About

Front page of newspaper.
Image: NZETC

‘He Kupu Whakamarama’ was started in 1898 as a Church and general interest newspaper by the Reverend Frederick Bennett – Perere Peneti in the text – when he was Assistant Curate at All Saints’ Church, Nelson. He was to become the First Bishop of Aotearoa. It appeared monthly. As the text reveals there was considerable discussion about the name which was eventually changed to ‘Te Pipiwharauroa’. The name ‘He Kupu Whakamarama’ may be translated as ‘Words of Explanation’. ‘Te Pipiwharauroa’ is the Shining Cuckoo. Its cry (in Maori) is ‘Kui! Kui! Whiti! Whiti! Ora!’ – not translated in the text.

I did not standardise usage until the translation was far advanced but the following became generally used.

I eventually kept in the English text universally used words such as ‘hui’, 'marae', ‘Pakeha’, ‘haka’, ‘poi’, 'mana' and ‘tohunga’.

‘Te iwi Maori’ is most frequently given as ‘the Maori people’ rather than simply ‘Maori’.

To match the capitalisation of ‘Maori’ I also give ‘Pakeha’ a capital P.

Vowel length is not indicated in Maori text.

I have not sought to translate into idiomatic English but to reproduce the Maori sentence structures where possible. I have, though, often used an active form where the verb is passive.

I cannot claim complete accuracy for the translations. There are some words and phrases that I have not been able to translate: these are left in the Maori with the hope that someone will contact me with a translation. Occasionally I have not known the background to what has been written which has made translation difficult. And when the Reverend Mohi Turei launches into a Lament for Queen Victoria (No. 40) full of local and traditional allusions, I am lost!

I am grateful to New Zealand Electronic Text Centre for making the original paper available on-line and the blog contains links to the original. As indicated some pages of the original have proved undecipherable. Latterly I have appreciated the accessibility of ‘Te Aka Maori Dictionary’. References are made to it and to Williams’ ‘Dictionary of the Maori Language’ in the text. References to 'Nga Pepeha' are to 'Nga Pepeha a nga Tipuna' by Hirini Moko Mead and Neil Grove (Victoria University Press, 2004).

The page numbers in the original are given in bold square brackets [].