EDUCATED: Maria Wynyard is undertaking the highest qualification in education and writing the near 100,000 word document in te reo Māori. Picture supplied
Few people can claim to have a PhD but even fewer can claim to have written theirs in te reo Māori.
Maria Wynyard is not there yet but last year started the long road to the highest qualification in education.
Her doctoral thesis expands on her Master’s research, which looked at a genre
of moteatea (traditional chant), called tatangi apakura, which are songs of lament for those who have been lost, through war and other painful events.
“For some, these would be quite morbid, but for my hapū, they’re a treasure trove of history, language, a glimpse into our ancestors’ times,” said Maria.
This genre of moteatea was quite unique to her three Ngāti Porou hapu: Te Aitanga a Mate, Te Whanau a Rakairoa and Te Aowera, moteatea, Maria said.
As if studying for a PhD and writing it in te reo was not exceptional enough, Maria works in Whareponga. A coastal community of some 40 people nestled between Waipiro Bay and Tuparoa — not the usual place a student undertakes a PhD.
Her study and work on the Coast are possible thanks to an internet connection installed during the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020.
“Prior to that the village was without internet and there’s no mains power down here too. Everyone is either on a mixture of solar, generator and water power sources,” said Maria.
Whareponga is off the grid but Maria manages to study and teach right from home.
Maria has been a lecturer at the Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT) for over 20 years (including her time at Tairawhiti Polytech), and currently teaches bachelor of arts papers, covering te reo me ona tikanga(the Māori language and its customs), research and also specialist reo papers with a particular focus on language features unique to te Tairawhiti. She also teaches a conversational reo Māori online programme with local and nationally based students.
Maria’s research is community-centric. In 2014 she helped transform oral recordings at EIT into teaching resources and tools for students and the community.
Her PhD has similar goals. She hopes to digitise and analyse over 20 years of hapu wananga (tribal meetings and conferences) that covered a myriad of subjects, including tatangi apakura, transforming raw video and audio recordings into a community resource.
It is fulfilling work with purpose, says Maria.
“All of the material that we have researched over the years, it’s literally just sitting in shoe boxes here, there and everywhere, so to collate all and to transfer it all from the tapes on to some sort of platform, accessible to its descendants . . . that’s one of the ultimate goals of my project.”
But Maria is not only an archivist. Her PhD will go further and explore the linguistic differences in Ngati Porou dialects and hopes to better understand what differentiates these particular songs.
The scholar, statesman and protector of Māori culture, Sir Āpirana Ngata had compiled many moteatea from all over New Zealand and produced the acclaimed Nga Moteatea series.
Maria’s research will expand on work done by previous scholars to understand how these compositions were composed.
Another goal of her research is to better understand the circumstances of her ancestors.
“It’s also a snapshot of what affected people to write these types of compositions.”
Maria said the current pandemic would have likely produced a tatangi apakura.
“One reason that some of these compositions were written was because of the pandemics in the early and late 1800s and a lot of people died — especially the young.
“That prompted these waiata to be composed to express the sorrow and the grief, primarily by their mothers or their grandparents.”
She says not all of the songs are about death, however, they were composed predominantly due to grief or loss. The songs also have unique tunes and a sombre and sorrowful tone.
“To some people this may be scary, but to me, as I was a child, I always remember my grans, grandpas, aunts and uncles, singing these waiata. They’ve got a beautiful rangi (tune) to them.
“The compositions themselves are beautiful and the language in there, you wouldn’t find in your everyday conversational Māori language of te Tairawhiti.”
Maria says members of her hapu, including the local kapa haka group, Hikurangi Pariha, are doing the mahi to ensure these waiata are never lost.
Her job is a mammoth task, with decades worth of material, but a PhD takes at least three years of full-time work so she has time.
She thanked EIT for the support to complete this work for herself and her hapu.
“They’re enabling me to do this and I feel very fortunate for that.”
She also paid homage to all of her pakeke (elders) and her hapu members, who have maintained the tradition of handing these treasures down from generation to generation, the true essence of traditional Maori knowledge dissemination.
Down the road, she wants to translate her PhD into English from te reo Maori. She was motivated by her sister who would find it a mammoth task to read a near 100,000 word thesis written in te reo.
“To be able to reach out to more readers and people who are interested, translating into English is definitely on the cards.
“In a perfect world, someone will pay me to sit at home and translate it,” Maria laughed.