Oratia: August 2013

Thursday, August 29, 2013

WAKA TAUA OUT NOW

Waka Taua: The Maori War Canoe

Jeff Evans

A Māori war canoe being paddled a full speed is an awesome sight. Thanks to the renaissance in canoe building, more and more traditional waka taua are on the waterways, and feature in major events like the Queen’s Jubilee.

Waka Taua is a well-established introduction to all aspects of the war canoe: its history, recent revival, types and variants, phase of building, parts of the waka, crew responsibilities and paddling techniques. With numerous historical and contemporary photographs and drawings, this easy-to-read book is the perfect reference for these amazing craft.

This valuable book is now back in print and available from Libro International.

Praise for the first edition of Waka Taua:

‘What a valuable and timely book, there being something of a rebirth in canoe building at present’

– Northern Advocate

‘It is Evans’ passion for his subject that makes this book special’ – Weekend Herald

The author: Jeff Evans is a well-known writer and photographer, who is an authority on Maori canoes. Jeff is also the author of Polynesian Navigation and the Discovery of New Zealand, Nga Waka o Nehera: The first voyaging canoes and Maori Weapons in Pre-European New Zealand, and editor of Elsdon Best’s Notes on the Art of War. Jeff lives in Te Atatu, Auckland with his family.

ISBN: 978-1-877514-40-1 | RRP $34.99

Paperback, 250 x 185 mm, 76 pages with illustrations

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Te Ara exhibition opens in Vancouver

Oratia launches new trilingual book featuring Musqueam alongside Māori and English

The exhibition Te Ara: Māori Pathways of Leadership, opens today in Vancouver, Canada, in the final stage of its world tour before returning to New Zealand in February 2014.

Featuring photographs by Krzysztof Pfeiffer taken over a five-year period, and curated by Paul Tapsell and Merata Kawharu, Te Ara is a visual survey of leadership in the Māori world – past, present and future. It premiered in Poland in 2010 and has since shown at major museums in the UK and Germany.

The exhibition is being hosted by the Musqueam Indian Band, the First Peoples of the Vancouver area, and is showing at the Musqueam Gallery in the British Columbian capital.

Accompanying the opening was the launch of the third edition of the exhibition book. Te Ara features photographs from the exhibition with extended text by Paul Tapsell reviewing

leadership and challenges for Māori today.

The book is believed to be the first featuring both Canadian and New Zealand indigenous languages, with a landmark Musqueam translation – one of very few texts in the language – alongside Te Reo Māori and English. Copies are available in Canada and New Zealand.

"Our conversation is indigenous to indigenous with the Musqueam, but it is a story to which everyone is invited to come along and listen in," said Tapsell, who is visiting Vancouver.

Te Ara: Māori Pathways of Leadership will be at the Musqueam Gallery, 4000 Musqueam Avenue, Vancouver, until 28 February 2014.

Professor Paul Tapsell and Associate Professor Merata Kawharu teach in the Māori Studies department at the University of Otago, Dunedin; Krzysztof Pfeiffer is an internationally recognised photographer based in Auckland who has contributed to more than 35 books.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Māori Maps shortlisted for World Summit Awards

Te Potiki National Trust has welcomed its nomination as a finalist in the World Summit Awards for the Māori Maps website, www.maorimaps.com.

Communications and Information Technology Minister Amy Adams yesterday congratulated Te Potiki National Trust and the seven other New Zealand organisations that have made the finals in the global World Summit Awards for creativity and innovation in ICT.

“It is great to see New Zealand projects of this calibre being recognised on the world stage. It is particularly important that we celebrate and encourage the high level of innovation and creativity that we have in this country,” Ms Adams said.

Te Potiki National Trust Chairperson Paora Tapsell said this recognition was reward for the hard work of its largely voluntary team.

Over the past five years, Māori Maps has created a digital database of marae locations, photographs and information to assist Māori descendants, as well as visitors, in connecting with the more than 750 ancestral marae in New Zealand.

“This unexpected honour will help to promote our message about how unique our marae are in the world, and how important they are for the identity and well-being of present and future generations of Māori.”

He thanked the Trust’s volunteers and supporters for their faith in the project.

Key backing for Māori Maps has come from The Tindall Foundation, the University of Otago, the University of Auckland, the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, and several community trusts.

The www.maorimaps.com website, based on Google Maps, lets users navigate by a range of filters to locate marae – and now lists about 98% of the ancestral marae around the country.

The site is designed and hosted by Auckland-based Zest Media, and managed by the Trust’s Online Producer, Mike Hennessy.

Te Potiki National Trust is now adding archival photos and taonga links to the site, and working to complete translation of all content into Te Reo Māori.

For further information, contact:

Peter Dowling, Kaihautu; 09 814 8993, pita@maorimaps.com

Note: Oratia Media, publisher of Libro International books, is a supporter of Te Potiki National Trust and Peter acts as its kaihautu/chief executive.