A quick look at New Zealand

george matthews wrote:
Why do you understand that? It's certainly not true.

I saw it in a few places on the Internet, and it's easy enough to believe, human nature being what it is. However, David knows New Zealand first hand. (When you read David's posts it's a good idea to have Google Translate handy My attempt at levity.) You can guess the meaning from the context. But I am surprised at the amount of Maori terms there are in New Zealand speech. There's nothing like that in North American English. In my experience, just a few place names on Long Island may approximate the Indian names: Quog, Quiog, Quantuc and Speonk where I used to visit.
Reading David's article, Pakeha (European) obviously means a non Maori. Marae (court or square) I had to go to Google for. Anyhow, I'm learning a little Maori on this world wide forum.
Showing results for google translates

Search Results
Whakapapa

genealogy

noun
ancestry
whakapapa
heredity

The Kingston Flyer, 1975, from Archives New Zealand.

http://youtu.be/GTZsWAfnqJc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

NZ steam. These engines were manufactured by Rogers, a locomotive builder in Paterson, New Jersey, near where I work. http://youtu.be/c02IYnQD8Jc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


http://youtu.be/Ya2IRJIbjjE" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLY5xrrKRsE&sns=em" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

David Benton wrote:Actually, it is a very debatable point. Moari were decimated by European disease and war, and intermarriage was quite common. There were few European women in colonial NZ.
Many Maori can certainly trace their Whakapapa back to the original settlers, but few if
any could guarantee no outside influence on both sides of every parent.
But it also a stretch to say there are definitely no full blooded Maori left. It is possible there are some , just impossible to prove.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/co ... -years-ago" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Well , apparently it is possible to prove, dna wise anyway.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/artic ... d=11836467" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What's the point? Oriini Kaipara has Pakeha (European) ancestery as well as Maori ancestery, and her DNA shows her to be 100% Maori. Apparently in this cas the DNA is misleading.
Here's a video of Miss Kaipara talking about it (in Maori.) At one point she says "mama" and "papa." Many years ago i heard that "mama" is a universal word.

http://www.maoritelevision.com/news/reg ... c-reaction" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; s

Watching Maori Television I see that the Bay of Plenty is getting plenty of rain. Cyclone Cook is on the way. I hope that you are OK, David.

What is meant by "full-blooded"? Does it have any meaning? Race is a pretty arbitrary construct anyway, but to the extent that it has any meaning, there has been enough interaction between races over thousands of years that everyone will almost certainly have some ancestors from elsewhere. I am a "white Briton", but my ancestry almost certainly includes elements of Celts, Picts, Scots, Britons, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Vikings, Normans, Irish and who knows what else.

It's more of a cultural and social construct than a biological one. I was chatting to a New Zealand colleague about this a few days ago, and she told me that many New Zealanders have mixed ancestry to some degree or other, but that the Maori culture is alive and well and there are plenty of people who indentify with it. Similarly I know Native Americans who choose to identify with their own native nation but who would not claim that they have no immigrant ancestry. Few African Americans have no white ancestry but they still identify (and are treated) as African Americans. DNA testing has recently shown that few if any Afrikaaners have no indigenous African ancestry, and yet they are still Afrikaaners. Perhaps some would argue that there is a threshold somewhere, a percentage of one's ancestry that sets you on one side or other of an arbitrary line by which you can identify as one or the other, but the idea that there is a 100% "full-blooded" threshold is almost certainly impossible to achieve.

I Googled "Cyclone Cook KiwiRail" and at the top of the list was this, South Island looses anotherher railway by fire.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/m ... mouth-link" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


I wonder if the cyclone is named after the eminent explorer Captain James Cook, portrait below?

An interesting piece by Oriini Kaipara - A DNA test showed I'm 100% Maori. Many thought there were none of us left.

But as she says at the end of the article, "Being Māori is so much more than blood quantum... As Māori, we rely on passing down our ancestry or whakapapa from one generation to the next. This is how we identify ourselves... being Māori is a way of life. I was born and bred in a Māori world where reo (language) and tikanga (traditions) were embedded in us. I received Māori-language medium education. I’m a proud Tūhoe, Ngāti Awa, Tūwharetoa and Te Arawa woman."

Yes , it is finally been knocked off the top news perch by Cyclone Cook.
I am not sure why it has created so much interest, I think people are just curious . There are no monetary or political benefits to the % of Maori blood you have. More than a 1/8th Maori and you are offically entitled to be on the Maori Electoral roll , any treaty payments are by tribe or region.

Cyclone Coast seems set to hammer the east coast. Railways likely to be the brunt would be the East coast line above Napier, this line is already mothballed , further damage may seal its fate.
Wellington and the cook strait ferries will be effected, but by the time it hets there it will be Good Friday , with reduced trains anyway.
The Kaikoura coast will also get some, that line still closed with the earthquake damage.

philipmartin wrote: I wonder if the cyclone is named after the eminent explorer Captain James Cook, portrait below?

Yes, of course it was. Cook is the most important figure in NZ's early history, as he mapped it during his most important voyage.

The naming of cyclones.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/9153906 ... g-cyclones" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The names are randomly selected to be on lists, used in alphabetical order. Hence Cook is the third tropical cyclone in the south Pacific in 2017.
They are not meant to be associated with a person , rather Cook must be a common first name in the Pacific Islands, though I have never heard anyone with that first name.

I appreciate the information from George and David.

It appears most of NZ has been spared the wrath of the Cyclone. It ended up been 100 km further east than predicted. Had It come 100 k.m further west , I'd probably be sitting in water typing this.
As far as I can tell, the rail ferries and all trains are running as normal .

Congratulations, on missing "Cook" David. I wonder how Captain Cook would have made out sailing through a cyclone. My Spanish ancestors must have sailed from Spain to Venezuela a few hundred years ago, although I have no specific information.
Got a waterproof computer, have you?