Nau mai ki te pānui
o Ngā Taonga
Welcome to our newsletter
In this issue we share a wealth of audiovisual taonga
related to the Māori Land March, which took place 50 years ago this month. We also
take up the challenge of Mahuru Māori. Plus, we’re thrilled to have started adding
Stage Challenge recordings to our website. Read on to revisit a teenage rite of passage
for generations of Aotearoa New Zealand’s drama kids.
This month, among a number of
significant anniversaries, we are celebrating the 50th anniversary
of the Māori Land March. In 1975, the historic march was documented by a small
team of filmmakers led by director Geoff Steven, who ultimately created the
full-length documentary Te
Matakite o Aotearoa: The Māori Land March. In our latest
guest blog on the Ngā Taonga website, Geoff reflects on the making of this
landmark film. Over the 25 years that it ran, Stage Challenge allowed
thousands of New Zealand teens to create and perform dance extravaganzas with
their classmates. The
results were sometimes brilliant, sometimes cringe, and always sincerely
important to the kids involved. Recently Ngā Taonga has started adding televised
Stage Challenge performances to our online collection, as they become available
to us via the Utaina mass digitisation project. Right now, we have 33 episodes ready to
watch, dating from 2003-2007 – why not take a look and see if you recognise anyone?
Throughout this month, we were proud to be able to share
stories that led to historic change – resurfacing Māori milestones through the
wonderful blogs and curated collections on the Ngā Taonga website.
The challenge has been laid down, encouraging people from all walks of life –
no matter the level of fluency – to take up the wero and jump on the total
immersion te reo Māori waka this September/Mahuru.
"Tino rangatiratangatia tō reo" – koia i whakataukitia ai e Te
Arikinui Kuini Nga wai hono i te po, i tōna Koroneihana tuatahi hei Kuini, nōna
e waha atu ana i tana kauwhau tuatahi ki te ao.
Me te aha, kāore he kōrero i kō atu i ēnei kupu whakatenatena a te Kuini e
whakamārama nei i te ia o tēnei kaupapa a Mahuru Māori, aue hi, aue hā, e tau
ana!
This curated collection shares recordings from the audio collection and speaks
of the push that led to te reo Māori becoming an official language of Aotearoa.
September is always a busy month at Ngā Taonga. As the caretakers
of the largest collection of Māori language recordings in the world, covering
all dialects and over 100 years of te reo evolution, we find those taonga are
always in high demand around Te Wiki o te Reo Māori. This year, being the 50th
anniversary of the Māori Land March and the establishment of the Waitangi
Tribunal, we’ve been even busier than usual. We’ve co-hosted screenings of
films from the Ngā Taonga collection at the National Library of New Zealand (Hīkoi
- the Land March, Bastion Point Day 507, Bastion Point - the Untold Story,
Radicals) and published a
detailed bilingual blog showcasing film and radio about the event from the collection. We were
also lucky to have filmmaker
Geoff Steven (see top story) and Irenee
Cooper (granddaughter of Whina) share their memories of the events. Click
through any of those links to read, watch and listen. News briefs While
researching Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori - Māori Language Week in the archive, one of
our kaimahi found a strong message of support from an unexpected source – then-Prime
Minister Robert Muldoon. The beautiful book Sight Lines: Women and Art in
Aotearoa won the 2025 Best Book and Best Illustrated Book in
the Publishers Association of New Zealand (PANZ) Book Design Awards. Among the
many examples of women’s art are images from Bastion Point Day 507, co-directed
by Merata Mita and supplied by Ngā Taonga, by permission of the Mita whanau.
IMAGE CREDITS 1. Geoff Steven (right) and Leon Narbey (left) in the back of a Holden in Wellington on the final day of the Māori Land March. Credit: John M Miller – Photographer. 2. Screengrab from F82223, SUBWAY 2004 STAGE CHALLENGE. FINAL 3. March on Parliament in support of the equal status of the Maori language to English, led by Amster Reedy. Alexander Turnbull Library reference number EP/1980/2470/20A-F 4. Mana Māori Motuhake promotional image. Photo is
'Participants in Māori Land March leaving Te Reo Mihi Marae, Te Hapua, on their way to Waimirirangi Marae in Te Kao. Taken 14 September 1975 by Christian Heinegg'. National Library reference 35mm-87491-2.
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