KEY POINTS:
Ruaumoko, the Maori god of earthquakes and volcanoes, was chosen for the name of the marae at the Kelston Deaf Education Centre for good reason.
"The way deaf people get your attention is by stamping the floor like an earthquake," explains Wayne Knox, a former board member of the centre and one of 6057 people who speak all of New Zealand's three official languages - English, Maori and NZ Sign Language.
The figure, released this week from the 2006 census, shows that a quarter of all 24,087 people who speak NZ Sign Language also speak Maori.
Mr Knox, who is now the Waitakere City Council's Maori relationships manager, was surprised at the figure, but not at the reality it points to - that deafness is far more common among Maori than in the rest of the population.
"There is quite an organised Maori Deaf community. A lot of the activity in Auckland centres around Ruaumoko Marae," he said.
"One of the big issues for Maori Deaf people is being able to access trilingual interpreters who speak both Maori and NZ Sign Language.
"If Maori Deaf people had their way, they would use them in every situation possible, but there is only one interpreter who is qualified in both."
Another person who speaks all three languages, the Deaf Association's Waikato liaison officer, Maliah Edwardson, said she had been to many marae in a previous job with Te Wananga o Aotearoa and found a deaf person like her brother Hemi Hema at almost every one.
"Usually you can identify them because they are the one who is sitting away from everyone, not mixing with the others in their age group, or the kids are making fun of them," she said.
"I believe there are a great deal of Maori who are deaf. In our traditions, you were special if you were deaf. You were seen as someone with a gift."
A senior lecturer in deaf studies at Victoria University, Dr Rachel McKee, said 39 per cent of people who were diagnosed as deaf under the age of 19 were Maori - far more than the 14.6 per cent Maori share of the general population. Only 42 per cent of under-19-year-old deaf people are Pakeha, 16 per cent are Pacific people and 3 per cent Asian.
Dr McKee said Maori children suffered from glue ear much more than Pakeha children.
"I believe there is a physiological difference in the ear that makes them more susceptible, and perhaps they more often go untreated because of socio-economic factors," she said.
Deaf Association chief executive Rachel Noble said Maori relatives might also be more likely to learn sign language because of the importance of whanau in Maori culture.
