Storyteller Tamati Waaka nō Ngāti Pūkeko, Tūhoe and Te Whanau a Apanui.
This is telling our stories in te reo.... it’s a whakangahau or a light way to get our stories across in te reo Māori. It is through Nga Kōrero tuku-iho or our Pūrākau that learning is involved. It revives old stories and old traditions of story telling, which has been dormant for a while.
I know every marae has an uncle who can tell a mean story, but is it a formal story for the purpose of holding old kōrero? I would say no, its just to make us laugh. So this is about getting all that together, the entertaining side, the storytelling side and of course the te reo side for our tamariki.
Storytelling is not an easy task if you have the job of keeping a room full of pre-school kids and young children entertained and engaged. For Māori language proponent Tamati Waaka, storytelling is a skill that has become a bit dormant and while it can be seen and heard at marae, it’s not practised openly in the community. It’s the reason why he’s involved with Te Reo Wainene o Tua – The Sweet Story of Yesteryear, a Mā te Reo funded kaupapa where it’s fluent te reo Māori storytellers use familiar Māori words and robust expressions to tell stories.
Justine Murray sat in one of the sessions.
