A new exhibition breathes life into Te Reo Māori documents

The first official copy books in te reo Māori; a map of Aotearoa labelled ‘New Munster’ and ‘New Ulster’; the original manuscripts capturing karakia and waiata for the first time; and a copy of The Cat in the Hat in te reo.
All taonga that are part of a new exhibition, Waiwaia Ngā Ngutu, that is part of Auckland City Library’s celebration of Te Wiki o te Reo Māori.
It’s open now, it’s free, and it doesn’t close until next February.
Today on The Detail, Davina Zimmer takes a walk through some of the more fascinating parts of the display with curators Robert Eruera and Maureen Ned.
“The reo is more than just a language, it’s really rooted in everything that we do, we say, we feel, and how we try to express ourselves,” says Ned, who is Auckland Council’s senior librarian of Māori Collections.
The exhibition centres on teaching resources, official documents and karakia that shows the process of te reo being taken from a spoken language into a written one.
The taonga chosen for the exhibition provide a snapshot of the history of Aotearoa New Zealand, from a time when Māori first engaged with missionaries.
‘Robert Eruera is Auckland City Library’s Māori senior adviser and says the purpose of bringing written reo back into spoken form is to breathe life back into the documents that are displayed.’
“The content of what is captured in these manuscripts and these publications tells a story of Māori becoming literate and moving from an oral society to a written society,” he explains.
Eruera adds that there’s a lot of information in the written form that can be revived through reversing the process of documenting it.
“This [displaying the written document] does not do it justice just lying here, it needs to be in the hearts of the people and in the minds of the people from where it came,” he says.
Maureen Ned says there’s something about te reo Māori initially being only a spoken language that makes how one uses it more significant.
“What I was told by one of my kaiako is that you spoke when you really needed to and that you had to be mindful of what you say because words are very powerful, words can make people feel amazing and they can make people feel like absolute crap,” Ned says.
The Detail also speaks to Hēmi Dale, the director of Māori medium education at the University of Auckland about the importance of continuing the celebration of te Wiki o te reo Māori and the integration of Māori culture into modern Aotearoa.
He talks about the relevance of marking the week at a time when there’s a resurgence of the language, and it’s becoming more and more integrated into modern Aotearoa.
And although he acknowledges there are efforts this year from Parliament to unravel some gains, he has an interesting take on the Prime Minister’s approach to te reo.
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