Rōmeo rāua ko Hurieta

I whānau mai a Te Haumihiata Mason (Tūhoe, Ngāti Pango, Te Arawa) ki ngā pāpāringa o Tauranga Moana, ka whakatipuhia ki te whārua o Ruatoki i roto o Tūhoe. Ko te reo Māori te reo o te hapori katoa i tōna tamarikitanga, i pono ai tōna ngākau ki te reo Māori. He wā hoki tērā i ora ai te whārua i ōna whenua, i ōna ngahere me ōna awa, me te aha, whakatōkia ana ki roto ki a Te Haumihiata te aroha ki te reo, ki ngā tini a Tāne, a Tangaroa, me te hiahia tonu ki te whakatipu i ngā momo mea katoa.

Ka whakahaungia e Tīmoti Kāretu kia haere ia ki te whare wānanga i ōna tau 30, nāwai ā, ka noho ia hei kaiako i te Tari Māori o Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato. Nō muri ka haere ia ki Te Taura Whiri, ka noho hei Kaitiaki Reo mō te motu. Ko tana pukapuka o nā tata nei, Te Rātaka a Tētahi Kōhine, tana whakamāoritanga o te Diary of a Young Girl a Anne Frank, i tohaina ki ngā kura o Aotearoa i te 2019.

Born by the sea in Tauranga Moana and raised in Ruatoki in the nation of Tūhoe, Te Haumihiata Mason (Tūhoe, Ngāti Pango, Te Arawa) has spent a lifetime devoted to te reo Māori. Her formative years were spent in a monolingual Māori language community at a time when most of the food on the table was sourced from the land, bush and river. Growing up in this environment instilled in Te Haumihiata a passion for te reo Māori, a love of native flora and fauna and a compulsion for growing things.

Persuaded by Tīmoti Kāretu to attend university in her 30s, Te Haumihiata went on to become a lecturer at Waikato University and then worked for many years at Te Taura Whiri, eventually becoming Kaitiaki Reo and a national authority on the language. Her recent book Te Rātaka a Tētahi Kōhine, a translation of Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl, was distributed to schools across Aotearoa in 2019.