One of the Whangape people said that "we were punished severely for speaking Maori, and that's the reason why none of us can speak Maori". What this really meant was that memories of what happened to them a t school discouraged quite a number of people from bringing their own children up to be Maori speakers. Northland seems to have been the part of New Zealand worst affected by a negative attitude to the Maori language on the part of teachers (although, of course, even in the early days, some teachers valued the language and did not think that their pupils had to be forced to stop speaking Maori in the school grounds so they could learn English).
Te Tai Tokerau | Northland | Far North | 1970-79 | 5% of Māori children can speak te reo. (1970-75) | Story is by tangata whenua
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