MANA LETTERS

Mana (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 12, 25 December 1977, Page 2

MANA LETTERS

E hoa ma, Nga mihi o te wa ki a koutou e rnahi mai na i nga take e pa ana ki a tatou katoa. Kia ora hoki koutou katoa. Katerina Mataira. Waikato University, HAMILTON Friends, Seasons greetings to you all, who are involved with issues that involve us all. Best wishes to you all. Katerina Mataira. Waikato University. HAMILTON Friends, Kia ora korua. We have needed a newspaper like yours to bind us together and to let us know what is happening to us. Too many issues are being pushed through without our knowledge and we need you to monitor these things as they apply to us. Keep the revolution going! Witi Ihimaera. WELLINGTON Friends, Please find enclosed a cheque for $5.00, a donation toward a newspaper that you are working on for Polynesian residents. Each year we have a special Christmas effort, and a member had seen this item in the Corso paper, it was unanimous that this donation be sent to you this year. Wishing you well with all the good work done. Women’s Division Federated Farmers HungaHunga Branch Tena koe.

I would be interested to know if any of your readers were as annoyed as I was at the attitudes displayed by Bob Lowe in the programme 'Open Pulpit' on T. V.2. The belligerent mannerof conducting the interview, did little to enhance the stature of this Canon of the Church, who showed none of the understanding and knowledge that a man of his position should bestow upon others. Mr Waaka was a good match for him, but this doesn't excuse Bob Lowe’s attitude of condemnation for Polynesian ghettos etc., (which incidently is a word concerning the Jewish race). On the other hand. Bob Lowe’s session with the Prime Minister displayed none of this “holier than thou attitude” but was weighted so heavily in favour of Mr Muldoon, that it was sickening to listen to. I wonder if the day will ever come when we will be able to enjoy on T.V., Maori points of view, conducted by Maori people themselves. Keep on the good work with your paper, we wish your every success. Kia Ora, V. L. Tamati, Ninia Road. New Plymouth. Friends, I read with interest and concern your article on the high prices of imported island foods (Vol I, No. 10). Is it not a fact that the sole licence for the importing of Island foodstuffs is held by Turners and Growers Ltd and that this firm restricts the quantities of imports in order to maintain a high demand and thus a high price for these foods? This has been reported to me and it concerns me greatly as this has an adverse effect both on the consumers in New Zealand, and also on the producers in the Islands. I would be grateful for any information that your readers might be able to supply on this question. Toby Truell General Secretary CORSO

Tena kotou katoa, Many thanks for accepting my subscription to your paper and for sending subsequent copies to me so promptly. I am delighted with the articles written by members of our 'grass-roots’ community, and have spent my bus trips to work reading them, in the hope that other commutors will take note that MANA is alive. 1 welcome a medium prepared to print articles from all groups, when others will not! Mana provides a necessary lead for groups to communicate and to engage in literary interaction when other means seem so difficult, distant and even non-existant. I look forward to receiving future copies and congratulate you all for this-supreme publication. At this point, I invite you to send a reporter to our Political Action weekend at the John Waititi Marae, on Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 of December. Our Leaders, Party members and guest speakers will be sharing views on various community interest topics and their application to todays Political Scene. Keep up the good work. Kia kotahi, Arohanui, Christine Marriner-Grubb Race Relations Spokesperson Values Party

Friends, Until I reached page 8 of your issue dated 24 November, 1 was full of sympathy and enthusiasm for MANA. But, alas, the negative attitude of your reporter who wrote “Ban on Pig Killing” shocked me. Instead of endeavouring to lead enlightened opinion as is expected of a serious newspaper, he was defending a practise which should have been left behind in the Islands. Not all traditions are good ones and it is to the credit of any race in the world to be flexible enough to realise that they have to move with the times. Who would want to wear the dress of a hundred years ago, or depend entirely on the old ways of treating illnesses in preference to modern medicine? There was a pig slaughter house in the vicinity of Shortland Street (the area is still known as Bacons Lane) 120 years ago. There were objections to it then on the grounds of health, hygiene and sensibility and it was closed. It is no different today except that the proper facilities are available in the same way that hospitals are available. I hope your readers will agree that suburban yards and gardens are no place for slaughtering animals — that went out with the dark ages when man could do no better. Even a pig should not be subjected to an agonising death any more than any other living creature and it is a very bad example for children to see such killings.

Margaret Gamble Ellerslie Auckland Editor’s Rejoinder: We thank you for writing your views on the ' Ban on Pig Killing" story which appeared in MANA (Number II). MANA does welcome comment and criticism from its readers. We cannot agree with your assumption that this story was written in such a way as to condone domestic pig killing. The moves by local bodies to ban this practice were reported as facts and the only comment on the pros and cons of this came as quotes from a member of the Samoan community. A number of other Polynesians expressed similar views on the subject of domestic pig killing. However we concede that there are no doubt Polynesians who would agree with your argument and if this is so we would be very glad to hear from them.

Friends, Your request for money was raised at our last Executive meeting. We decided to subscribe to Mana to the tune of $lOO. Enclosed is the above amount. Hope all is going well. Linda Cassidy, President, Victoria University Students Assn Friends, I can only assume from Syd Jackson’s comments (Mana, vol. 1, no. 10), that he had not then read the biography of Te Puea. To put it in the same category as the other things he refers to does the people whose memories and opinions I recorded a great injustice. And, contrary to his allegations, Piri Poutapu, Tumokai Katipa, Mick Jones, Hori Paki, Heeni Wharemaru and almost everybody else I worked with would have happily passed such information on to young Maoris — had they been asked. This is.in effect what they have done in the book anyway. I simply assembled the material. I do find it difficult to believe that Syd Jackson is even talking about me. I have never purported to speak on behalf of Maoris; I have never told Maoris what they were; I have never professed an academic interest; I have never set myself up as an expert on anything. I had always (I believed) got on well with Syd. As he knows, I was one of the first journalists to give full and favourable attention to Nga Tamatoa’s objectives. I have consistently supported his aims by word of mouth and in print. As he knows, mispronunciation of Maori words is not my problem alone. It no more implies lack of sympathy on my part than it does on his. The object of whatever work I have done involving Maori matters has always been to provide a platform for Maori views, not to make my own pronouncements (and the linking commentry in Tangata Whenua was just that — links to hold together Maori material).

Does he really mean that we would all be better off had I not written Moko. not set up Tangata Whenua. not compiled Te Ao Hurihuri and not written Te Puea? (And not accumulated the vast quantity of notes, interviews and other source material which is available for anybody to use?) If I hadn't done these things they would simply not have been done. And many of the informants are now dead. I have not only never stopped a Maori doing anything, I have constantly exhorted people to take up these projects and helped wherever I could. The only other person who expressed an interest in writing Te Puea was a Pakeha, and he was going to do it without even talking to Waikato sources. Would this have been preferable?

There are a swag of Maori biographies that must be written if we are to understand our past and give our folk heroes the credit they deserve: Te Kooti, Te Whiti, Wahanui, Aperahama Taonui, James Carroll, Apirana Ngata, and many others. I happily undertake to stay out of the field if other people will get into it. And they must begin interviewing now sources who will not be here much longer. But if I pull out and Syd and others do not enter the field, then they will have a great deal to answer for. And please. Mana, one other thing. Don’t encourage your contributors to kick your ailies in the teeth. Get stuck into those who do not support your objectives and who are trying to obstruct them. Kia ora koutou Michael King Paremata.