6-9-21

Several people have asked me, “When’s the last day of school for G3.” Even he wanted to know when the last day is. It’s how society trains us. School starts the day after Labor Day and it ends on a specific date sometime in June. (Yes, I am aware that different parts of the country have different schedules.) But the beauty of homeschooling is that I can toss convention aside. I probably could have ended school a month ago. That’s when we finished the curriculum. But then G3 would have wanted to spend his days watching television and playing on his tablet. He already watches too much television, so I certainly wasn’t going to end school early. I figured I had to keep him busy for several more weeks. But not with busy work. That’s what real schools do this time of year. Teachers are occupied with grades and other housekeeping tasks so they give finals and then it’s play time. I had my son research and write and I told him that school would be over when he completed his final assignments. Therefore, the start date of summer vacation is entirely in his hands.

In social studies, he had two final assignments to finished. The first was one Dad would have appreciated. Dad always loved Billy Joel’s music. G3 takes after his grandfather and one of his favorite songs is “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” He has listened to it so often that he has it memorized. But when he sang it, it was nothing more than a string of words that meant absolutely nothing to him. The nerd in me couldn’t allow that. Besides, before me was a fantastic excuse to teach G3 how to use old school encyclopedias. I copied and pasted the lyrics as a list in a word document and told him to jot a sentence for each historical reference. Yesterday, he completed the list. And now, when he sings the song he knows exactly what he is singing and what it all means. A history lesson rolled into a song — not a bad way to learn about the Cold War Era.

Along with the song, he needed to write one more research paper that touched upon history or culture. He decided he really wanted to focus on an indigenous group. The hardest part was selecting a specific one. First, he considered looking at various tribes in the Amazon region of South America. But it’s so hard finding articles at his grade level that match his interest. Unable to find enough information to write a paper, he switched to the Aborigines in Australia. They also proved difficult. He could find encyclopedia entries about them, but that was about it. He had a little more luck with the Maori in New Zealand. While he couldn’t find exactly what he was looking for, he found enough that enabled to take a slightly different direction with his research. 

Today, he finished his final draft which means he is one subject closer to being done with fifth grade. 

Maori: A Fight For Their Culture

New Zealand is known for many things, such as sheep, Lord of the Rings, kiwis, and much more. Oh, and wine. But we cannot forget the Maoris. The Maoris are known for their war dance called “haka” and their face tattoos called “ta moko.” Just like Native Americans, they were shunned and forced off their land. Europeans stole their decorated heads after they were dead. I will talk about their early life and how they are trying to maintain it in the modern world.

Every mythology has a creation story. The Maoris’ creation story starts with Rangi, father sky, and PaPa, mother earth. They were made out of emptiness, but they were very powerful deities. Together, they created earth, gods, humans, and more. Since PaPa was mother earth and Rangi was father sky, their god children were trapped between them and they hated it. The god of war said they should slay both Rangi and PaPa. Tane, the god of forests, disagreed and said they should make the two gods separate. Everyone agreed with this proclamation, except the god of wind, Tawhiri. In the end, Tane was the only successful god to separate Rangi and PaPa. He did it by pushing Rangi up to become sky and PaPa down to become earth. Rangi missed PaPa, so he cried. His tears became rain. Tawhiri road the wind to punish the other gods. Together the wind and rain flooded the earth leaving only the Polynesian islands. 

In the 14th century, the Maori came from a mythological world called Hawaiki, which is known as Tahiti. Modern archaeology actually supports this fact. When they arrived in New Zealand, the Maori called it Aotearoa. In this the new country, they made dye with the rich mud, berries, and plants. The Maori carved canoes, houses, tools, and weapons because they were important to the tribes.  

When Abel Tasman went to New Zealand in 1642, he was the first Christian man to set foot on this land. He and his crew fought the Maori, leaving them weak. He did this just so he could explore a little bit. Between 1769 and 1770, Captain Cook went to the main two islands and noticed that the Maori were just as smart as anyone else. The funny thing is, the Maori originally welcomed foreigners, but the foreigners got greedy which led to battle. Like in many other areas around the world where Europeans encountered natives, the westerners brought disease and guns. This killed a lot of Maori. By1830 colonization was under way.

Now, let’s take some time and look back at the year 1840. Sure that’s when President William Henry Harrison was elected and the Irish potato famine began. But did you know that the Waitangi Treaty was also signed. Yes, the Waitangi Treaty was signed on February 6, 1840 and it set a precedent for the future of the Maori. The treaty needed 500 Maori chief signatures. The British Government believed that the Waitangi Treaty let the British get possession of North Island. The government also said that they got South Island because they found it. Now, if I were a Maori chief, I would have been like, “Dude we were here 400 years before you but somehow you discovered it.” 

Modern day has made the Maori face hardships. They are fighting to protect their culture from extinction. In the Maori culture, the head is the most sacred part of the body. Each Maori man and woman had a face tattoo called ta moko. The women had just chin tattoos, whereas the men had tattoos all over their faces. The ta moko showed who you were in the clan. When the Maori died, their heads were preserved in the sun. This preserved the ta moko. Then the head was buried. Explorers like Abel Tasman stumbled across these heads. They considered the mokos works of art so they took them. Back in Europe, the heads were sold at hefty prices all around the world. Now, the Maori are fighting to get back almost 3,000 of their native ancestors. The Maori have only gotten back 13 and they are still fighting.

In New Zealand schools, the language spoken is English. And once again, the Maori are fighting, but this time it is to protect their culture. The Maori language, called Te Reo, isn’t being taught in schools. Maori leaders say that it is a part of New Zealand’s entire culture. They want to keep their culture alive so why not speak the language that is a part of their culture. Some New Zealand officials disagree. Te Reo brings great pride to this native culture. That is the main reason I agree that it should be taught in New Zealand schools. 

The New Zealand government declared recently that the Whanganui River will be respected just as much as a person. Maori people, for a long time, got their fresh water from this river. But now it is polluted with garbage and no one can drink this water. So, if you treat the river with the same respect you should treat humans, the water will not be polluted anymore. This means the Maori can reconnect with the river they have used for centuries for water. 

Well that was not the paper I wanted to do. I wanted to write about the Maori’s early history, but I could not find much information about that for my grade level. So I ended up doing this instead. I have to admit, it was interesting to learn how the Maoris were treated similarly to the Native Americans. Europeans treated them disrespectfully and forced them off their lands. The westerners also destroyed their culture with diseases and guns like they did to the Maori. Just like the Maoris, Native Americans are fighting to keep their culture alive. I hoped you learned something, too. Tune in later in the week for, hopefully, the last paper of this year’s homeschool adventure. 

Bibliography

“The Maori.” Encyclopedia Brittanica.

“The Treaty of Waitangi.” Encyclopedia Britanica.

“Rangi and PaPa.” Myths and Legends of the World. Edited by John M. Wickersham, Macmillan Reference USA, 2000.

O’brien, Yanessa.“Maori Remains Slowly Returned to New Zealand.” USA Today, 16 Nov. 26, 2013, p. 05A.

“Smithsonian Returns Maori Remains to New Zealand.” CNN Wire, 28 May 2016.

Dodds, Klaus.”New Zealand.” Geographical, Vol. 90, no. 2, Feb. 2018, p. 17. 

“This River Has the Same Legal Status as a Person” CNN Wire, 15 March 2017.