Te Teko, the tiny Bay of Plenty settlement where the Omataroa hills meet the dusty Rangitaiki Plains, is best known for three things — its unusual nickname (“Texas”); its golden sweetcorn and succulent kamokamo; and its pioneering Maori leaders. One of them, Huhana Rokx, who has died at age 68, went on to lead Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Maori, becoming the first woman to occupy the chief executive's office at the Maori Language Commission.
Rokx, whose Hunia whanau were Te Teko's famous sweetcorn and kamokamo growers, was a precocious child, never short of a word in either English or Maori. Her intellect and talent for language would mark her out as a future leader with her elders making the call to send her to Queen Victoria Maori Girls' School, the famous training ground for a generation of Maori leaders. Rokx left Te Teko but spent the rest of her life with one foot at home and the other on the move.
She spent time in Auckland, Rotorua, Wellington, Tokomaru Bay and Uawa where she had strong whakapapa connections through her father, a teacher and a former captain of the Maori All Blacks. That passion for education ran through Rokx — who held roles with the Maori Education Trust and the Ministry of Education — as well. Rokx understood the best way to secure and support the rangatiratanga of children was through education, especially early childhood education, a cause she committed herself to through the kohanga reo movement. It was this experience in the movement, where Rokx imparted her deep knowledge of child-led learning and the nannies gifted their wisdom and skill in Maori, that took Rokx through the rest of her professional life.
Because of her early talent Rokx herself had access to a world class education, but she came of age in a time where Maori were understood as fit only for service work and the trades. In the mid-20th century many Maori, if not most, were encouraged to set their sights no further. In her time at the Te Teko Native School Maori language was a no-go and Pakeha held the prominent government and public positions in what was and is a predominantly Maori area.
Perhaps this was a driver for Rokx who, at the height of her career, became the first woman to head Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Maori, the government department responsible for efforts to support and spread te reo Maori. The job took her to Wellington where as CEO she oversaw groundbreaking work including Google Maori, the Maori language version of Google, in partnership with the California tech giant, Tangatawhenua.com, and dozens of volunteer translators. Under Rokx many of the English-speaking classics, including Shakespeare's works, were translated into Maori.