"There were not many opportunities for speaking Maori in the
city, and so many people, who were once fluent speakers, said this
was causing them to lose their knowledge of spoken Maori. In an
effort to prevent the total loss of the language, many parents and
grandparents were giving support to the work done in schools by
teaching their children and mokopuna the basics of Maori in the
home.
About one-fifth of the informants had been beaten for speaking
Maori as children at school, while many others had been put off it
as infants within the Rotorua region and in outside areas. A
knowledge of Maori arts and crafts, waiata-a-ringa, haka , and so
on, was made more important than language in being a Maori - surely
the result of decades of successful propaganda and educational
policies to get rid of the Maori language."
Te Moana-ā-Toi | Bay of Plenty | Rotorua | 1970-79 | Story is by tangata whenua
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