#Māori Development

[thisisgraeme]

Te Ara Whakamārama: 4 Powerful Steps to Transformative Te Ao Māori-Inspired Development

Explore the transformative "Te Ara Whakamārama," a framework with four stages inspired by Māori wisdom. Embrace a journey of innovation from the conceptual void to the luminous world of realization and beyond. Dive into the essence of Te Ao Māori and unlo

Te Ara Whakamārama or The Pathway to Enlightenment By Conny Huaki and Graeme Smith The journey of creation, from the first seed of an idea to its full expression, is a sacred and transformative process. “Te Ara Whakamārama,” or “The Pathway to Enlightenment,” is a design and development framework that mirrors the natural progression from dusk till dawn, a symbolic representation of the journey…

[heavenbarnes]

this rainbow siege game making a new zealand character born in christchurch on march 15th????

[mayasaura]

did you see te pati maori declared independence??

I DID NOT! Holy shit! Thanks for the news!

Okay, now reporting back from one research deep-dive, the recent context as I understand it is this:

Last November, a conservative right-wing Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, assumed office. He's got a lot of less than stellar right-wing policies, and that includes making cuts to the Ministry of Social Development and opposing co-governance with the Waitangi Tribunal and other Māori leadership organisations over the administering of public services such as education, health, and infrastructure. He's been openly critical of Māori seats in Parliament, though he hasn't (yet) opposed them. Over the course of his administration, there's been an initiative to omit or cut mentions of the Treaty of Waitangi, the foundational document of New Zealand that forms the basis of arguments for Māori protections, from official language.

Which brings us to yesterday, May 30th. Budget Day. The day the new administration would announce their first budget and a day of mass action for supporters of te Pāti Māori protesting the treatment of Māori under the new government. I don't have any concrete numbers, but RNZ reports thousands of protestors, while the NZ Herald estimates "tens of thousands" turning out nation-wide, and a walking protest that delayed rush-hour traffic in Auckland for hours.

You may have already guessed that the budget was Bad. As I understand it, the budget effectively cut any kind of targeted funding for Māori health or education, and decreased funding for Māori cultural festivals and celebrations. And again, I cannot stress enough how much I am not an expert on this topic, so there's probably a lot more in there I don't know about.

In response to the new budget, Māori Party MP Rawiri Waititi issued a Declaration of Independence to the New Zealand Parliament, (video of his speech in link) with the support of his fellow te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.

There doesn't seem to be any concrete plan in place yet for the organisation of the new Māori parliament, but MPs Waititi and Ngarewa-Packer met with protestors to collect signatures for the Declaration, which they plan to bring to a hui taumata (meeting of congress) today, Friday, May 31st. The text of the Declaration can be found on te Pāti Māori website, in the form of a petition. You do not have to be Māori to sign, but I believe you do have to be kiwi.

[thoughtportal]

Many penguin species huddle together in massive colonies, but pairs of yellow-eyed penguins go out of their way to be alone, nesting deep in New Zealand’s scrublands and forests out of sight of other penguins. When pairs reunite at the nest after one has been away fishing, they greet each other with a piercing cry that Thor Elley, an endangered avian species researcher at the University of Otago with Māori roots, likens to “a whistling tea kettle rolling down a hill.” The species’ Māori name, hoiho, roughly translates to “noise shouter.” 

Screaming and antisocial behavior may not seem like beloved traits, but these penguins are revered in Māori culture as taonga, or treasure, even gracing the country’s $5 bill. They are “protected by sacred origins,” Elley says.

But one of New Zealand’s favorite endemic birds is also one of its rarest. The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that only between 2,600 and 3,000 hoiho exist. About a third live on New Zealand’s South Island and nearby Stewart Island. The rest inhabit sub-Antarctic islands some 300 miles to the south. In the past 15 years, the northern population has plummeted by roughly 75 percent, and researchers expect that group could disappear within the next two decades if the trend continues. 

The decline stems from a litany of factors. Red cod, once a pillar of the hoiho diet, has become scarce, and blue cod, although larger, are harder to catch, eat and feed to their chicks than other staple fish. Penguins also drown each year in commercial gillnets. And a pair of diseases, avian diphtheria and, since 2019, a mysterious and fatal respiratory illness, also infect virtually every chick. Janelle Wierenga, a veterinary scientist at the University of Otago and Massey University, says potential vaccines and drugs are likely years away. 

To keep the species afloat, wildlife hospitals and conservation groups have taken the radical step of removing every single hoiho chick on the South Island from its nest and placing it in human care for its first week or so of life. Chicks are treated with antibiotics to heal the mouth sores caused by avian diphtheria. They’re also fed fish smoothies to boost their strength. It’s unclear how, but this extra care prevents chicks from developing the respiratory disease. “I’ve got the feeling that the diseases are a secondary problem, and the primary problem is the penguins don’t get the sustenance they need,” says Thomas Mattern, an ecologist at the University of Otago. 

In 2023, the Dunedin Wildlife Hospital hand-reared 214 hoiho chicks. Without human intervention, 50 to 70 percent of those chicks would have died, Lisa Argilla, the hospital’s senior wildlife veterinarian and director, estimates. But these herculean efforts can only offer a short-term reprieve. “We are trying to buy this population as much time as we can,” she says. “You feel like you’re fighting a losing battle, but we couldn’t live with ourselves if we didn’t fight for these penguins.”

[aniihera]

Ok. I’ve been compiling my thoughts on the pathologic 2 endings for a while now, and I’ve finally pinpointed my feelings on them (enough to share at least). I’m desperate to hear what others think about them too.

Lengthy Kin-themed rant oncoming? Perhaps.

More under the cut.

CW: Spoilers for Pathologic 2 (of course).

- - -

To preface: As I am Māori, not Buryat or of the other cultures I have heard the Kin to be based on, my perspective is more from *my* understanding of what it means to be Indigenous than anything else. There are probably many things I’m missing. But I’d like to throw in my two cents, however relevant they are.

Suffice to say, my feelings are complicated. Stylistically and narratively, there was a lot that I enjoyed. From a reconnecting/ mixed Indigenous perspective, however, I still feel unwillingly bisected, torn.

At the culmination of everything, Artemy Burakh and the player are roped into a cruel, two-pronged choice. Destroy the Polyhedron along with the miracles of the Steppe, or let the plague devour the town as you lead the Kin back to its heart. In these scenarios, you either assimilate the Kin into the town, which many of them will despise you for, or push out the nonindigenous townsfolk by force, letting nature run its course. Any third option has already been amputated, beyond your will. You cannot protect the Kin completely either way, some will likely die from the plague in the latter, and the more fantastical will in the first, by being cleaved from the earth’s dying magic.

Diurnal, or Nocturnal. No matter how you look at it, the kin cannot thrive in either. For it to be a choice at all, hurt, to say the least. After playing the bachelor’s route in the first game, I’m sure that was deliberate in an anti-utopian sense, perfection is impossible etc, etc. But the first lens I saw it through, stuck with me.

When I initially read Isidor say this after Artemy’s trial in the abattoir:

“Facing the Future is the way of Love. Facing the Past is the way of Love. But the two are incompatible, and it broke my heart.”

I was devastated. The hopeless dichotomisation of future and past… and I could only construe it as assimilation or death in some manner (but I could not see what role it took yet). That feeling festered for a while, but I wanted to see it from another angle. I think it's natural to be sensitive to the words “progress” (which is usually linked to “civilisation” and colonisation) when anchored against Indigenous culture, but I didn’t want that to blind me completely.

On its own, I do like this line. It’s weighty. And I think it articulates aspects of Indigenous struggle well, to some degree. Going back to the “past” is somewhat impossible for many reasons. Decolonisation is needed but I don’t believe it means restoring the “past” fully by any means. Culture is not stagnant, and neither is the future. To say they are incompatible though pains me. Especially when contextualised inside the divide between the kin and the town. It is an intentionally agonising line, and successfully so. Pitting the themes of Past/Future, against, Kin/Town, is something I find hard to reconcile with. Even just the first part irks me; personally the past walks with me at every step, the future is void and useless without it in full view. But I wouldn’t say a line from Isidor (or Artemy’s subconscious) necessarily defines the game more than it does his perspective. For me, it is the patterns that follow and precede it.

Aspity is a very obvious portrayal of what it looks like to “face the past” completely. Visiting her sanctuary, It becomes very evident that her opinions of the non-Kinfolk sway towards genocidal. They must “flood the town”, as she put it. Considering their treatment on the Bull Project and well… everything else, It’s not unfounded. During the night visits, we develop a growing understanding of what is at stake for the kin. Their language, legends, arts, and traditions, and too many Kin are dying from pest and persecution (Its a familiar story). Herb brides are forced to sell their cultural dance to get by (another familiar story for Māori, kapa haka and tourism, our culture has also become a commodity out of necessity). Legends like the shabnak adyr too are warped by the townsfolk (as it is used as an excuse to target Kin women). Assimilation means these things for them too.

There's also the case of how the Kin are depicted as more animalistic than the “more human” townsfolk. Oyun, Big Vlad, and even Artemy have a long history referring to them as such. To make the Kin less than human is inherently othering (as is any case where the empire views us as inherently more primitive or unevolved). The importance placed on Aurochs and being one with nature in Kin culture paints this in a less hostile light (Big Vlad’s view not so much). But I fear the effect this might have on player perceptions of the Kin will be negative regardless. I’ve seen a few statements about the Kin being a “hivemind”, I can't say I entirely agree. Many are divided on how they view Artemy, as well as what they desire for the future. I’ve also seen this in reference to when a few odonghe gift you organs for your tinctures, but at this point everyone in the town is desperate for a cure no matter the cost. Their more violent practices appear to weaken many fans' empathy for the Kin, painting the Nocturnal ending darker and darker. Getting rid of herb bride “marriages” would be a good thing at least right? Assimilation might be a good thing then? Nothing good comes without cost, and for the Kin this cost is too steep. Survival doesn't have to mean losing yourself piece by piece.

I will say that despite liking the non-Kin townsfolk, I do wish there was a larger Kin presence among the main roles. While we have Nara, Aspity, Oyun, and Taya, I understand how their presence does little to assuage the dread of seeing the rest of the cast wade out into the Steppe. For me, seeing Murky and Sticky in such a lost state during the Nocturnal ending, made me unable to see it as anything but a mistake.

Two other alternating themes are present through the endings. Childhood (miracles and dreams) and adulthood (waking up and walking forward). The dominant presence of children in Nocturnal, and the fact that walking through the near empty town really does feel like a nightmare, showcases this. The impossible has been made possible, the earth sleeps, sated. The endless cycle of responsibility, from father to son, from parent to child... Children rule the future here. In Diurnal, this cycle, at least, has some room to be broken. Responsibilities are weighed more evenly. Letting go of miracles and childhood dreams, that is the only future in this end. I’m not sure If i have to discuss how problematic it might be to place indigenous revival in the realm of childishness, and assimilation in the realm of growing up, but i thought i'd leave the notion there regardless.

Leaving how you view the two ends aside, it's obvious that Nocturnal has a heavier, gloomier tone.

Maybe having a third ending would’ve been reductive, to have one person so easily find a solution to unifying the town. But, it hurts so deeply to have that choice wrenched from your hands. The choice might have been severed by Isidor, but it felt like so much was possible for Artemy. With one foot in both worlds, the potential of true reconnection, i thought we could move past what was possible for his father. It felt like that was the direction Artemy was moving in, seeing the choices before him and bullheadedly trampling through the middle. Just like he did with the cure, finding the impossible connection.

As it stands, the endings are brutal. Survival for the kin is held by a thread, regardless of the direction you look. They either die a physical death, or a cultural and spiritual one (the two could very well be interpreted as present in both depending on how you look at it). By your conversations with Aspity, even if they survive, the Diurnal end is hinted to lead to an essential “dissolution” of the Kin as they know it. Wherein the differences between the Town and Kin will become so negligible that the two are no longer distinct. Which from my perspective is its own, however voiceless tragedy.

Ok, that was a lot of negativity but I’d like to be candid. Even despite all that, Pathologic is still one of my favourite games of all time. I saw someone say on here that Pathologic 2 is most interesting when allowing the player to decide where love takes them (even if they are led to extremes). Love being at the forefront, regardless of the choices you make, no wrong answers, that's what I appreciated most when playing as Artemy. Whether you chose to kill the three odonghe for Rubin, begged him to stay despite everything, killed Oyun, the Oglimskys, or the pest, it was for the love of something. The internal strife of having a mixed identity too, the rejection and affection from both sides, is something I related to even if the circumstances were miles apart from my own. I wish that Nocturnal aligned with that energy, that the nuances there were a little less stark. That opposing assimilation felt like less of a mistake.

There's a lot more I could delve into but this is pretty long already. This post could all read like nonsense/surface level, but I’m curious to see what other people think! Especially other indigenous folk, I’m dying to know how others interpreted the endings regarding the Kin.

[jesawyer]

hi mr sawyer! i have a couple questions on the eoran languages

do the languages contain grammatical structures?

what are the different languages' real-world basises? for example, i recognize the influence of other celtic languages (i.e. alphabets) on some of the engwithan text here, but the language largely corresponds to irish.

thank you for your time!

Hello. While the Eoran conlangs don't have fully developed grammar, they do borrow elements from real world languages.

Eld Aedyran borrows vocabulary and grammar from Old English and Icelandic.

Glanfathan uses a lot of Cornish vocabulary, but also some Welsh and Irish.

Vailian is a blend of Italian, Occitan, and French but with inflected grammar.

Huana is dominantly Māori but with a few elements of Japanese.

Seki is based on Akkadian.

Engwithan is inspired by Gaulish.

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

Aotearoa: The week it all erupted

By Jamie Tahana

The ongoing hīkoi was a response and challenge to what was finally tabled on Thursday. Parliament fired up as Act leader David Seymour introduced his Treaty Principles Bill, the source of so much angst this past year, but also the source of much of the kotahitanga seen by many Māori, who rallied against an attempt to redefine the country’s founding document and its promises.

A bill the Waitangi Tribunal said would, if passed, “be the worst, most comprehensive breach of the Treaty/te Tiriti in modern times.” A bill that was developed in a way that “deliberately excluded any consultation with the Māori Treaty/te Tiriti partner.”

[frociaggine]

would you be able to give examples/explain more about how race only impacts gideon in the tlt-universe? not being facetious or condescending, genuinely asking. thank you!

Hi anon! If you mean my tags to this post, I wrote

#earth conception of race doesn't impact any character in the series except the canonically brown main antagonist

By which I mean my Worstie and main antagonist of the series, John Gaius (PhD).

I don’t think TLT as a series engages with race in any especially meaningful ways. It’s set in a post-Earth society with entirely different social norms, and there’s no concept of race and ethnicity within the population of the Nine Houses. Physical descriptions of the characters are scarce to say the least, and they rarely spell out the kind of features that suggest specific racial connotations, because the POV characters don’t seem to think it’s something worth remarking upon. iirc, it takes until halfway through HtN for the narrative to confirm that Harrow has brown skin.

[See also Tamsyn’s GtN characters description post. It quotes passages from the book, and you can see how minimal the descriptions are, and she repeats several times that her characters’ appearances are up to the readers’ interpretations. It just doesn’t seem to be a big concern of hers]

Then there’s John, who grew up in twenty-first-century New Zealand and IS explicitly Māori in a way that absolutely impacted his character arc. It's not A major theme of his Nona chapters, but it’s there if you read between the lines. The boarding school he went to, which IRL had a high percentage of low-income Māori students on scholarship. The depth of his climate anxiety, his uncompromising “Nobody left behind” stance before the cryo project was halted, and his fervent hatred of ‘the trillionaires’ afterwards... these are all informed to some extent by his background as an indigenous man imo, and so was the global reaction to his developing powers. The “We were going to put you fellas in jail, weren’t we?” the way his initial attempts at publications are all flat-out ignored by the scientific community and dismissed as culty gimmicky faith healing until he leans into it.

John being Māori is just one of the many pieces of his backstory, and far from the most impactful to what eventually went down, but my point remains that he is the ONLY character in TLT whose racial background 1) affects his story arc and 2) is relatable to the audience. Everyone else is ten thousand years removed from Earth, and I’m just not very interested in using racial identifiers when exploring these characters and their dynamics, because the characters themselves don’t care and neither does the narrative.

[ranahan]

Had you talked about the whole eyn/te/haar thing at some point?

I don’t think so! I didn’t have anything prepared, and don’t have very strong opinions one way or another, but here are some thoughts anyway. Feel free to add more if you have more/other ideas.

So Mando’a has three articles: eyn, te, and haar. Articles in Mando’a don’t seem mandatory like the articles in e.g. English; you can drop them. So of course the question is when you should use them and when drop them then?

Eyn is the indefinite article, like English a/an. In creole languages (I headcanon that Mando’a is one), the indefinite article often develops from the numeral one in the lexicaliser language. I think that would make sense for Mando’a too, that eyn in (some, at least older) compound words would stand for “one.” So I headcanon that eyn is the numeral one in Classical Mando’a, which gives Modern Mando’a one more creole feature.

And then we have two definite articles… which obviously results in asking what’s the difference and how are they used?

Te is your ordinary definite article, like English the, I guess. Haar, I think, is etymologically related to e.g. haat, so the original meaning might be something like “the one (and only),” or “the true.” Haar might also be a part of some compounds, but it’s difficult to tell apart from e.g. haat because of Mando’a’s habit of eliding consonants when joining together morphemes.

Okay, that’s a cool enough a system, I guess. But you know my whole shtick with Mando’a grammar is taking the pieces and interpreting them in a way that is not like English. So I want to go a bit deeper, and in any case we have a couple of unanswered questions, so let’s look at some natural languages and different ways they use articles and see if anything catches.

Different kinds of articles in natural languages

Clearly Mando’a’s system is not just English’s indefinite/definite distinction, since Mando’a has a three different articles. But there are other kinds of articles as well.

There’s partitive article, which is a type of indefinite article used with mass nouns. Like “some water,” only instead of “some,” you’d have an indefinite article. Maybe you could also use eyn this way? Eyn pirun, some water/a water/a drink. (Eh, I have no idea how Mando’a handles mass/count nouns.)

If you can have an indefinite noun without an article, or you can specify an indefinite article, wouldn’t the latter be the equivalent of saying “some dude, I don’t know which,” which is another sense of “some.”

Obviously the two different senses of “some” happen to belong to the same word in English (but not necessarily in other languages). But I think many of the adoptees who would have contributed to Mando’a’s creolisation would have spoken Basic. And the other way a language can contribute to a creole is by replicating grammatical structures or senses of words. Now obviously we don’t want to recreate English senses all over because that would just create a complicated cipher for English. But it does compel me when I can do it in a way that produces an end result that is not like English, haha.

I like to imagine (that Traviss imagined that) there were a bunch of working class folks from the Northeast of the Galactic Republic, and a bunch of soldierly types, who got absorbed into the mando armies at some point during their Imperial days, and left behind some dialectal Basic words (yaim, birgaan, taabir, etc) and some specific ways of using words (which might be not much like the prestige dialect of Basic).

Some languages use the partitive article to refer to a part of something or a member of a group, but in Mando’a this kind of a meaning seems to already exist in the suffix -b/ab/eb (or -il in some fandom dialects).

Te reo Māori has a proper article, meaning the noun it refers to is a unique entity. (Oceanic languages btw have a pretty elaborate systems of possession and classification of nouns that defines how they are possessed.) The proper article might be used to refer to proper nouns (the Azores) or names.

And well hey, we seem to have an article which means “the true one,” so something like this might be a good fit. So maybe it ought to be Mand’alor haar Ani’la (not te Ani’la) and haar Yaim’ol (The Return, as in the historical movement)?

There’s negative article, which basically does the same job as English no in sentences like “no man can kill me.” Mando’a would probably just use the negative particle here though.

And then there’s zero article. So a language might make the same distinction as English does with a/the with no article (indefinite)/article (definite). English actually uses this for mass nouns. But I don’t think this is what’s going on with Mando’a, since it has three different articles which are apparently just not mandatory (i.e. the lack of article is not grammatically significant, just depends on context of the conversation).

The distinction between the two definite articles could be one of distance (proximate/distal; this/that/yonder), but I don’t think that’s what Mando’a does either. I mean I love this feature, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to exist in Mando’a.

And of course many languages have different articles for different noun classes (whether that’s masculine/feminine, or animate/inanimate, directly/indirectly possessed, count/mass nouns, or some other classification) and cases.

More ideas

One idea I like is that the distinction between eyn and te could be more about specificity than definiteness. So te could refer to a specific thing, whether it’s mentioned for the first time or not (hehe, more translation confusion!), and eyn could refer to any such thing. Oceanic languages do something like this, to the best of my understanding.

Te could also be used when speaking about general truths, or maybe general truths don’t require an article: Mando’ade draar digu. No article there.

Another idea I had at some point is that the articles could also be used sort of interchangeably with the demonstratives, so eyn could be translated as “some” or “any” and te as “this” or “that,” depending on context. So kind of like Finnish does: “anna mulle joku ase” vs. ”anna mulle se ase” (”give me some (any) weapon/that weapon”); more or less the same distinction as the specificity. Obviously Mando’a also has demonstratives, so this alone is not going to work.

One way I’ve been using te is in place of a possessive pronoun, when the owner is known from context. This avoids repeating the pronouns (kaysh te’habi be kaysh buy’ce) and feels a bit more natural to me (kaysh te’habi be te buy’ce). I stole this from Swedish.

Plurals? Maybe Mando’a uses the articles the same way regardless of whether they refer to a singular or plural. E.G. eyn jetiise would be “some jedi” and te jetiise would be “the jedi, those jedi, or that group of jedi.” Although of course it can make sense to restrict the article that means “one” to singular nouns, I kind of also like the idea that the demonstratives ibic/ibac can be both singular and plural (saw this somewhere on tumblr and didn’t write down where, ugh)—I think it would make sense to either have or not have the distinction but do it the same way for both articles and demonstratives.

And I kind of like the idea that in colloquial speech at least, te might get reduced to t’ in front of front vowels. T’eparav, the feasting; t’iviin, the speed.

tldr

Well, that’s a bunch of ideas. My gut feeling is I like the unspecific/specific distinction for eyn and te, the proper article for haar, and dropping the article for general truths and whenever the meaning is clear from context. So basically some/any (eyn), a specific one out of many (te), and a unique entity (haar). That feels about right. Although it would unfortunately mean retconning some established fandom practices, which I don’t like (I prefer to build around them, not over them whenever it makes sense to me).

Anyway, I’ll have to mull it over, and dig up some more stuff (do you know what you get when you search for “article”…), and come back to this some later day with a more coherent view. Hope this was at least a little like what you were asking for. If you have any better ideas/just different ones/thoughts/comments, please share!

P.s. your other question is excellent as well, I’ll answer it some other day when I have more time.

[thisisgraeme]

New Zealand's Skills Gap: Insights from PIAAC Data

The Skills We’re Missing: How PIAAC Data Highlights New Zealand’s Critical Gaps New Zealand faces a significant challenge: a large portion of our adult population lacks essential skills in literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving. The Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) reveals that 26% of adults are at Level 1 or below in literacy, with a similar gap in numeracy. These skills are crucial not just for personal success, but for business productivity and national prosperity. The good news? We can take action. By investing in adult education, workplace training, and community programs, we can close the skills gap and build a more prosperous New Zealand. Countries like Finland have successfully tackled similar challenges—showing that it’s possible to make a change. The time to act is now. Together, we can equip every New Zealander with the skills they need to thrive in an increasingly complex world.

PIAAC Data Sheds Light on New Zealand’s Gaps Have you ever wondered if New Zealand’s workforce is truly equipped to face the challenges of a rapidly changing world? While we’re known for our natural beauty and innovative spirit, a closer look at the skills of our adult population paints a different picture. Enter PIAAC—the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies. This…

[mucking-faori]

HAHAHAHA FUCK YOU DAVID SEYMOUR

Transcript under the cut:

A leader of Ngāti Rēhia said in a Facebook post this week that he would gladly strip ACT leader David Seymour of his iwi title if he wanted to “carry on with the race card”.

Mana Epiha, the poster, has been a member of te taumata (the leaders’ post) of Ngāti Rēhia, their decision-making and representative body, since he was a child.

Epiha is a 10th-generation direct descendant of the hapū's ancestor, Rēhia.

“Don’t ever claim that you are Ngāti Rēhia if you want to tutū with the Treaty,” Epiha’s post read.

Seymour explained to media recently that his great-great-great grandmother was Maraea Te Inutoto, a high-status member of Ngāti Rēhia.

In response to Epiha’s post, Seymour told Stuff that people have a right to their opinion but it was wrong to think that any one person could speak for the entire iwi.

“I am also part-Scottish. I have never heard any Scottish person say that if I don’t agree with them, they will take away my Scottishness. If you stop and think for a moment, what this person is saying is every bit as ridiculous as that.

“This country deserves a say on what the Treaty means. It’s everybody’s country and everybody should have a say in how its constitutional arrangements evolve and develop.”

Seymour said that debate was a positive thing and a “healthier outcome than the division that is being caused by co-governance.

“ACT has consistently said the Treaty is a taonga and that its principles provide the basis for a modern liberal democracy – the Government is sovereign, its job is to protect property rights, and we all have equal rights and duties.”

Epiha said Seymour’s response was narcissistic and ignorant.

“Traditionally, one or two people would speak for the iwi. For Ngāti Rēhia, those are members of te taumata [the leaders’ post].

“After weighing up the opinions of every whānau, te taumata makes the final decision, and it only needs to be said once.

“Scottish lore and tradition, although I respect them, has no place and no comparison here on these lands. Indigeneity here in Aotearoa is when the community you claim as your own also claims you back.”

Epiha said co-governance is the closest Māori have ever been to equity and equality.

“With 183 years of topping the stats for the most incarcerated, abused, unhealthy, and impoverished, we, as Māori, have finally started taking positive steps forward, only for Mr Seymour and his government to bring it into question again.

“Those ancient signatures on that Treaty document are taonga, and they are tapu. It would be foolish to meddle with such power. The world we live in isn’t just physical; the spiritual world runs part and parcel every single day.

“[Our] ancestors were the movers and shakers of the 1800s,” said Ephia, citing Hongi Hika, Turikatuku and Princess Matire Toha.

“These are the greats of all greats and ignorant little David thinks he can claim he is one of us and then tutū with the founding Treaty document that our great ancestors put in place, so we can prosper.”

Epiha said Seymour was missing a whole world of power and beauty.

“I just hope he finds himself at some stage in his life,” he said.

“I invite ACT to prove to Māori and Pākehā exactly how much of a taonga the Treaty is.

[cognitivejustice]

The rapid expansion of AI infrastructure is driving a surge in data center energy consumption

Indigenous knowledge systems, such as Māori kaitiakitanga and Aboriginal Country, offer sustainable alternatives for digital governance that prioritize environmental and cultural responsibility.

The AI industry’s growing resource consumption, including massive energy and water use, highlights the urgency of integrating Indigenous data sovereignty frameworks into global technology policy.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

The cost is set to go far beyond human suffering, yet almost five years into the pandemic, not only are there still no treatments for long Covid, there aren’t even any diagnostic tools – and we don’t seem overly interested in finding them.

The jig is up. People are catching on that “mild” Covid-19 may not be so mild, and that the mysterious lingering symptoms they’ve experienced after catching the virus, such as fatigue and brain fog, may just be connected. For others, this will be the first time that they put two and two together. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but strap in for what comes next.

Recently, RNZ ran a piece outlining the estimated $2bn per year economic cost of long Covid in New Zealand and signalling that further research would be needed to determine a more precise figure. The average reader would assume that this research is under way or has at least been planned and funded. Human suffering aside, such a hit to productivity would surely raise alarm bells across the political spectrum!

I say this solemnly: yeah… nah.

Almost five years into the pandemic, not only are there still no treatments for long Covid, there also aren’t even any diagnostic tools – and we don’t seem overly interested in finding them.

At present, a long Covid diagnosis relies on a patient finding a doctor with up-to-date knowledge, who will believe their symptoms, and who will spend time investigating further to rule out other possibilities. This mythical trifecta is out of reach for most people, particularly women, who are affected by immune conditions at far higher rates, but have their symptoms written off as hysteria; and Māori and Pasifika, who face barriers to healthcare, and have their symptoms written off as laziness. Obtaining accurate data on prevalence under these circumstances is simply impossible.

In this way, and several others, long Covid mirrors ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis), a brutally debilitating biophysical condition, though the oft misused term “chronic fatigue” doesn’t quite convey that. Around half of long Covid sufferers meet the criteria for ME/CFS, which by the World Health Organization’s scale has a worse disease burden than HIV/Aids, multiple sclerosis (MS), and many forms of cancer. But again, there are no treatments.

I suffer from ME/CFS myself. My illness predates Covid-19 and came on after an infection with cytomegalovirus (CMV). I went from a fit and active young man to debilitatingly sick and fatigued, with several unexplained symptoms.

Pre-pandemic there was estimated to be more than 25,000 people in New Zealand suffering from ME/CFS, and only one specialist in the country, working one day a week, who has since retired (well earned, bless her). For years I had been praying for any sort of diagnosis, even if it was bad, so that I could get on the path to recovery. I got the diagnosis – but for a disease with no path to recovery.

As the pandemic unfolded, patients and advocates in the ME/CFS community warned that a tsunami of disability was approaching. They were of course ignored, as they have been for decades, and are now joined by masses of long Covid sufferers facing the reality that the medical profession has no answers for them, except perhaps euthanasia.

Frustrated with my lack of options, I connected with cellular immunologist Dr Anna Brooks, who had become a leading expert on long Covid, so I assumed that her biomedical research would be well supported. Alas, she detailed the uphill grind that it’s been to gain traction compared to other countries, and that generous donations, usually from patients themselves, had been the driving force of funding.

Together we founded DysImmune Research Aotearoa, with the goal of developing diagnostic tools leading to treatment for post-viral illnesses like long Covid and ME/CFS. In layman’s terms, we collect blood samples, analyse differences in cells, and put together an immune profile. My priority is ensuring that Māori and Pasifika patients and researchers are at the table and taking action into our own hands.

We’ve made a small start, and we have some incredible collaborations lined up, with far-reaching implications for community health. We’re in the process of seeking partnerships to take things forward. The expertise exists, it’s here in New Zealand. Still, the barrier to progress across the research space is the urgency for resourcing. It is dire to say the least.

Without some long-term project certainty, it’s difficult to pull the necessary teams together. While study after study illuminates more horrifying long-term effects of Covid infections, and prevention has been completely abandoned, research and development for treatments for long Covid is tanking. The private sector is at the whim of the quarterly financial report, and with no guaranteed short-term profit in treating us, it has very little incentive to take the risk.

So, barring some philanthropic miracle, only government can fill this gap. Yet where Australia had set aside A$50m specifically for long Covid research, and the US Senate considers a billion-dollar long Covid “moonshot” bill, New Zealand has allocated nothing. We’re fast asleep at the wheel. No other country can determine how many of our people are impacted by post-viral illnesses. No other country can address our specific needs.

Since this government is focused on ambition, productivity and fast-tracking, I assume they’d want to be world leaders in research, warp-speed some projects, and get long Covid sufferers back into work, no? This is what we are calling for. Not surveys. Not “talk” therapy and positive thinking. Biomedical research.

Put the money down and commit to this. Seize this opportunity to right decades of neglect. There are tens of thousands of us fighting for our lives, and millions more around the world. You think it won’t be you, then after your next inevitable Covid-19 reinfection, it is, and you’re left to wonder why nobody stepped up.

Government, iwi and whānau ora groups, health organisations, philanthropists – reach out. Let’s work.

Rohan Botica (Te Ātihaunui-a-Pāpārangi, Ngāti Tūwharetoa) is a lived-experience researcher and co-founder of DysImmune Research Aotearoa.

[lordstumpy]

Hey!! I love your Miku! I had a question. Why no tā moko?

Either way, beautiful!!

Kia ora, kia ora! Thanks for the ask, I did answer this briefly in the replies on the original post but I'll reiterate it here so that it's more visible. 🤙🏾 Disclaimer: I am not an expert on tā moko by any means, this is just the reason why I decided against it! My opinion doesn't reflect that of every Māori everywhere. Cool? Alright. The main reason I didn't give her a moko kauae - the womens facial moko, is because only Māori people get them (bar a few, very specific exceptions) - this is the general consensus on all tā moko. They carry extremely significant meaning for the wearer, so I didn't feel it right to put one on this design. (See also 'Kirituhi' if you're interested in digging a little deeper.) The second reason is actually just that I'm not that great at toi Māori (traditional Māori art forms) - that's my dad's gift lol. I'm a do it right or don't do it at all kind of person. There were a couple iterations I had of her with Kirituhi on her arms but I just didn't like the way they were turning out so I axed it. Third and final reason is that not all Māori have tā moko - especially facial moko - moko kauae and mataora. The practice is making a come-back but it's currently not the norm! Even traditionally it wouldn't have been something that everyone received - for one reason or another. I think every other version of Māori Miku I've seen has had a moko kauae, which is fine! Again, this is just how I feel about it - and it's something I chose to do out of reverence. I love that people think they're cool and want to see tā moko more often! There are Māori characters that I'm developing that will have Tā moko, I may have to start chipping away at that story again! Hope this was a fair enough answer :] Nga mihi!

[linguisticdiscovery]

How Māori and Pacific sports stars are helping revitalize vulnerable languages!

(Interested in indigenous language revitalization? You’re in the right place! Hit Follow for more!)

[drhoz]

#2483 - Dactylanthus taylorii - Wood Rose

In te reo Māori  te pua o te rēinga "flower of the underworld", or waewae atua, "feet or toes of the spirits/gods". The binomial name means Taylor's Finger-flower, and is named after the Rev. Richard Taylor who took a specimen to Joseph Hooker in England, who formally described the species in 1859.

A completely parasitic plant that attaches to the roots of at least 30 species of hardwood and shrubs, in damp soil in secondary forests on the North Island and Little Barrier Island. The host plant reacts by developing the fluted burls above, which were once collected in their thousands as 'biological curiosities'.

Photo of male flowers by R. Stanley - New Zealand Department of Conservation, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47509284

The flowers have a sweet, somewhat musky fragrance, and are pollinated by short-tailed bats. The kākāpō (Strigops habroptilus) was also a pollinator, but that flightless nocturnal parrot is now critically endangered. Introduced mice can pollinate the flowers, but rats, possums, pigs and deer destroy the plants.

The only related species are Hachettea austrocaledonica from New Caledonia and Mystropetalon thomii from South Africa, forming the family Mystropetalaceae. Genetic evidence suggests they are derived from the Showy Mistletoes of the Loranthaceae.

Whanganui Regional Museum (in a display about the Rev. Richard Taylor), New Zealand