Rōmeo rāua ko Hurieta

Te Haumihiata Mason (Tūhoe, Ngāti Pango, Te Arawa) was born by the sea in Tauranga Moana and raised in Ruatoki, the heartland of Tūhoe. Her formative years were spent in a monolingual Māori language community, a time when much of the food consumed was sourced directly from the land, bush, and rivers. This upbringing instilled in Te Haumihiata a deep passion for te reo Māori, a profound love for native flora and fauna, and a compelling desire to cultivate all forms of life.

Encouraged by Tīmoti Kāretu to pursue higher education in her 30s, Te Haumihiata later became a lecturer in the Māori Department at the University of Waikato. She then dedicated many years to Te Taura Whiri (the Māori Language Commission), where she served as Kaitiaki Reo (Language Guardian) and became a national authority on the language.

In 2019, her book Te Rātaka a Tētahi Kōhine, a translation of Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl, was distributed to schools throughout Aotearoa. More recently, in 2023, her translation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, titled Rōmeo rāua ko Hurieta, was published by Auckland University Press.