Will Maori Language Survive into the 21st Century?

Mana (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 6, 15 September 1977, Page 5

Will Maori Language Survive into the 21st Century?

by

Rangi Walker.

With the coming of the missionaries in 1814, MaoriPakeha relations for the next 150 years were characterised by linguistic and cultural intolerance on the part of the colonising Pakeha.

At the outset, the Pakeha used the education system as an instrument to choke off the Maori language, subvert Maori culture and replace them with their own.

Education began in New Zealand with the opening of the first mission school by Kendall at Rangihoua in the Bay of Islands in August 1816. By 1830 the mission schools had spread to Paihia, Kerikeri and Waimate North. The curriculum consisted of reading, writing, arithmetic and catechism.

Besides their evangelising role, the missionaries saw themselves as the instrument of God destined to bring Maoris from the state of barbarism to civilised life. There was no question in their mind that native practices and social usages were an abomination to be discouraged and extinguished. Yet curiously, one of the positive aspects of missionary influence was the translation of the Bible into Maori. Missionary-trained Maori teachers went into the tribal villages ahead of their masters as bearers of the new knowledge. By 1840, most villages had some inhabitants who could read and write in the Maori language. The bible was to have a profound effect in later years when Maori protest religions emerged in response to the Land Wars of the 1860’s. Sir George Grey was also convinced of the rightness of the white man’s civilising mission and established the policy of assimilation as the solution to the “Maori problem”. He subsidised the mission schools with his 1847 Education Ordinance in the hope of isolating Maori children from the “demoralising influence of the Maori villages”, and thus “speedily assimilating the Maori to the habits and usages of the European”. Grey devoted one-twentieth of Government revenue to the mission schools provided they gave instruction in the English language and industrial training as well as religious education. The Native Schools Act 1858 strengthened the system with an annual grant for seven years of 7,000 pounds to boarding schools where instruction in English and the ordinary-subjects of English primary education were given.

Native Schools The Land Wars of the 1860’s disrupted Grey’s plan to draw the elite of Maori society into the ways of

Christianity and Western civilisation. After the war the 1867 Native Schools Act established a new pattern of administration by providing for a national system of native schools. Maoris provided the land and the government the buildings and teachers. At their inception, the native schools were under the control of the Native Department. In 1879 they were

transferred to the Education Department. In 1880, Mr Pope the Inspector of Native Schools drew up a Native School Code. Teachers were expected to have some knowledge of the Maori language, but it was to be used only in

the junior classes as an aid to teaching English. Exclusioq of the Maori language By 1903, attitudes to the Maori language hardened. In his reports on Maori schools, Pope described the Maori language as an anachronism. In 1905, Mr Bird who succeeded Pope urged the teachers to encourage Maori children to speak English only in the playground. Since then, several generations of Maori adults claim they were punished for speaking Maori at school. Even Sir Apriana Ngata was beguiled by this policy of teaching English only in school. At a Maori Welfare Conference in 1936 he declared his support for the policy by saying it should be made four out of the five subjects of instruction in Maori schools. But three years later, Ngata had changed his mind. He concluded that there is nothing worse than a person with Maori features but without the Maori language. Concessions to Maoritanga In 1931 there was a change in direction of education policy. This was in response to the report of the 1925 Advisory Committee on African Education. The report recommended that education should be adapted to the traditions and mentality of the people and should aim at improving and conserving what was best in their institutions. For New Zealand educators this meant fostering selected aspects of Maoritanga, but these beneficial changes were confined mainly to the primary schools. In 1931 some schools began incorporating weaving, taniko work, carving and poi songs and dances in their programmes. But there was no real commitment to the idea. Eyen Ball, the Native Schools inspector admitted progress was slow.

An attempt by the N.Z. Federation of Teachers to have the Maori language introduced into the curriculum in 1930 was blocked by T. B. Stiong, the Director of Education. In Strong’s view “the natural abandonment of the native tongue involves no loss to the Maori”. The Maori leaders of the past were beguiled into accepting the policy of promoting English in the education system at the expense of denying Maori language. They complied with this policy because of the desire to achieve social parity with the Pakeha. They believed that knowledge of English would bring them equality. The effect of the policy has been to erode the Maori language and undermine Maori self-respect without the attainment of equality. In 1900 over 90 per cent of Maori children arrived at school with Maori as their first language. Today the figure has fallen below 25 per cent.

Once Ngata changed his mind about the need for systematic teaching of the Maori language he pressed for its inclusion in universities. He responded to the argument that the language had no literature by collecting Maori songs, chants and rituals into the two volumes of Nga Moteatea. The result of Ngata’s labours was recognition of the Maori language as a subject for the Bachelor of Arts degree. At the secondary school level, it was mainly the church boarding schools for Maori students that offered Maori language as a school certificate subject. With the exception of Maori District High Schools the state schools, where the majority of Maori pupils were being educated, rarely offered Maori as an option. This cavalier treatment of the Maori language persisted

right to the end of the last decade. During all this time, Maori voluntary organisations continued to press for the wider recognition of the Maori language. The growing consciousness of the need to preserve Maori identity and culture among young urban Maoris found voice in 1970 with the formation of Nga Tamatoa. This group called for the introduction of Maori as a compulsory subject. Nga Tamatoa initiated Marae language courses and pressed for a one-year training course for native speakers of Maori. The Department of Education in response implemented its link-system of teaching Maori. Intermediate schools in the catchment area of secondary schools where Maori was being offered were now able to introduce the language. Thus, after 150 years of virtual exclusion, Maori is now being taught at the primary level. Today, some 9000 pupils are learning Maori at form 1 and 2 in 100 primary and intermediate schools. At the secondary level, there are 143 schools now teaching Maori to 11,900 students. While this policy change in education is welcomed, it is almost a case of too little and too late. The programme affects only 5.1 per cent of the school population. While this is a tremendous advance on nothing, it is questionable whether it is sufficient to overcome deeply entrenched attitudes against Maori. For this reason, Maori Language Week is a welcome event in the national calendar. It serves to heighten awareness of the need for all New Zealanders to stake a claim in our country’s indigenous language and cultural heritage. Only a majority commitment will prevent total extinction of the Maori half of our biculHural inheritance.

Recent letter to the N.Z Herald.

Sir —Sad to say, Maori, like Latin, is dead, and you cannot put the clock back. Most deep-thinking Maoris agree , on this point and use their language only for greetings and on ceremonial occasions. It is only a handful of Pakeha and Maori so-called intellectuals who are pressing for Maori to be taught in schools as a second language. The Maori elders, I feel sure, would not want their beautiful language to be used this way. No matter what schooling was given, Pakehas and most Maoris just could not pronounce the language as the Maoris’ forefathers did ... Far better for it to be used on the marae and on ceremonial occasions. Good Maori orators could school a few gifted people in its use. As far as a second language goes, the Maori people — and other races — could give some of their most powerful words for the creation of a world language in which all the people could converse with another ... Michael J. Conaglen. Onaero.