Do you know your whakapapa? No, not that ski field at Ruapehu. Your family tree. Where are your whanau from?
I find this fascinating - in many ways it controls who we are. We get our genes from our ancestors. I might be short because i might be decended strongly from Cornish tin miners. I might be related to some very stupid, pirate killing exiles on the Scilly Isles in the English Channel.
Mostly I know I am a genuine NZ pakeha [and that is a more specific thing than many people realise] and of that I am very proud.
I wrote this in another post:
"As for my heritage [which i also find fascinating] i am a genuine New Zealand pakeha. I am very proud of this.
By my understanding, I am Pakeha because on both sides of my whanau [- Maori for 'family', mr teehan's class] my ancestors were British subjects sent here on the first colonist ships in the 1800's and are the people invited here by Maori under the partnership agreement known as the Treaty of Waitangi - Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
If you are Maori you are Tangata Whenua - the people of the land. If you are a later immigrant not of British decent, you are tauiwi. Room5ians can find out what that means.
So before my ancestors became Kiwi/New Zealanders/Pakeha, they were all English except for some smatterings of Irish which are in there too."
Maybe some of you Room5ians and Mr Teehans' class will comment here about your ancestry or ask questions on the topic. I'm sure Mr Teehans' class will be wonderign what many of the words are in Maori. Maybe the te reo teachers in Room5 will make those audio files or podcasts this week to teach some basic reo to the NewJerseyites.
I hope so!
Ask me what culture quilts are in class.
From the first line of the Maori version of the treaty:
"Ko Wikitoria te kuini o Ingarani..."
- what do you think this says...?
Alien craft visit Earth! Well, not quite aliens [just Americans...], but certainly from outer space.
