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What every Kiwi Christian should know about Te Reo Māori

I am responding to God’s gentle push this year to refresh and grow my knowledge and use of Te Reo, and I would like to share some insights from this journey with you. So, here goes ...
 
1. Te Reo Māori was actively suppressed by our ancestors. 
Even many Māori believed, at one point in our history, that they had to stop speaking their own language in order to succeed in the Pākehā world. Unfortunately, kei te hē (that was wrong) – it turns out that people succeed better in life when they have a strong sense of cultural identity and that includes language. 

As for Pākehā, including my own English tīpuna, they found Te Reo Māori quaint but irritating. My uncle lived in “Wonggaray” and flatly refused to try saying “Whangarei”. My father lived and taught in Māori, Fijian, Hindi and Tongan communities, but never made any attempt to learn any of those languages. He just assumed that English was superior and everyone should speak it! When I decided to study Māori at school he said, “What use will that be? You won’t be able to use it anywhere in the world!”

For us to attempt to speak and understand Te Reo is a process of de-colonisation, which is uncomfortable. It puts us on the back foot, makes us worried about getting it wrong or being judged, and we need to argue back to the voices in our head saying “Why bother?”.

2. God is passionate about raising up Māori
Whether you have a theology strong on God on the side of ‘the least, the last and the lost’, or whether you have a heart to win more souls for heaven, you cannot ignore Māori people and culture because Christ is raising them up. Wairua Tapu is building up Māori people and language, whether or not the church is paying any attention. Look around, see the explosion in Te Reo in our society. God is in this! Many Christian leaders are also calling the church to open their hearts to Māori people and culture, because they are faithful to God’s call in this. 
 
In Christchurch our inter-church leadership network Te Raranga exists “to bless the city and to pray for it, to encourage unity among followers of Jesus, and to help the church be a prophetic voice together to the city, the nation and the world.” Central to this, in their view, is the conviction that “The Treaty of Waitangi is modern New Zealand’s founding document, we seek to see it honoured.” “We seek to weave together the distinctives and strengths of both Māori and Pakeha, listening to and learning from our story as the nation of Aotearoa, honouring Tangata Whenua; welcoming all nations and cultures; moving forward together as the diverse yet united church across the city.” (https://raranga.org.nz)
 
I am personally convinced that mission, evangelism and service in the name of Jesus Christ in our land must honour Māori if it is to thrive. 

3. Te Reo is a soft language
English is a weird ‘bastardised’ language, with sounds and ideas drawn from all manner of sources. Māori has a far more straightforward lineage, being the southern-most in the Polynesian group of languages. It has far less letters in the alphabet than English and it lacks the ‘glottle stops’ and harsher sounds of some other Polynesian languages. So no hiss or guttural or twang or nasal edge. Even the ‘hard’ consonants in Māori, like the ‘t’ and ‘d’ are sounded within your mouth rather than on the tip of your tongue … warm, soft and flowing. The down side of this is that many words sound quite similar to the unfamiliar ear; it takes a while of careful learning before you identify which is which. 

Let’s start with the Lord’s Prayer. You probably know that already, in English at least. I invite you to start your own file of Karakia, Māori prayers. Find the Māori Lord’s Prayer online - Te Karakia O Te Atua. Google throws up the MaoriLanguage.net page which has a literal translation line by line which is helpful. 
https://www.maorilanguage.net/waiata/te-karakia-o-te-atua-the-lords-prayer-in-maori/
 
Start with the first two lines. Practice saying them, over and over, until the words flow easily off your tongue. Remember, keep it soft, no hard edges. 
E tō mātou Matua i te rangi
Kia tapu tou Ingoa

4. Welcome to a non-dualistic universe
Ready? Let’s start diving in to some of the foundational building-blocks of Te Reo in relation to the Christian faith. 
But before I do, a disclaimer. I am not Māori myself. I am 5th-generation Pākehā from English and Danish whakapapa. I am not fluent in Te Reo, I am, like you, a learner. I claim no ‘expert’ status for this kaupapa (topic). I write this as a follower of Christ and minister of his Gospel, seeking from the ngākau (heart) to honour Karaiti in all I say and do. Don’t take my word for any of this. Go ask other people, read, research. My take (intention) is stimulate thinking (whakaaro) in the church about this vitally important aspect of faith in our place today. OK?
 
So, the non-dualistic universe. In the Te Reo Lord’s Prayer, how is ‘heaven’ translated?
E tō mātou Matua i te rangi

Rangi means sky, and ‘spirit world’ (according to the MaoriLanguage.net translation). In Māori cosmology, Ranginui the Sky Father and Papatūānuku the Earth Mother exist eternally in love for each other. ‘Creation’ happened as they were pushed apart and light and space flooded in – ‘Te Ao Mārama’. To me this is a wonderful rich narrative expression of Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” and the Nicene Creed’s affirmation of faith in God who is “Maker of all things visible and invisible.” It is our Western world-view which is unbiblical. We have got this strange idea that there exists something called “the real world” which is separate from “spirituality” or “heaven” or “the transcendent”. 

For our Western split-level brains to learn non-dualistic thinking we have to relax our categories. We have this odd idea about ‘heaven’ being a totally different far-off alternative reality split from life into ‘life-after-death’. If you are willing to pray ‘E tō mātou Matua i te rangi’, the invitation is to gently let ‘heaven’ come close to ‘earth’, as though like a passionate husband longing for his gorgeous wife. Hold together in each hand the ‘visible and invisible’, both true, both created by God, in relationship with each other. Welcome to a (biblical) non-dualistic universe, te Ao Māori. 

5. Is ‘Tapu’ the same as ‘Holy’?
‘Holy-ed be your name’ … “Kia tapu tou ingoa.”

A key Māori word in relation to faith is ‘tapu’. The early missionaries translated ‘holy’ as ‘tapu’ – and so including it in the very name of God as Wairua Tapu, Holy Spirit. But does tapu mean ‘holy’? 
I argue that it does, kind of; especially a strong overlap with Old Testament use of ‘holy’. 
 
‘Tapu’ is a central concept across Polynesian societies, and became the first Polynesian word to join the English language as ‘taboo’. As in, cultural ‘taboos’ or prohibitions – the “thou shalt not”s of everyday life. Tapu is linked to Mana. The more status a person or object has, the greater the tapu. An important thing to know about tapu is that it is contagious. A high chief could not even touch a plate of food lest he ‘contaminate’ it with his tapu, so he had to be served separately. Anything to do with death is tapu.
 
My husband is an army chaplain and one of his jobs is blessing any places or objects associated with a death. Once he arrived to find a dead soldier’s kit sitting at the far end of a hall. No one was going anywhere near it until he had blessed it. In Māori terms, it was his job to lift the tapu, to make the kit ordinary (noa) again, to ‘whakanoa’. 

This resonates strongly with the Hebrew experience of God’s holiness as being something to fear. Moses literally shone with it after being close to God on the mountain (Exodus 34:30) and no one would come near him! As Moses and Aaron established the holy objects that would ‘carry’ God for them, so they begun a system of ritual washing (Ex 40:32). 
 
The problem with both this understanding of holiness and with a Polynesian understanding of tapu, is that Jesus saw it differently. Jesus subverted holiness – like with the story of the Good Samaritan. For Jesus, true holiness was not walking on the other side to protect yourself from becoming unclean. It was ‘getting your hands dirty’ to care for a person in need. For Jesus, God’s tapu is ‘compassion-in-action’. The glory of holiness is known only through the cross. 
 
So my personal view is that tapu does express many aspects of a Biblical understanding of God as holy (e.g. Romans 11:16) and our calling to live as holy people (Colossians 3:12). However, we need to let Jesus define it for us. Jesus shows us that God’s holiness is not to be feared or avoided, but to draw near, to curl up on his lap like a little child (Mark 9:36) and to touch without prejudice (Luke 13:13). 
May the great aroha tapu of Christ be contagious in our lives!

Follow-up Comment:
In the Bible, the word 'sacred' is only used of objects, which translates perfectly into Māori as 'tapu'. It is when we also equate 'tapu' with 'holy' that there is more of a disconnect, as I see it. In the Greek, God is holy (Hagios) and people can become holy, but some things are sacred (Hieros). I'm not entirely clear on the difference - and I don't do Hebrew, sorry. The 'so what' is not in the semantics, but in the incredible experience of discovering your calling, that no matter who you are or where you are or what limitations you experience, God has chosen you and set you apart for a special purpose! I guess that's part of my nervousness about the word 'tapu', is that most people see tapu as something to be avoided, that is only handled by professionals like the chaplain. A biblical view of holiness is a fabulous calling for everyone!

 
6. Rangatiratanga and the Kingdom of God
Warning – now we are getting political! So, Treaty of Waitangi 101: let’s go back to 1840. The British Governor instructed a treaty be made with Māori, in which the chiefs would cede sovereignty. The English text was written first, granting the Crown ‘sovereignty’, but guaranteeing the chiefs ‘full and undisturbed possession’ of their lands and taonga. On the night of 4 February 1840, on board a ship in the Waitangi bay, Rev. Henry Williams and his son Edward made the Te Reo Māori translation. They knew that there was no way the chiefs would sign away their chieftainship, or ‘rangatiratanga’. So the Williams translated ‘sovereignty’ as ‘kawanatanga’, Governorship. And they guaranteed the chiefs ‘tino rangatiratanga’. And on the 6th of February the chiefs and the Governor signed it. This is our foundation story as Aotearoa New Zealand. And debate has raged ever since about what these words mean.

My interest here is in the links between these words and the Christian faith. The main point to make is that the many many Māori who signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi knew full well that the Bible translated the reign of God as ‘rangatiratanga’. And here it is, twice, in the Lord’s Prayer. “Kia tae mai tou rangatiratanga”: Your Kingdom come. “Nou hoki te rangatiratanga”: Yours is the Kingdom. God, yours is the Chieftainship, may your full authority and chieftainship come on earth. Surely, surely, that means ‘sovereignty’ if anything does! Māori affirmed that God had ultimate sovereignty, rangatiratanga, over all, as they prayed Te Karakia O Te Atua. And within that, promised the missionaries, Māori chiefs would continue to hold their own ‘tino rangatiratanga’ over their own lands and peoples. Sadly that promise was broken.
We who follow Christ share in that promise made in 1840, and we are called to continue to uphold it in our own way in 2022. 
 
7. New Ideas: Transliterations 
I would love to learn more about the process of translating the Bible into new languages. As we look back at the work that began 200 years ago in Aotearoa to open up the Christian faith for Māori, it is clear that some Christian ideas fitted seamlessly into Te Reo, and some did not. Aroha is love, pono is truth, tūmanako is hope. It seems that the missionaries were stumped trying to communicate the more transcendent ideas in the Bible, such as holiness (see post 5 on tapu) and glory. One solution: invent new Māori words!
 
A transliteration is a new word created from squishing a word from another language into your language. English has heaps of these, like karaoke – a Japanese word which we mangle into “karryoaky”. When people started singing along to backing tracks we learned a new skill (or not!) and a new word. Te Reo includes lots of transliterations from English, like hū for shoe, motokā, or my favourite: aihikirimi. The worst of all has to be the Te Reo name for my denomination. Try saying Perehipitīriana quickly. Really!?! (Presbyterian, if you’re confused.) If you say it with style it is an excellent transliteration of a good sneeze!
 
Two words in particular have become central to worship in Te Reo: ‘korōria’ and ‘hōnore’. One of the most well-known worship waiata is ‘He hōnore, he korōria’ (written by Ranui Ngarimu and the music by her son Taina Piripi Ngarimu). If you don’t already know this song I strongly recommend learning it off by heart. Korōria expands us beyond the here and now into infinite transcendent space. Glory is a stunning Bible word that Māori Christians have made their own. 
 
I am puzzled why the missionaries brought in the word ‘honour’ as a transliteration. Several  Te Reo words express giving honour, such as ‘whakaute’, to respect, ‘whakamana’, to give mana, or ‘whakanui’, to enlarge. I wonder if perhaps the word ‘whakamana’ was tinged by the fear of showing off. Māori culture places a far higher value on humility than Pākehā culture. To be a tangata whakamanamana is a bad thing – ‘up yourself’! Far better to be ‘whakaiti’ (the opposite of whakanui), to make less of yourself so that others are raised up. 
 
Most curious of all, the word ‘worship’ has simply not been translated into Te Reo. If you type ‘worship’ into the online dictionary Te Aka, the response is “We couldn’t find that”. The Te Reo word ‘karakia’ has to cover the whole spectrum, from traditional chants and ancient poetry, through personal prayer, all the way to Christian church services. That’s a lot to ask of one word.
 
Where am I going with this? 
As you learn Te Reo you spot those words that are loaned (transliterated) from English. These represent objects or ideas that were new to Māori 200 years ago. The Christian story in Te Reo is a mix of original and transliterated words, and this mix reflects deep-seated cultural values and world-views. As a Pākehā I am listening out for what I can learn. How does Te Reo Māori inform my faith? This has me reflecting on the closeness of God. Māori were able to grasp the notion of glory, but it was foreign to them. Eco theology resonates with God being embedded in the world, the earth, the sea, mountains and all living things. God does not lose his glory, but all things express this glory. It flows through a deep connection: whakapapa. 
Korōria ki te Atua! Glory to God! 
Kei roto ngā mea katoa i a ia. All things are in him. (Colossians 1:20)
 
8. Ngā Ingoa o te Atua: God’s names
Let’s start with Jesus. ‘Ihu’ must be the shortest way to say Jesus anywhere in the world! We lose the sibilant ‘s’es and the ‘J’ and are left only with the breath and the lips. It becomes a breath prayer like the original Hebrew name for God, ‘Yahweh’. Ihu also happens to be ‘nose’, which sounds to me like a joke that Jesus might just find funny!
 
Karaiti is a transliteration of Christ.
Jesus is Tama, Son. 
 
Atua is far more complex. The Atua of Māori cosmology includes Io the uncreated one, Ranginui, Papatūānuku and their family. But remember, Te Reo has no word for ‘worship’, so these Atua are more like great-great-grandparents than deities to be ‘worshipped’. Remember also that 150 years ago Māori people readily came to faith in Ihu and his father the great Atua. Māori Christians I know relate naturally to both the Christian God and the Atua of whakapapa within the ‘heavenly hosts’ and the easy flow between creation and creator. Anyway, Atua is God.
 
God is Matua, Father. That is straightforward. But remember that Jesus himself used the informal family term for father, which in English would be Dad, and in Te Reo would be Pa.
 
The Māori Bible uses the name ‘Ihowa’ for God, a transliteration of the King James name for God, Jehovah. I am fascinated by the history of the names of God, especially how the English translators back in 1600 got muddled by the Jewish practice of not speaking the name of God aloud. The Old Testament names God as Yahweh (from ‘I am’), but that became too holy to speak, so Jews would say ‘Adonai’ (Lord) instead. The consonants of Yahweh got mushed together with the vowels of Adonai to create ‘Jehovah’. Which in Māori became Ihowa. 
 
Ariki is Lord. Ariki, or Ali’i, around the Pacific are those men and women who hold a special sacred high rank, based on lineage. So this is good news for inclusive language as Ariki is gender neutral, free of the strong male orientation of ‘Lord’. 
 
Finally, the third in the Trinity, Wairua Tapu, Holy Spirit.
 
Matthew 28:19 the Great Commission:
Na reira haere, meinga hei akonga nga iwi katoa, iriiria i runga
            So go, make disciples of all people, baptising them
i te ingoa o te Matua, o te Tama, o te Wairua tapu.
            in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
 
A closing ‘p.s.’ if I may … can we name God in new ways in Te Reo Māori? One that makes deep sense to me is describing God as ‘Kaikaranga’, the one who calls. This would have been wrong to the missionaries because only women are Kaikaranga. But I do know God as the one who calls us, inspires and motivates us. If you have ever been called onto a marae you will know the spine-tingling sound of the Kuia doing the Karanga. You can’t tell me God is not speaking powerfully through that! The divine Word speaks in a distinctive voice in every culture. A dynamic and unique Kupu is the reo of the Karanga. 
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Written by Silvia Purdie 

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