Māpuna for Saturday 7 October 2023

The Godfather of Māori sports commentary Hemana Waaka.

Hemana Waaka set up a Iwi radio consultancy business in the mid 1980s. Photo: Supplied

This week on Māpuna we speak to one of legends of Māori broadcasting and one of the first people to do sports commentary in te reo Māori, Hemana Waaka. Waaka has called everything from rugby, league and netball to woodchopping and sheep shearing. 

Over the course of his years in the commentary booth Waaka literally wrote the book on Māori sports terminology, when he started many sports terms had no simple Māori equivalent. With the help of his Tuhoe kaumātua he was able to adapt the right words to sport, such as fullback for which he adopted the word 'haika,' meaning anchor. On the 17th of October  Waaka is launching his dictionary of Māori sport terminology as an app covering 12 different sports codes, which he hopes will be both useful resource for teachers and a tool to standardise sports vocabulary in the media.

Waiata played on the show today:

Tawaz - He Aho