Posts by Islander
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Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Chris Waugh,
How these two counties manage to maintain such clear differences in accent and dialect given their tiny populations, the long history of intermarriage between the two, and the now near total dominance of Putonghua/Standard Mandarin I don’t know.
Because people hear it as they take in their mother's milk?
(Well, that's the Kai Tahu explanation - and the why of how we lost the Southern KaiTahu dialect...) -
Many thanks for all links Chris.
Our suspicion, as a tribe, was that it was Nga Puhi or Ngati Porou...we really didnt think it was the latter, because we descend from them. -
Hard News: Who'd have thought?, in reply to BenWilson,
And anyway, since 90% of body heat is lost through the head, so long as you’re wearing a warm cap, you could go starkers and only be 10% cold.
You ever actually tried this Ben?
Say, somewhere in Central on a real bonspiel night?
I guarentee you'll find you really would wish you'd bought more than a woollen cap within...o. about a minute? -
Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Chris Waugh,
I found this, but there’s no eBook available. Guess it’ll have to go on the list of books to track down when we get back.
Chris, I have 2 copies (plus a lot HB's booklets) and am very happy to lend you a copy for as long as it takes for you to absorb when you're back.
I am gobsmacked to learn that native speakers' own dialects/languages are being self-censored from their own children! I thought it was only English that had this paralysing effect. Sob.
O, Matariki calendar still coming!
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Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Lilith __,
I remember when I read The Runaway Settlers , trying to picture the crossing of the swift Taramakau in small, manoeuvrable Maori craft which I think are described as “canoes”. Might these have been mogi?
Bless Elsie!
Mogi are sort of waka-shaped but you ride on - rather than really in - them. They are highly responsive - I'm told (having only been a passenger, not a paddler)- and dont sink (unless-aue! - your knotting starts coming apart...)Certainly a probability: the materials for making mogi are pretty well everywhere
on the West Coast. I found remanants of one up the Okarito Lagoon over 35 years ago which must've been made within the past century. -
Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Chris Waugh,
I wonder what you make of wikipedia’s claim that the South Island dialects are extinct?
Clearly the compiler of that piece of...hasnt been aware of the considerable resources and efforts Kai Tahu has put into keeping our dialect alive!
Unhappily, our last native speaker of that dialect died some time ago - but a huge amount was recorded, from the notes in John Boultbee (in the 1820s!) to
actual sound recordings from the 1930s to the present day. And we use it whenever we can-The southern dialects were written down by people who were familiar with northern dialects (or Tahitian!) and quite a bit was erm 'corrected.' Herries Beattie recorded a large number of specifically Southern words (his "Lifeways of the Southern Maori" is a treasure trove. And you will find words in Williams (for example) that are marked Tahu. (for Ngai Tahu.) I've been collecting them since my early teens but o! I really miss people like Taua Fan, Auntie Waiti & Jack B who gave me so many -with the proper pronounciations.
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Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Chris Waugh,
ill in use in Cook’s time, although they were rare and on the way out.
Ama/amatiatia is used in the South for craft with an outrigger (it also means outrigger.) Our word for a craft made of bundles is mogi/mogihi, and they were certainly in use up to early last century. Kai Tahu occasionally hold wanaka to teach young people how to make them, and within the last couple of years, these craft have successfully journeyed down the Waitaki.
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Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to linger,
cites Bruce McFadgen’s book Hostile Shores in arguing that
I had the great pleasure of listening to Bruce, and Martin Goff & Catherine Chague-Goff, outlining what "Hostile Shores" was going to contain & why...there was enough wine on my kitchen table to keep the conversation going for quite some time...
It's been a fascination of mine, the interaction between tsunami & early coastal
settlers, since I learned at Colac Bay, that the karara that had attacked an early kaik' there, was actually a wave..."Inundation" seems to have had quite a bit to do with the demise of the big North Westland settlement too-
Whether such natural catastrophes caused the cessation of contact between here and other parts of Eastern Polynesia is debatable.
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Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Lilith __,
And I can still walk past the fence and giggle about the current owner’s attempts to kill the cabbage trees. Futile. :-)
With any luck at all, the cabbage trees shall be wifflling their lovely long leaves over the benighted idiots' bones!
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Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Hilary Stace,
Hilary - he'd help *anyone* -and that was why, I suspect, Maori (including some of Te Puea's immediate family) were so willing to help him (and defend against the misguided attacks by such as Witi Ihimaera.)