Replay Media

The Ka Awatea project was carried out in Te Arawa as well as with and by Te Arawa, but not exclusively for Te Arawa. The project considers the imperatives of success from a Te Arawa worldview, referencing tribal icons as exemplars on which to base a hypothesis.

Soon after separating Ranginui and Papatūānuku, Tāne travelled into the heavens with the various celestial bodies, to suspend them in the sky bringing light unto the world. Within the basket ‘Te Mangoroa’ Tāne carried the stars, from which he drew forth the brightest and placed them against the chest of Ranginui.

Māori are more likely to be assessed and treated by a health practitioner trained within a western cultural system that pays little attention to Māori worldviews and continue to experience misdiagnosis, non-voluntary admissions, inappropriate psychometric testing, high suicide rates, limited choices, differences in medication regimes and poorer treatment outcomes.

Almost 30 years ago, Jeffrey Sissons, noted historian, proposed two major types of histories principally relating to northern tribal region of New Zealand: (1) founding and (2) conquest. Founding traditions ‘concern marriage, birth and residence; they establish relations between hapū [kin groups] with respect to land’, he wrote (1988, p.200).

Some economists argue for diversity in the way collective resources are managed rather than one having an unquestioning faith in leaving things to the market. Our team supports this thinking and look at how ethics and Māori knowledge can be used equally alongside economics in managing collective Māori assets.