Posts by Islander
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Lilith __,
You know, I didn’t know him at all, except through his work. But I cried when I heard the news, and went out in the garden and planted a tree. His death was a loss for NZ.
There’s a kowhai & a lacebark I planted here, still happily growing… may all those kind of trees continue, a benefice for the future...
-
Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Kracklite,
Yep.
I've been here for 40 years. I know this place very exactly, very intimately.I love my self-built home BUT - I am no longer physically able to do the necessary upkeep of my place (o thank you, osteoarthritis) and dont have sufficient funds to pay for that upkeep - so-
a)win Lotto
(nope, hasnt happened yet)
b)sell here
(has been on the market since I went public in my tribe's magazine: am not surprised there hasnt been a rush of offers!)
c)work on getting over the hill where I have my mother & other much-loved/esteemed family
(doing that-)-cheers n/n Keri
-
Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Kumara Republic,
O, you are not wrong Deep Red-
got a wee bit overcome there for a minute - what I should have added was, Michael King was a scholar, and the voice of temperance. He relished and enjoyed his Pakehadom while making sure what he had learned from very estimable Maori & Moriori people was made available to the rest of ANZ. Judith Binney is his only equivalent- -
*deaths
I first learned that they had died in a carcrash, on this site.
I went out to the beach & built a fire, and sat by it, mourning, for hours-
-
“The Penguin History of New Zealand” Michael King, p.36 (1st edition:)
“At some point in the past millenium. however, possibly around the 14th or 15th century, the era of widespread Polynesian votaging ceased. This may have occurred because of the change in climate that produced colder, windier weather and rougher seas, or, possibly, because of a change in cultural priorities.”
I certainly know that, in the South, we’d experimented as much as we were able with growing kumara (the border is supposed to have been Banks Peninsula but I have pretty reliable info it was grown as far south as Temuka) and – importantly- the trade trails had been established. You haz kumara? We haz pounemu!
And – not unimportant – we had learned how to harvest brackenroot…We had, in short, become Maori (rather than dislocated Eastern Polynesians…)
-
Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Kia ora Chris!
Have spent nearly the last hour & a half scrabbling around my book piles (in preparation - haphazard, unorganised- for moving from here, I've been -errrm- rearranging things....) and Yeeessss! I do have the 1st ed. copy of Michael's book! The one I bought!Yes, I knew, admired & respected him. He was v. supportive of "tbp" when it was initially published, and because we ultimately shared a publisher (Hodder & Stoughton) I got to know him as a colleague. It was a bleak bleak day when I learned of his, & Maria's, deaths...*
In one of his last messages to me, just after Irihapeti had died, is the heartrending line- "I couldnt go to Te Wheke because I wasnt a husband - the other 2 could even though they werent anymore."
Michael was a highly civilised man, who was an excellent scholar, and advanced
appreciation of te taha Maori through his research & friendships with knowledgable & eminent Maori & Moriori. I loved him (tho' - not quite in the way that Iri did!)OK, quote coming-
-
Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Chris Waugh,
lso on page 30 he mentions evidence of Polynesian visits to Enderby in the Auckland Islands, as well as the Kermadecs.
drat! My copy of Michael's book (complete with his last emails, and last written card to me) is stashed over the hill-
-
Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to chris,
Nothing definite chris, not yet: some of the navigational knowledge seems to have got lost (but there was enough around for a tohuka, travelling with Te Whanau o Aotearoa to the 4th SP arts festival in Tahitinui, to swap with our hosts on Raiatea, star paths and land approach signs for that island, and generalised pipiwharauroa
lore. People still knew how to build the ocean-going double waka. It seems to have
something localised changed the need - or drive - to reconnect. -
Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
Please correct me if I’ve got this wrong, but there’s no evidence of trade between ANZ and the rest of the Pacific post-migration, right? Easy to be independent from the rest of the world if you’re unconnected to it.
There were at least 2 voyages that we know of to obtain more kumara and taro.
And the migrating waka didnt a)arrive all at once b) travel the same route/s.
There seems to have been connections for at least 2-3 centuries after the first settlements in ANZ. Some of the info coming out of the major settlement in North Westland is…very intriguing. Hope to learn more at my tribe’s major hui-a-iwi in late November. -
Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Lilith __,
hink NZ has a history of deference to offshore powers, both being a former colony and also a small remote country dependent on export earnings.
Lilith, ANZ has a very long history (upwards of a thousand years) of being an entirely independant archipelago. The past 200 years have been an anomaly - which is being shapeshifted even as we write-