The GreenplanetFM Podcast with Tim Lynch

Our guest today is Makuini Ruth Tai.  I first met her as Ruth Tai. She is happy to be called either Makuini or Ruth, because she knows and honours the source of both her birth names. Some two hundred years ago, the word Maori was not used as an identity term, It was only when the European landed on the shores of Aotearoa that a shift happened.  When Ruth was young - she identified more with her whanau (immediate and extended family) and her hapu (sub-tribe or clan).  The use of Maori as an identity label is fairly recent. Ruth asserts that Maori was not just an oral language, it was also recorded. However, the European translators did not recognise the graphics as a written language.  REO means language and voice.  Every design, every pattern is the voice recorded/written in graphic form.  Ruth is  committed to decoding REO through the Rich Earth Oratory of the old time Maori, who understood the power of the voice and its varying tones.  They didn't just 'talk', they also intoned or chanted and sang and were