Pacific and Māori people are lazy, childlike, heathens and in need of saving. These were depictions of the ‘earliest’ writers and researchers, narratives which have been adopted as ‘history’ by outsiders, in an attempt to understand the people and culture they were researching.
Ko Papatūānuku tēnei, it’s yo Mama here. I’ve just been hanging about, letting nature do nature, rivers be rivers, skies be skies and after three weeks of Aoteroa Alert Level 4, forced isolation, I want to share my observations.
Teachers are amazing but I don’t want to be one. And especially not to my own children. But in these exceptional Covid-19 circumstances I get the feeling there is an expectation I’m going to have to step up, at least for the next few weeks anyway. Where do I even start? It was a struggle …
