#Maori education

[thisisgraeme]

Championing Inclusive Education in New Zealand: Navigating Risks and Strategies for Tertiary Institutions

Explore how inclusive education is shaping the future of tertiary education in NZ. Dive into challenges, strategies, and the impact on society. #InclusiveEducationNZ #EducationForAll 📚

Inclusive Education in New Zealand: Addressing Overlooked Tertiary Education Domains In Aotearoa New Zealand, the realms of tertiary education extend far beyond traditional academic subjects, encompassing essential facets such as adult literacy and numeracy (LN), Māori cultural capability, Pacific cultural centredness, and support for neurodiversity. However, these crucial domains often find…

[mucking-faori]

Venting here but it's been deeply frustrating since the treaty principles bill came out to see just how wilfully misinformed a lot of people are. I mean, I expected it of the right, have all my life, and I /know/ a lot wasn't taught in schools, but you know what? Most NZ schools don't teach you deep leninism or about the electoral college, and yet I keep running into kiwi commies who can explain roe v Wade back to front but not who Hone Heke was.

This one time, it's become a social media trend, and I certainly appreciate it right now, but will it stick around when this is no longer a hot button issue? Will people examine the racism running deeply through this country beyond tiktok history rundowns and taking selfies with their meme signs?

Kiwis are so proud of our history of resistance and how good "we" have been to our indigenous people. "We" ensured the language stayed alive. "We" ensured Maori had land rights. But Te Piringa at the office never /complained/ about how we say her name, so we don't /really/ need to learn. And oh, this brown boy is so well /spoken/, using big words like "egregious"!

This refusal to confront uncomfortable truths is partly what allowed David Seymour and the rest of the coalition to stir up so much misinformation and hate. Too many new Zealanders don't know enough basic national history to immediately refute what Seymour is saying because they've spent their lives comfortable not knowing, and now they're playing catch up.

I'm praying people catch up and /keep learning after that/. After Maori politics, and the whole Maori /world/ stops being a trend. Even if something else happens in america that makes pakeha feel less uncomfortable to learn about because NZ looks great by comparison.

Anyway. Peace and love peace and love. Thanks for reading my rant. Check out Te Ara dot com.

[sirenemale]

Maybe I'm just desensitized from dealing with like cptsd probably ocd neurotic soup unchecked for my whole life and finding ways to just phase out the chatter of it but seeing ppl here talk abt moral ocd and stuff in a way where they refuse to be reminded of racism or anything is baffling to me. Like I don't get how that's helpful for you, instead of separating thoughts and morals from yourself and your actions you're just going oh no my religious ocd is triggered when ppl talk about me having privilege or benefitting from systemic oppression so therefore I'm never going to interact with marginalized people who talk about it ect ect ect. Or proship ppl being like it's too hard to take a stance against incest and age gap ships so they're just no holds bars for it now. Like again maybe I'm being mean, being online is hard I do think the way ppl talk is especially triggering for ocd and the whole born good born bad self flaggelation for forgiveness stuff never be wrong takes especially eat at me but they are symptoms ultimately and letting it box you out from ways you can actually genuienly improve as a person feels wildly unhelpful to me. Sitting with guilt and understanding what is real harm thats been done by you and actual bad things you believed and what is the brain chatter is crucial.

[lohstandfound]

in another life i would be a stem student rather than humanities

in another another life i would not be so burnt out because i decided to do three consecutive degrees with no breaks in between

[k12academics]

One of New Zealand's most iconic destinations for a reason, Whakarewarewa offers an unforgettable intimate and authentic day-time experience for all ages.

Home to two Māori sub-tribes, residents have been welcoming and sharing their enviable way of life for over 130 years. Experience an Iconic Guided Tour of our village with a local, learning of our Maori culture, history and traditions that have been passed down through generations, including a chance to tantilise your taste buds with the unique taste of a corn cob cooked in our largest hotpool. Get close to the best of Rotorua's geothermal treasures, including Pōhutu, the largest geyser in the Southern Hemisphere.

Enjoy untouched landscapes on our self-guided Geothermal Trails experiencing the raw nature of Papatuanuku (Mother-Earth). These Jurassic park-like trails are described as providing regenerative powers as You find yourself face-to-face with Hot-spring Lakes, bubbling Mud pools, and , unique flora and fauna, as well as views of our home from the lookouts. Looking to enhance your visitor with a Cultural Performance. Sit back and relax to the melodious sounds of Te Pakira Kapa Haka group as they serenade you with song & dance that pertain to our people. Be in awe by the fierce 'Haka' as performed by the New Zealand All Blacks, or the love story to of our ancestors Hinemoa & Tutanekai.

Hire a E-Bike for a leisurely ride through our Geothermal Park which connects to the Rotorua Redwoods Forest, a safe & comfortable ride for the entire family. Exclusive e-Bike hire is available for either a 2-hour or 4-Hour riding experience. This is considered a very safe e-Bike option targeted toward first-time e-Bike riders, Families or couples who are looking for a comfortable and leisurely ride.

Whakarewarewa is just minutes away from central Rotorua, nestled in an abundant geothermal valley. Open from 9am to 4pm daily.

[mayasaura]

did you see te pati maori declared independence??

I DID NOT! Holy shit! Thanks for the news!

Okay, now reporting back from one research deep-dive, the recent context as I understand it is this:

Last November, a conservative right-wing Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, assumed office. He's got a lot of less than stellar right-wing policies, and that includes making cuts to the Ministry of Social Development and opposing co-governance with the Waitangi Tribunal and other Māori leadership organisations over the administering of public services such as education, health, and infrastructure. He's been openly critical of Māori seats in Parliament, though he hasn't (yet) opposed them. Over the course of his administration, there's been an initiative to omit or cut mentions of the Treaty of Waitangi, the foundational document of New Zealand that forms the basis of arguments for Māori protections, from official language.

Which brings us to yesterday, May 30th. Budget Day. The day the new administration would announce their first budget and a day of mass action for supporters of te Pāti Māori protesting the treatment of Māori under the new government. I don't have any concrete numbers, but RNZ reports thousands of protestors, while the NZ Herald estimates "tens of thousands" turning out nation-wide, and a walking protest that delayed rush-hour traffic in Auckland for hours.

You may have already guessed that the budget was Bad. As I understand it, the budget effectively cut any kind of targeted funding for Māori health or education, and decreased funding for Māori cultural festivals and celebrations. And again, I cannot stress enough how much I am not an expert on this topic, so there's probably a lot more in there I don't know about.

In response to the new budget, Māori Party MP Rawiri Waititi issued a Declaration of Independence to the New Zealand Parliament, (video of his speech in link) with the support of his fellow te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.

There doesn't seem to be any concrete plan in place yet for the organisation of the new Māori parliament, but MPs Waititi and Ngarewa-Packer met with protestors to collect signatures for the Declaration, which they plan to bring to a hui taumata (meeting of congress) today, Friday, May 31st. The text of the Declaration can be found on te Pāti Māori website, in the form of a petition. You do not have to be Māori to sign, but I believe you do have to be kiwi.

[theriverbeyond]

how do we know in the books that john is indigenous? can you say more about how his indigeneity is important to his story?

hello! so there is a word of god post on race (doesn't mention John but mentions that Gideon is "mixed Maori"), BUT I frankly don't think word of god statements are worth any weight without actual in-text support (see: the "dumbledore is gay" situation). SO!

Specific evidence that John Gaius is Maori, as revealed in Nona the Ninth:

When he is listing his education, John mentions having gone to Dilworth School (John 20:8). Dilworth is an all boys boarding school in Auckland and accepts students based on financial need instead of academic or sporting achievements. Demographics appear to be about 70% low income Maori boys, indicating that it is highly likely that John is Maori

John reports that P- said he looked like a "Maori-TV pink panther" (John 15:23) when his eyes turned gold. Maori TV is a TV station that is focused primarily on Maori culture & language revitalization, with presumably all or mostly Maori hosts, and tbh I don't see why P- would say this unless John was himself Maori

John uses a te reo Māori phrase ("kia kaha, kia māia") (John 5:20) when he is saying goodbye to the corpses in the cryo lab before the power is shut off. Though it is possible he said this as a non-Maori kiwi, but in combination with the previous two points of evidence I think this all very strongly points to him being Maori

He also renames his daughter Kiriona Gaia, "Kiriona" being just literally the name "Gideon" in te reo Māori

TLT is not a series that hands you anything on a silver platter but to ME this is all pretty solid proof

Why is this relevant to The Locked Tomb?

In Nona the Ninth, we learn that before he completed apotheosis and ate the solar system, John was basically trying to save the earth from capitalism-caused climate change. Climate justice and the rights of indigenous people over their own land are deeply tied together, in the same way that climate catastrophe and capitalism/ imperialism/ colonialism are linked. disclaimer that this is NOT my area of study and others have definitely said it better; this is just the basic gist as I understand it, but on quick search I found some sources here and here if you want to do some reading.

TLT is not a series that hands you anything on a silver platter, but i don't think it is a stretch to see John as an indigenous man trying to save the earth and getting ignored and shut down at every turn by primarily western colonial powers (PanEuro, the USA) who declare him a terrorist and then as a reader thematically connecting that to the experience of indigenous climate activists IRL

there are absolutely TLT meta posts that have discussed this before me; tumblr search is nonfunctional and I have been looking for an hour and a half and cannot find anything specific even though i KNOW i reblogged multiple posts about this in the first few weeks following NTN's release. sad & I am sorry

I think that by the time the books take place, John is 10k years removed from the cultural context he grew up in, with the Nine Houses having become a genocidal colonial power in their own right (with more parallels to be made between John's forever war for the resources of literal life energy and like, oil wars), but I also think that John Gaius is a fictional character who can represent and symbolize multiple different things in service of telling a story. (not to mention the potential thematic parallels being made to how oppressed people sometimes are pressed into replicating the power dynamics of their oppressors and continuing the cycle--now that is a tumblr post i KNOW i read last year and definitely cannot find right now, once again sad & I am sorry)

How Radical Was John Gaius, Really is a forum thread that was locked by the moderators after 234534645674564 pages of heated debate

[angelsstranger]

everyone can hate me for tjis but i started reading the locked tomb in 2018 so i have had more than enough time to realize i really find the fandom so so annoying and almost all my criticism for tm as a white author dipping her toes into writing about Maori people and their relations to colonialism have never been adressed after years and the fans still can only compare it to baru another speculative fantasy about colonialism written by a white author. the books are powerful but please i think there is something to be said of white authors making up genocides as allegories for real ethnic cleansings instead of simply platforming indigenous authors. i am willing to do a reread on baru to give it another chance and i love tlt. but i think a bit too much credit is given to Tamsyn Muir as an author for taking the typical approach of never confirming in text the race or ethnicity of her characters beyond a few vague mentions of skin tone and a tumblr post she made after the publication explaining things that should have been adressed straight on in the narrative.

and seth dickinson is clearly very educated and well-read but also my read of baru kind of had me thinking about how i never hear fans of the locked tomb raving about authors like Octavia Butler, Carmen Maria Machado, Andrea L. Rogers, Benjanun Sriduankaew, Jewelle Gomez or any other related fiction authors of queer stories born from their cultures and of their people.

as a white reader writer and creative, i want to encourage other white people to broaden your horizons and read lesbian and queer stories that weren’t written by white people and read new perspectives outside of your ethnicity. I have found deeper narratives that challenge colonialism here and without the need to invent fictionalized indigenous people and fictional brutalizations. Enough subtext ! Read something explicit!

[ashadowofburnedoutstardust]

hello. I have sent this ask to another NZ blog as well but I would greatly appreciate you answering too as I am trying to get multiple people's opinions.

i might have the opportunity to move to NZ. with everything going on in the US I am really scared about Trump and am thinking about taking it but I wanted to ask you about your current ruling party. It seems like they are maybe rightwinng and kind of like the US Republican party are trying to gchange the government to give themselves more power which makes me fear they are another russia back antidemocratwic party like the GOP. do you think this is true ad that democracy is in danger in NZ? Are they popular? Do you think NZ will remain a democracy in the future?

Hello anon,

I'm going to be honest things are a little unsturdy at the moment

Our current ruling party formed a coalition with two other parties but thanks to the vigilance of the New Zealand people (politics is a very common discussion in this country and we don't shy away from it nor our opinions on it) we have managed to uncover the links between particular members of the coalition (the ruling parties) and the Atlas network lobby

It's worth noting that the current ruling government did not win by popular vote and had to form and alliance with two other parties to secure the ruling position

We have very good reason to believe it is related directly to project 2025 and that their reason for doing so is to gain access to drilling for oil in our Territory

There is currently more oil under New Zealand's Territory both land and sea then there is in Saudi Arabia

You may want to familiarise yourself with the geology of gas and oil fields ( we have one of the largest gas fields in the world - the Maui) but natural gas is normally a pocket at the very top of a very large deposit of oil and there is far less gas than there is oil

Here's a little tidbit for you: the official story is that there was a venture made by petroleum companies in order to discover it - technically a farmer on the central plateau found some of his cattle poisoned and got some environmental guys to come and check what was happening turns out what was in his pond was crude oil. How do I know this? The guy that went to the farm to verify it is my father's second cousin.......

Anyway the government of the time covered it up and ensured that oil would not be able to be drilled on New Zealand land so they started exploring out at sea

Back to the political situation

The coalition is made up of three parties which are all to some degree right wing, some more than others

Since being elected they have managed to make themselves the most unpopular people in the entire country.........

Sufficed to say due to the fact that speaking openly about politics in this country is a fairly normal everyday event we have managed to put enough public pressure on the government to back down on several things and many institutions such as universities who have self-governance have defended their positions publicly, others have done it in more subtle ways

For example they defunded Te Reo Maori language education and in response the New Zealand public maxed out bookings in Maori language classes all over the country..........

Our democracy is currently under threat from foreign interference and we are well aware of the consequences of backing down

I can assure you that the New Zealand public will not be doing so under any circumstances, maybe we get that from our Irish ancestors 🤷‍♀️

Personally I think it comes from having been ruled by the British and having our economy intentionally tanked after we removed their influence from indirect power over our government in the 60- 70's right after oil was first discovered in New Zealand which we then insured would not be able to be drilled for on land, having had the French committed terrorist act on our soil by sinking the rainbow warrior, and previously telling the US that they were bullies and vehemently opposing nuclear power which ultimately resulted in a ban of the technology and a freeze out of communal military action and support...........

We understand what it is to be a target of people who feel they are "superior" than you, and by we I mean boomers right down to millennials, our Gen z are currently experiencing their first event but I can imagine that their parents are passing on the stories of the past

They may be the ruling parties in government for now but I can guarantee you that next election they will be voted out vehemently

They are currently planning to attempt to undermine one of our founding documents the treaty of waitangi

This document is a very complicated piece of our history to say the least and due to breaches of that contract we are one of the few countries that have ever paid reparations in terms of the returning of land and money

The treaty guarantees certain rights and the treaties principles bill is basically an attempt to rewrite one of the articles

Imagine someone attempting to rewrite part of the US Constitution - that's how big of a deal it is......

Unfortunately the way our government is set up means it does not rule over the country, it is designed to be in service of it with many checks and balances which is what has prevented many of the things this ruling party has attempted to do

I will simplify it by stating that even the ruling government party can be prosecuted if they attempt to break the law

Attempts to put through policy that undermines statutory laws will be prevented by our national law society, the Human rights commission has issued warnings to the government, as has the sitting waitangi tribunal council

We are lucky that here our journalists have been doing the exact job they should have been

Do I believe our country will remain a democracy?

We have had anti-corruption legislation and the necessary checks in place for a very long time after watching how it happens in other countries and ensuring it couldn't happen here

They can try, but we will not go quietly and we'll take them down with us if necessary

[uispeccoll]

#MiniatureMonday

Happy Māori Language Week from Special Collections & Archives!

Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, Maori Language Week, is celebrated annually the week of September 14th to commemorate Te Wā Tuku Reo Māori, the Maori Language Moment, which stamps the presentation of the Maori Language Petition in New Zealand at 12 pm on September 14, 1972.

Te Reo Māori is the language of New Zealand's Indigenous Maori people. It is a part of the Austronesian language family and shares its roots with other island languages including Tahitian and Hawaiian. The celebration of Te Wiki is rooted deeply in efforts to revitalize the Māori language after years of the speaking and use of te reo was banned in schools. Today, te reo Māori is the official language of New Zealand, or Aotearoa as it is called by the Indigenous people. It has become increasingly used in New Zealand society, culture, and professional institutions. The Māori language has also become something of global interest, with the popularization of the language through its presence in music, film, television, and sports commentary.

In the United States, Polynesians as a whole make up less than half of a percent of the American population, with Māori people as one of the smallest migrant populations. Still, for those living abroad or interested in learning the language from afar, the language revitalization movement has certainly spread to the United States, along with its learning materials and resources.

There is a Māori proverb that reads ahakoa he iti he pounamu, "although it is small, it is greenstone." This refers to the importance of things small but precious, such as these miniatures!

The Reeds' Lilliput Māori dictionary and Reeds' Lilliput Māori proverbs live in Special Collections as part of the Smith Miniature Book Collection. These 5cm tall miniature books were published by A.W. Reed in the early 1960s, the dictionary in 1960 as part of a collection of miniature dictionaries made popular by other global publishers. The book of whakatauki, Māori proverbs, joined the mini-dictionary in 1964. Other language dictionaries include Spanish, French, and Romanian. Due to their size, it is likely that these books were made to entertain more so than educate. Still, they are certainly one of the many taonga, treasures, of Special Collections.

Te Wiki o te Reo Māori 2023 begins Monday, September 11, and concludes Sunday, September 17. Celebrate through songs, stories, conversations, or by learning some library-related Māori vocabulary! You can also visit the University of Iowa LibGuide on learning beginner's te reo Māori.

NGĀ KUPU WHARE PUKAPUKA LIBRARY VOCABULARY

pukapuka book

pūranga archive

whakaputunga collection

kaitiaki pukapuka librarian

wāhi tuku pukapuka reference desk

pānui to read

ako to learn

--From M Clark, Instruction GA

Reeds' proverbs (SMITH PL6465.Z77 .R44 1964) and Reeds' dictionary (SMITH PL6465.Z5 .R44 1960)

[thisisgraeme]

A Closer Look at Ako Aotearoa’s Tapatoru Programme: Bringing Cultural Values to the Classroom

d

Hey there, folks! Today, we’re diving into something really special – the Tapatoru Programme and Award by Ako Aotearoa. This isn’t just another educational initiative; it’s a game-changer in how we approach tertiary teaching in Aotearoa New Zealand. Let’s unpack what makes Tapatoru so unique and why it’s making waves in tertiary education. Background: A Journey Through Time Did you know that…

[mucking-faori]

The NZ first party is now not only insisting that Māori people are not indigenous, they are also claiming that the only Māori who believe themselves to be so are "Elites" who need to be exterminated. Their definition of "elites" seems to be Māori who speak the language, are involved with or aware of their culture and history, or are generally not buying white supremacist bullshit.

A Māori party candidate has had her home broken into, her signs smashed down, her fence driven into and terroristic threats made both in these attacks and via mail.

Māori party billboards have been defaced with swastikas and broken down.

There have been two anti-māori marches in the last two weeks.

National, ACT, NZ First and a host of other far right parties are parroting and endorsing extremely racist conspiratorial shit about Maori and others. I am seriously worried that there is going to be a terrorist attack at a māori event at some point soon.

Tatou ma, we HAVE to vote in this election. And especially to pakeha, take further action. Support kaupapa māori, participate in the ongoing protests and counter-protests and educate yourselves. We have protests here supporting primarily American kaupapa that get more turnout than Māori led actions do. We need to change that.

I feel that māori are slowly starting to shift things in our favor, but unfortunately one of the clear symptoms of that is that right-wing extremists are scared enough to be making serious threats to our safety. Fuck them. Fuck them all. It will be a long fight over the next few years, but we /have/ to do it, if we want the best future for our country.

[kunoimochi]

𝟒𝐭𝐡 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐘𝐚𝐡𝐢𝐤𝐨 𝐆𝐚𝐤𝐮𝐞𝐧

They're so bright I can't–

Edit: these are their old color of their uniform,i change it because this one is to bright and I'm more comfortable working on with a more mute color, please check the updated one in my pinned post about yahiko gakuen 💫

Menori Arai

Members of etiquette committee, a crazy obsessed firearm guy that always carry a lighter and any type of firearm with him. Get banned from entering explosive committee storage because he's once blow up that place. Doesn't care about people around him and avoid joining social events because he hate people.

Burai Kasei

Members of P.E committee, a talkative guy that will carry any people that he find interesting everywhere. Love to compete with people especially someone who's better than him in physical education. Dislike Raiyuu tho, he thinks that guy is annoying

Fuyuto koike

Fuyuto are one of the members of accounting Committee, he's always seen with Maori since fuyuto admire him sm but at the same time fuyuto think that Maori kinda dense and clueless make him very worry about him. Have a very loud voice and talk very loud too. The top students among 4th grader. Close with senju, Date's siblings just different yk he love being around them

Reku muto

Members of equipment and storage committee, always seen carrying his weapons around make people feeling uneasy with him. Easily lose temper tho but he know how to control it. A very problematic students, a bullies, always destroy people stuff and pranking people in a extreme way for example left you in the boat in middle of the lake. Because of this he doesn't have a friend at all

Kimio oye

Kimio is one of the 'weirdos' at the yahiko gakuen, he's library committee members. He's very quiet and very mysterious boy. Close with Hagemu shirai since they both come from the same hometown.

Risaku yano

Members of biology committee, always seen with his iconic sake bottle that he replaced it with soy bean milk (but sometimes he change it into real sake in special situation)

Sunaoshi shimada

A boy that got cursed with fox mask that contains evil spirit, his hair used to be black but turn white since he got stuck with that mask. Have a cunning and sinister personality if he wear that mask, his personality is the completely opposite when he get away from that mask. Etiquette Committee members.

Poki tamanaha

Biology Committee members. Poki is the shortest among his peers, he's doesn't bothered by this eventho his friends making fun of his height. A clingy person and always try to take the Kunoichi's attention with his cute charms (what a sneaky guy) really love insect especially butterfly make him attracted to Senju. Senju clearly despise him so much but he's doesn't care about this. Love to do insect taxidermy.

Oujirou sakurazaki

Health Committee members, a clumsy guy that make a mistake in everything he do. People call him cherry boy because of his hair color that look identical to a cherry blossom tree. His hobby is ikebana a.k.a arranging flower. get bully and pranked by Reku.

Shiroshi Uyehara

There's no information about him except being a P.E committee members.

Ryomie ozaki

A exorcists or also know as the funni guy, always make a trick that he call magic to make people day better. Share his dorm with shiroshi and oujirou since his dorm is bigger inside like a whole house than on how it look outside. Have mixed blood with foreigner. Famous with the Kunoichi's since they say he have a very charming personality and look. The members of Library Committee

[sefaradweb]

"Hitler tenía razón": Aumento histórico del antisemitismo en Nueva Zelanda afecta a judíos

🇪🇸 En Nueva Zelanda, los judíos enfrentan un alarmante aumento del antisemitismo. A pesar de representar solo el 0.2% de la población, los judíos son víctimas desproporcionadas de crímenes de odio. En Auckland, el 13% de todos los crímenes de odio fueron dirigidos contra ellos, y el número de incidentes antisemitas ha alcanzado cifras históricas, con 227 incidentes reportados entre el 7 de octubre de 2023 y el 7 de octubre de 2024. Esto incluye agresiones físicas, amenazas de muerte, vandalismo e incluso cocteles molotov arrojados a negocios judíos. Un 40% de los ataques ocurrieron en escuelas. La comunidad judía local ha sido blanco de comentarios como "Hitler tenía razón". La mayoría de los perpetradores eran maoríes (49%) y europeos (46%), con la glorificación de Hamas por algunos sectores radicales como un factor preocupante. El Consejo Judío de Nueva Zelanda (NZJC) ha instado al gobierno a aumentar la seguridad para la comunidad judía y mejorar la educación contra el antisemitismo, sugiriendo incluso la creación de un Enviado Especial para combatirlo. La situación se ha vuelto tan grave que el NZJC ha pedido que se proscriba a organizaciones como IRGC y PFLP y que se frene el financiamiento a la UNRWA.

🇺🇸 In New Zealand, Jews are facing an alarming rise in antisemitism. Despite representing only 0.2% of the population, Jews are disproportionately targeted in hate crimes. In Auckland, 13% of all reported hate crimes were against Jews, and the number of reported antisemitic incidents has reached historical highs, with 227 incidents between October 7, 2023, and October 7, 2024. These incidents include physical assaults, death threats, vandalism, and even Molotov cocktails thrown at Jewish businesses. 40% of the attacks occurred in schools. The local Jewish community has been the target of comments like "Hitler was right." Most perpetrators were Maori (49%) and Europeans (46%), with the glorification of Hamas by some radical factions being a concerning factor. The New Zealand Jewish Council (NZJC) has urged the government to increase security for the Jewish community and improve education on antisemitism, even suggesting the creation of a Special Envoy to combat it. The situation has become so severe that the NZJC has called for the proscription of organizations like IRGC and PFLP and for funding to UNRWA to be halted.

[accuratepicuresofanthropologists]

Franz Boas

Franz Boas was not the father of American anthropology. But the fact that so many people think he was shows how thoroughly his relentless energy transformed the discipline as we know it today.

Boas around age four

Boas was born in Germany in 1858. He grew up in the shadow of events that happened a decade earlier: The famous ‘Revolutions of 1848’, when people across Europe demanded an end to imperialism, monarchy, and the poverty caused by the Industrial Revolution. Boas grew up in a household of “forty eighters”, and became deeply committed to the ideals of liberty and progress which drove the revolutions. As a young man, Boas received a rigorous education and spent most of his free time outdoors, exploring the natural world. Like his idol Alexander von Humboldt, Boas combined a romantic wonder at nature's rich diversity with a naturalist's love of science, rigor, and classification.

Boas was Jewish, but not because he wanted to be. His parents were wealthy merchants for whom 'progress' meant shedding the ancient superstitions of the past. He didn't have a choice: Germany had given Jews the right to vote and own property, but remained an antisemitic place. Boas was labeled a Jew by others. So he learned to be fearless: In college when he was insulted he demanded a duel. He and his opponent would don goggles to protect their eyes, and then use their sabers to try to slash open each others’ face. “With the damn Jew baiters this winter one could not survive without quarreling and fighting.” He wrote his worried parents, reassuring them. “I remain unmolested since every student here knows that I would not be shy to defend my affairs with the sword.” He was not exaggerating. "He bears the mark of his German university training literally," the Maori anthropologist Te Rangi Hiroa noted, "in a somewhat disfiguring scar across his face". Indeed, one of the first things people noted about Boas were his scars.

Although he was academically gifted, Boas ended up doing a Ph.D. in the unprepossessing university of Kiel. His sister Toni was ill and the Boas family was tight-knit: He went to go live with her. The result was a miserable experience writing a Ph.D. on the color of seawater. His main discovery was that it was incredibly hard to measure the color of sea water. Later on, when he studied how perception is shaped by culture, these insights would come to help him. At the time, he was miserable.

Then love struck: Boas fell head over heels for Marie Krackowizer, a German-American lady whose family of “Forty Eighters” had fled to the US. She loved him too, but they could not be married until he got a job. For that, Boas needed to “habilitate”, a level of education above a Ph.D. He decided on a trip to the arctic, where he would study the influence of geography on Inuit people. He paid for it by writing an account of his travels for a German newspaper, and with a gift of money from the man who would be his principle benefactor in years to come, his uncle Jacobi. His parents insisted that he take along the gardener, Willie, so that he wouldn't be alone.

Boas posing in a German photography studio for an image to share with people demonstrating what his life had been like in Baffinland.

Boas spent a year in Baffinland, an island in the far, far north of Canada. The trip was unbelievably dangerous: Ships had to dock at the edge of the ice and then people would walk across the ice to the island. In the winter it was -40 degrees. Luckily Boas was energetic, focused, and driven by huge energy. He was the sort of person who was disgusted at himself for only working 20 hour days. He did research during the day and read Kant at night. Above all, he came to see Inuit people as people. "The more I see of their customs, the more I realize that we have no right to look down on them," he wrote to Marie in a letter that was spattered with the blood of the raw seal liver he had been eating.

Boas's trip was a success. He habilitated and married his sweetheart Marie. Together they created a loving and warm family. Professional success eluded him, however. Antisemitism made it difficult for him to find a job in Germany, so he moved to the US, where Marie’s family was — there were more opportunities there and Franz was also attracted to America as a land where his political ideals of liberty and freedom were more realized than they were in Germany.

Franz and Marie's wedding portrait.

Unfortunately, Boas found that there were few good jobs for geographers in the US. What people were interested in was Native Americans. Back in 1879 (when Boas was still in school) anthropology as a modern discipline was born in the United States. The goal was to understand the 'natural history of mankind', which in the US meant the origins of Native Americans. Were had they come from and what were they like? Previous answers -- tenuously derived from the Bible -- were clearly inadequate in light of new theories of evolution.

So Boas retooled himself as an anthropologist. He made multiple trips to the Pacific Northwest, a region that he is most closely associated with today. Still, he struggled. He got a dream job as a professor at Clark, a brand new university — only to have the university close down after a few years. He organized anthropological exhibits at the World's Fair at Chicago, hoping it would lead to a permanent position, but it didn’t. It was a dark time for Boas. His third daughter, Hete, was born in Chicago, caught whooping cough, and died in his arms. She was ten months old. Finally, Boas took a job at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and started teaching part time at Columbia. Finally in 1899, at the age of forty, he got a permanent position: He was now a faculty member at Columbia.

"Boas with the George Hunt family. Left to right, standing: David, George, Lalaxs'a, Mary (Ebbetts), Jonathan and Franz Boas. Sitting: Marion and Lucy. From row: Mary and Stanley" from Franz Boas: An Illustrated Biography

At Columbia, Boas was cutting edge. At a time when Harvard and Yale were just beginning to update their medieval curriculums, he had a Ph.D., the new research-focused degree that had made German universities world famous. Boas made history by being the first person in the US to offer a Ph.D. His students included Ruth Benedict, Edward Sapir, Margaret Mead, Robert Lowie, Alfred Kroeber, and many others.

Boas was also a tireless organizer, sitting on boards of journals, foundations, and associations. These positions allowed him to control funding and direct it to students. He was also a close friend of the millionaire feminist and activist Elsie Clews Parsons, who herself funded an entire generation of anthropological fieldwork. Boas worked his students very, very hard but also showed them tremendous loyalty. Boas not only lent money to students in times of need, in one case he signed on as a guarantor of a student loan, agreeing to pay it if the student defaulted.

Boas around the time he began working at Columbia.

True to his principles, Boas believed in meritocracy: If you could do the work, that was all that mattered. As a result he trained a generation of female students at a time when many universities didn’t accept female students at all. He also had few illusions about how much a white person could learn spending their summers on a reservation. For him, the best anthropologist was an insider with scientific training. As a result, he mentored scholars like William Jones (a Fox Indian) and Zora Neale Hurston.

 “Elsie [Clews Parsons] and colleagues at. Lounsberry, mid-1920s. On the porch, Elsie (in shadow on left) talks with Pliny Goddard; on the steps are Margaret Mead, Esther Goldfrank, Franz Boas, and Mrs. Nelson”. Via Deacon’s Elsie Clews Parsons. This picture illustrates the close ties Boas had with his students.

In fact, Boas was an uncompromising opponent of racism. Famously, in May 1906, he traveled to Atlanta University at the invitation of W.E.B. Du Bois and gave a speech claiming black people were biologically equal to white people. This was not a small thing in the Jim Crow South. Four months later, 25 black people were killed in Atlanta in a riot against black people that turned into a massacre. Then in 1909 Boas and a team of twenty researchers made 13,000 measurements of the children of immigrants to see whether they inherited their parents’ ’racial’ features. To his own surprise, Boas found that they didn't -- height, weight, and other factors were the result of the environment, not heredity. His students did similar research. Margaret Mead wrote a paper demonstrating the black people in the Midwest (where there was a strong public school system) did better on standardized tests than poor southern whites: schooling, not race, seemed to determine intelligence. Southern politicians repressed the study.

Boas’s relationship with indigenous people was more complicated. He was not a champion for Indigenous rights. He considered Native Americans conquered by the US and on the verge of cultural and biological extinction. His goal was 'salvage': to make a record of a disappearing culture the same way we have a record of Ancient Greece and Rome. He worked with many indigenous informants like George Hunt, who he paid to write letters detailing their customs. This relationship remains an object of scrutiny today: Did Boas exploit Hunt? Was Hunt Boas’s teacher and mentor? How much should someone be paid to write descriptions of salmon fishing in 1900 anyway?

Whatever we think of Boas’s relationship with Indigenous people today, at Columbia no one thought Boas was a friend to white people. He was considered a dangerous radical who had to be canceled. Not only did Boas attack the racial foundations of America, but when the US entered World War I, Boas was became a public enemy for opposing the war. Remember, this was a time when people where lynched for being German in the US. Columbia stopped paying him. They kept him from teaching undergraduates. They took space away from the department, leaving him with just his office. Boas was, essentially, canceled by the right.

What’s more, Boas's life was beset by personal tragedy. In addition to the death of his ten month old daughter in 1894, in 1924 his daughter Trudel died of polio. In 1925 his son Heini was killed in a car accident. Then in 1929 his wide died in a hit and run accident - the driver who hit her was never found. Boas's misery was palpable even before Marie's death. In 1927 he wrote to his son Ernst:

"I have not the light spirit of others and when I do not work, or else am intensely occupied with something else I can think of nothing but Trudel and Heini. They are there when I get up in the morning and when I stop work at night they are there… If I do not work these thoughts would destroy me." [L-Z v2 275]

Franz Boas featured on the cover of the 11 May 1936 cover of Time Magazine. In his old age, Boas's fight against racism became popular in America again as the US prepared to fascism in Europe.

Late in life Boas received the recognition he deserved, becoming a world-renowned scientist. In America, his anti-racist thinking became more and more recognized as America geared up to fight fascism. In Germany, an event was scheduled to give him an honorary degree. The degree was canceled and his books were pulled from the library and burnt by the Nazis. His last great work of activism was to help Jewish and leftist scholars flee the Nazis and get visas to come teach in America.

When Boas retired, he handed Columbia a gift: despite its attempts to derail him, he had created perhaps the greatest department of anthropology in the United States. And yet here failure dogged him. He had hoped his students Alfred Kroeber and Edward Sapir would come to Columbia to continue his work. Instead they stayed at Berkeley and Yale. His successor became Ruth Benedict, but she was then pushed aside by the administration and replaced by first Ralph Linton and then Duncan Strong.

Boas suffered many setbacks in his life, but he also overcame many obstacles. He lived an extraordinary life: Born before the Civil War, he lived to see the Pearl Harbor bombings. He trained the anthropologists who went on to start departments at Yale, Berkeley, Oregon, and many other places. He produced his famous “six foot shelf” — enough books on Kwakwakwakw that is longer than I was tall. After his death, his grandchildren and George Hunt’s grandchildren had a family reunion, and Hunt’s great grandchildren study anthropology in University. Despite his incredible age, Boas did not live to see just how influential he would become. Although he did not know it at the time, he became one of the few people Boas did not quite Although he may not have recognized or admitted it, he had in fact become one of the most important anthropologists in the world, and left an indelible imprint on the discipline for generations to come.

Sources: This was drawn from Rosemary Lévy-Zumwalt's two volume biography of Boas. The quote from . The reference to 1879 as the 'founding' date of anthropology comes from https://www.jstor.org/stable/658142?seq=1 . The Te Rangi Hiroa quote is from Na to Hoa Aroha volume 3. The blood stained letter is from George Stocking's "From physics to ethnology", p. 148

[triplefool]

Lingua franca 2: Indonesian

Indonesian has been the official language of Indonesia since 1945, an archipelago of 18,000 islands and over 700 languages!

It is a Malay language part of the Austronesian family (Hawaïan, Maori…), and is spoken as a native language by (only) 20% of the population!

The rest learn it at school in addition to their native language, whether it is Chinese, Javanese or Land Dayak (of one of the native/indigenous groups of Indonesia)

Some see Indonesian as the most successful lingua franca by permitting intercommunication without oppressing minority languages/cultures (very different from the West!)

Indonesian is also deemed by many linguists as ‘easy’ due to having no declension and little to no conjugation as English or Mandarin Chinese, which is a common feature of lingua francas

An interesting feature is how the plural is formed in Bahasa Indonesia (the Indonesian language), that is with reduplication > For example, “buku” (book) becomes “buku-buku” (books)

>Sources:

-Martono, Dewantara J.A., & Efriani, Prasetiyo W.H. (2022). The national identity on the border: Indonesian language awareness and attitudes through multi-ethnic community involvement. J Community Psychol, 50, 111–125. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.22505

-Ridwan, M. (2018). National and Official Language: The Long Journey of Indonesian Language. Budapest International Research and Critics Institute-Journal (BIRCI-Journal), 1(2), 72-78, https://doi.org/10.33258/birci.v1i2.14 

-Sudaryanto, M., & Rahayu, E. T. (2021). The Indonesian grammar test: What foreigners need to know. Psychology and Education, 58(2), 4391-4402. https://doi.org/10.17762/pae.v58i2.2828

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