What’s it called?
Mātauranga Māori
Where’s the name from?
Well in some ways its pretty self explanatory. This is a seminal exploration of the mātauranga of Māori. What is mātauranga you say? Well it is several things. It is literally the weaving (ranga) of knowing (mātau), so the accumulated knowledge of Māori from our 6000 year journey across Te Moana nui a Kiwa, the Pacific Ocean.
Sir Hirini Moko Mead
Why should you give it a read?
Because there is no better explanation of what it is that underpins Māori thought and knowledge. According to the author Sir Hirini Moko Mead mātauranga “Is essentially a cultural knowledge system that is integrated into all parts of Māori culture”. It is fundamental to understanding Māori as a people – not just how we do things but why we do things – what makes us tick. Mead is the Māori world’s preeminent scholar and there is no better author to read on this topic. Now 98 years of age, Mead was one of the curators of the 1984 landmark exhibition, Te Māori, is a member of the Waitangi Tribunal, and founded Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi. He has been working on this topic in its many forms for many decades now, and his work is informed by both the best of Western scholarship and methodologies as well as the best of Te Ao Māori scholarship and methodologies.
Is It banter and filler or does it get right into the Kaupapa?
It is of course a great scholarly work and goes deep right from the start.
Check this out
“Mātauranga is inclusive, and it can absorb facts from anywhere. We start by understanding the functions of a new idea or of a new piece of technology, and then we give it a name and incorporate it into our mātauranga.”
Which leader would have written this?
Dare I say Apiranga Ngata? Or Te Rangi Hiroa. Or Pei Te Hurinui Jones. Or Mākereti Papakura. Or any of our great scholars of our deep knowledge.
Does it make you wanna ka whawhai tonu?
Mead focuses at times on the impact of colonisation on Mātauranga, and this is a theme running through the book. At its heart colonisation is an ongoing attempt to destroy mātauranga and replace it with Western ways of viewing the world. And it almost succeeded, by forcing us into an educational system that completely devalued mātauranga, as well as a society that diminished all of our values as a people. As Mead notes “Some readers may accuse us of spending too much time talking about our struggle and the history behind it and say that we seem to carry that struggle on our backs everyday. What is even worse, we appear to be in a struggle with no end…. Why don’t we, as a people, just get on with life?… A response to those comments is that the burden Māori carry on their shoulders was there over 100 years. Some say it is nearer to 200 years; We were subjected to a reign of settler abuse.”
Where can I read?
