{"id":141402,"date":"2025-09-14T00:43:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T00:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/141402\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T00:43:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T00:43:11","slug":"maori-language-week-2025-te-tai-tokerau-tane-cricket-side-celebrate-te-wiki-o-te-reo-maori-in-paihia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/141402\/","title":{"rendered":"M\u0101ori Language Week 2025: Te Tai Tokerau T\u0101ne cricket side celebrate Te Wiki o te Reo M\u0101ori in Paihia"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the dawn match, the team visited Te Waimate Mission in Waimate North<\/a>, which is recognised as an early site of M\u0101ori-P\u0101keh\u0101 relationships.<\/p>\n

Te Waimate Mission was established in 1830 as a model farming village \u2013 complete with a flour mill, blacksmiths, printery, carpenter\u2019s shop, school and church. Reverend Samuel Marsden led it with the agreement of local Ng\u0101puhi chiefs.<\/p>\n

The site was fitting for Te Tai Tokerau T\u0101ne as the Tohu Whenua, cared for by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, is where another historical game of cricket took place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis second documented game was held on the mission\u2019s grounds where freed enslaved people played together after working on the mission property,\u201d Geaney said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe game showed a connection between M\u0101ori and P\u0101keh\u0101 as children were also playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Geaney said cricket<\/a> has been a bicultural game since its 1832 inception, although he acknowledged the sport still had some colonial overtones.<\/p>\n

Te Tai Tokerau T\u0101ne player Harry Darkins<\/a> became aware of the sport\u2019s history during his 30 years playing.<\/p>\n

\u201cCricket was introduced here during colonisation at a time when M\u0101ori voices, culture and identity were often pushed to the margins,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can still feel traces of that today in the structures of the game, in the under-representation of M\u0101ori and in the sense that cricket wasn\u2019t originally built for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Darkins said that was the baggage many players still carried when stepping on to the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I have learned is that we can process that history by reframing the game through our own values.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Darkins, cricket has always been about wh\u0101nau.<\/p>\n

\u201c … Playing with their pride behind me, playing with their pride on my skin, knowing I never walk out there alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

He believed whakapapa, connection and belonging all had an important role in the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why it\u2019s so powerful to see younger M\u0101ori players coming through … It shows how we as M\u0101ori are transforming cricket, bringing mana, manaakitanga and identity into a space that once excluded us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Northland'sNorthland’s men’s M\u0101ori cricket team playing a match on Horotutu Beach, Paihia, which is the site of the country\u2019s first documented cricket game. <\/p>\n

Darkins has seen in the past 30 years M\u0101ori representation grow on the field and in coaching. The shift is empowering, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shows we have turned a colonial legacy into a platform for identity and pride.\u201d<\/p>\n

Geaney hoped the t\u0101ne\u2019s tour would create a buzz and that the Northland M\u0101ori team would begin a resurgence of M\u0101ori representation at all levels of the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cCricket has definitely changed to become a multicultural game in New Zealand; however, our M\u0101ori playing numbers do not match population numbers, and this is something we are working hard to address,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After the dawn match, the team visited Te Waimate Mission in Waimate North, which is recognised as an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[4891,60825,64,63,96397,96393,47891,740,4717,16371,1366,22795,96388,61397,96396,96395,8856,85,96390,96389,96392,96391,96398,14850,96394,3605],"class_list":["post-141402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-4891","tag-50th","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bowled","tag-celebrate","tag-celebration","tag-cricket","tag-in","tag-into","tag-language","tag-match","tag-mori","tag-northland","tag-paihia","tag-reo","tag-side","tag-sports","tag-tai","tag-te","tag-tne","tag-tokerau","tag-twist","tag-week","tag-wiki","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}