ao Māori is prepared.” — Deb Te Kawa.
“Te Aka Whai Ora is already cutting through a huge amount of bureaucracy and is more aligned to the needs of Māori. It needs to remain to finish the job it was set up to do.” — Lady Tureiti Moxon.
“The challenge to tangata Tiriti is what we’ll do to support a fightback led by tangata whenua. Will Pākehā, in particular, be prepared to march in solidarity with tangata whenua and all people directly affected by the neo-racist political programme?” — Catherine Delahunty.
“It’s important to rehumanise the discourse, because this has gone too far,” Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories, talking to Moana Maniapoto.
“Year after year, I wrote and performed and did the astonishing amount of admin it requires. And stayed broke. I perform at festivals and win awards and look fab in sparkling red dresses at the openings of my plays. And stay broke.” — Tusiata Avia.
"I’ve grown up in a household where alcohol, my father, and other male figures were king. Alcohol trumps everything. The toxic fallout from alcohol on family and whānau and community was etched on the inside of my eyelids from an early age." — Shelley Burns-Field.
"The flawed campaign and the overwhelming result made it clear that a lot of Aussies are, to varying degrees, racist, ill-informed, or simply ignorant.” — Tainui Stephens on Australia's Voice referendum.
"'That nurse was really rude,’ I told Jaye as we walked out of the exam room in Auckland Hospital. She rolled her eyes at me impatiently. ‘That’s why I brought you. To see the way people who look like me get treated.’” — Eru Hart.
“One of my goals is to get into a position where I can work for Ngāti Pikiao, as someone who helps our people to come home . . . to help them discover this whole other way of life.” — Te Atamairangi Emery-Hughes.
“My story is one of absence, loss, and sometimes sadness. Still, I refuse to let it be a story of despair.” — Aroha Gilling.
“I've always felt that, within the Māori world, there were never absolutes. I mean, yes, most people were heterosexual. But, in my community, there were also extraordinary, visionary, talented, astonishing human beings who defied convention.” — Ngahuia Te Awekotuku.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked the question: ‘What percentage Māori are you?’ For most of my life, I’ve answered with what I thought was an honest and correct explanation: ‘About a quarter, I think.’” — Tarryn Ryan.
The Pikihuia Awards are held every two years to celebrate excellence in Māori writing, both in reo Pākehā and reo Māori. This is the winning reo Māori essay in the non-fiction category, written by Zeb Tamihana Nicklin.
“I had a lot of ideas. But every time I tried to turn them into a sentence in te reo, it amounted to: ‘Māori good. Colonisation bad. Matua smart. Me dumb.’ And also: ‘Me tired. Want nap.’” — Siena Yates.
“When you haven’t been exposed to te ao Māori during your upbringing, you’re making up for lost time as you get older. Listening, learning, and asking questions. For us as a whānau, it’s been a journey — and we know it’s one that will never end.” — Cornell Tukiri.
"Mōteatea were the storehouses of tribal and whānau memory and aspiration, drawn upon to nourish and feed the current and new generations, whilst ensuring they were equipped with the essential knowledge to help them navigate, understand, and explore their world." — Dr Hana O'Regan.
“Not all crimes receive equal coverage. Nor are they framed in the same way, however violent they may be.” — Criminologist Sara Salman on the Auckland shooting last month.
“The central issue the story raises is one of media responsibility. Why was there no rush to demand that the people who kicked it off justify their angle, their selection of voices, and their framing?” — Connie Buchanan.
“Anaru’s ability to speak Māori committed him throughout his adult life to holding the government to task about its obligations to te reo Māori and Māori rights.” — Wena Harawira.
“Māori want to ‘own’ spectrum, not to set up their own separate network, but as an incentive for existing telcos to enter into commercial deals with Māori.” — Andrew Robb.
“In all its diversity, there is work by Māori that incorporates the Māori worldview. Also, there is work by Māori that does not. After all, there are many different ways of being Māori.” — Patricia Grace, at the Kupu Māori Writers Festival.
“Yes, we want people with in-depth mātauranga Māori writing about that knowledge. But we also want people who are struggling with their identity as Māori, or who have just come to it, because those are valid experiences in Aotearoa today.” — Robyn Bargh.
“Everyone I grew up with has story upon story like this — a sprinkling of farmers in Taranaki high as a kite on mistrust and suspicion, fiercely defending stolen land from the ones they stole it from.” — Airana Ngarewa on his new novel The Bone Tree.
“Coming up in the world of fashion, Kiri Nathan ran into brick walls at every turn, was told she wasn’t good enough, or her work was ‘too Māori’ to sell.” — Siena Yates.
“On that final fateful weekend, out of the blue, my phone rang. It was the Minister of Defence. He asked if I was free to visit him at his home in Grant Road, Wellington. He said it was urgent.” — Nicky Hager.
"It’s often assumed that the 19th-century New Zealand Wars fought between the Crown and various groups of Māori were exclusively a Te Ika-a-Māui (North Island) story. But there is a largely unknown history of southern engagement with these conflicts. " — Historian Vincent O'Malley.
“I shall never forget the first odour of tropical plants... the strangeness of outrigger canoes and of houses thatched with pandanus, and, above all, the kindly salutations and spontaneous hospitality of the handsome brown-skinned inhabitants who were kin to my own people.” — Te Rangi Hīroa, from the newly republished 'Vikings of the Sunrise'.
“It’s fair to say that those responsible for this remarkable expansion of territory had been global leaders in the arts of landfinding and navigation for most of the last 5,000 years.” — Andrew Crowe, on the voyaging achievements of Pacific navigators.
E-Tangata and Radio Waatea are longtime friends, and support each other's kaupapa.
E-Tangata is an online Sunday magazine specialising in stories that reflect the experiences of Māori and Pasifika in Aotearoa.
We welcome submissions or inquiries to:
editor@e-tangata.co.nz
Sign up for our email newsletter and get the latest E-Tangata stories sent straight to your inbox.
SubscribeYou can support E-Tangata’s kaupapa by contributing through PressPatron. With your help, we can tell more Māori and Pacific stories.
