Additonal Pepeha Information

Kia Ora Everybody,

I have had a few questions about the te reo Māori assessment (pepeha), and thought it might help if I gave you some additional information.

The reason behind the pepeha is to help the students identify with their family heritage. This ties in with our current unit of study, where we are identifying information about ourselves and our culture. The pepeha is the way that we will be presenting this information.

You may find that there are some parts of the pepeha that you cannot answer. Where possible, try and fill them in - only cross them out as a last resort. Some of the following information may help you:

• Canoe/waka. This is the way that your family originally came to New Zealand. I use the Māori word for sail boat for my pepeha, which is 'kaipuke'. Some children have named the airline that they flew here on, or the māori word for aeroplane.
• Maunga/mountain. Your child can use a mountain from where they were born (such as Ngongotaha), or perhaps another one that they identify strongly with. I use 'Te Mata', as I am from Hawke's Bay.
• Awa/river. As for mountain. I use the one nearest where I grew up, which is the 'Tutaekuri'.
• Marae. You could possibly use an ancestral home for this. Alternatively, the marae at Wairiki Institute of Technology was designed with everybody in mind - Māori or pākehā (non-Māori) - and you could use this. The name of the marae is 'Tangatarua'.
• Iwi/Tribe. I use pākehā for this. Alternatively, you may want to use a particular nationality that you identify strongly with e.g. Chinese, Scottish etc.
• Hapu/Subtribe. I use the Māori word for Scottish (Katimana or Kōtimana) here. If you have already used a nationality for iwi, you might like to use a clan/ethnicity or similar e.g. Macdonald, Hindi etc.

Lastly, try using www.maoridictionary.com to translate words into Māori if you can. This doesn't translate everything, but does have a lot of common words that may be useful (such as aeroplane).

Ngā mihi (acknowledgements),

Matua Mark