There’s a strong Māori presence on campus and plenty happening this week, from Cultural Hour to weekly wānanga and study spaces. If you want to meet other tauira, build your reo, or spend time in a Māori space between classes, there are kaupapa running across campus. Keep an eye on…
Te whakahiapo – Maori law students association – @te_whakahiapo
Te Waiora – @tewaiora.waikato
Te Tini o Hakuturi – @te_tini_o_hakuturi
Te Ranga Ngaku – Māori students in management – @terangangaku
Te Kāuru – Faculty of Māori & Indigenous Studies – @tekaauru
Join Te Kāuru! (optional – was requested by ropu)
Do you study in the Faculty of Māori & Indigenous Studies? Come join Te Kāuru! A rōpū by Māori, for Māori, providing support for tauira and enhancing your uni experience. We run weekly study wānanga every Thursday from 3:30–5:30pm in Pā.B.05. It’s a chance to meet other students, get support from reo experts, and build community in a space that centres us.
Follow us on Instagram for updates: @tekaauru
Maybe you’re a full reo weapon.
Maybe you’re that guy who suddenly starts saying ngā mihi during Wiki o te Reo
Māori and then disappears for the rest of the year.
Either way, here are some everyday reo Māori phrases you can actually start using around campus:
Tēnā koe – Hello (to one person)
Ko … tōku ingoa – My name is …
Mā te wā – See you later
He pātai tāku – I have a question
Kia pai tō rā – Have a good day
Kāore au i te tino mārama – I don’t really understand
Kia ora, my name is James Te Wharehuia Milroy and I descend from Ngāi Tūhoe & Te Arawa. This piece is about the importance of Pūtikitiki, the Māori student space, to Māori students at Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato.
I once knew an old man, who in turn talked about another old man of his younger days. This man was of the manner that the orator’s bench was cleared to make way for this chief. Hordes were caught with mouths open in awe as this man spoke so eloquently about his experiences and vast amounts of knowledge. A man born in the middle of winter in thick snow who survived both war and maladies of an age where many fell short. This was a man now known as a tipua, as a taniwha.
He made simple yet poignant analogies, ever so reminding one of their traditional customs and way of life. A cloud became a tribe, the wind became medicine, a mountain a doctor, the list goes on. It may sound nonsensical at first, yet on a deeper level these analogies tell of lives still lived today. The eloquent nature of his language resembled his familial querencia, a people so beautiful yet so broken.
As Māori slowly started shifting from rural settlements to urban areas this man hypothesised the inevitable, a people disconnected, a people lost. For what is left for such a body of people in the midst of despair? It is to come together as one. This was an act which became so seamlessly easy for this old man. Knowledge became food, tribes who were once sworn enemies became close friends. This was the personification of ‘kotahitanga’.
Now as we look at this word ‘Pūtikitiki’ one may interpret it as being to tie together or to become intertwined, yet what does that truly mean? No meaningful message in the Māori world can precisely be taken at surface level, can it? As I recall the stories of this old sage this lonely word reveals life and potential in its deep twisted roots.
For Māori we live on connections. Phrases used in ancient incantations such as “Ko tō manawa e Tāne, ko tōku manawa e Tāne” (Your heart, Tāne, and my heart, Tāne) connect Māori through knowledge and trivial events. Our hearts, you may say have been sown together. Māori need Pūtikitki as much as Pūtikitiki needs Māori. A space to be Māori, a space to be me. This word we look back on as ‘Pūtikitiki’ is no longer a word, it is an action, it is a pivotal part of life, which without it, is there anything left than to die in vain
