THEY TYPED TO THE FINISH

Te Ao Hou, Spring 1952, Page 16

THEY TYPED TO THE FINISH With our modus operandi clearly set out, this seems a fitting place to pay a tribute to our typists, who did a wonderful job of work right through. We started off with three—Miss Frances Mitchell, of Ohinemutu, Miss Moe Poata and Mrs Tom Kaua, both of Gisborne, who carried on to the finish. Mr Bird always spoke at our meetings of the good work of the girls, and moved a vote of thanks in appreciation of their labours. But on more than one occasion there was a smile on Sir Apirana's face, when his own typing measured up (as he put it) to that of the girls. He did the major part of the typing himself in the beginning, and all through he saw to it that enough typescripts were available to carry on. Members will not easily forget our session in ‘The Bungalow’ at Waiomatatini, when the soft clatter of the typewriter was heard up to two o'clock in the morning. Sir Apirana was seeing to it that we had enough script to last out the session there. But that does not in the least detract from the fine performance put up by these good ladies. Was the revision of the Maori Bible fully justified? If so in what way? Busy men like Sir Apirana, John Laughton, Bishop Bennett, Eru Te Tuhi, and so on, giving over three years to such a task, should be sufficient answer to the question. In varying degrees we were all busy men. One can only give some of the more salient points which made the work of revision very satisfying. There were, of course, verses throughout the older version which seem to miss the point altogether. To take a very simple example there is the oft-quoted phrase, more used than any other at a Maori tangi. ‘Ta koutou i tenei ao he matemate, otira kia maia, kua taea hoki e ahau te ao.’ Translate that back to English you get: ‘Your lot in this world is (simply) to die, but be of good cheer, etc.’ That seems far removed from the English version, ‘In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, etc.’ We made the slightest alteration here by changing the word mate-mate into mamate (misfortune) but what a difference! It now reads: ‘Ko te koutou i tenei ao he mamate (misfortune) etc.’, which any Maori scholar will appreciate to the full.