A World History of Bluff

Our last all staff PD was delivered by Philip (Piripi) Prendergest from Te Tapuae O Rehua where he is a program leader for Mau Ki T Ako project. His talk was a brief history of Ngai Tahu, the iwi of the South Island of New Zealand. It was quite timely as the weekend before while landscaping, I had listened to to two items on Radio NZ about PD teachers needed to do and weren't. One was learning about the local history of Maori, so as teachers they would be able to gain a better understanding of the local Maori perspective and also pass on this understanding to students in their day to day teaching.

I grew up in Bluff, New Zealand and left Southland to go to University. Recently(once again during my landscaping listening), I  heard a few items on Bluff, it's people and their achievements. One that struck accord was 'A world History of Bluff' by Dr Michael Stevens. 

I looked up the study online as possible subject matter my current map drawings which links historical information to place names in the drawings via QR codes. My research then lead me to this Waka Huia piece on the Southern Most Marae in New Zealand.

I'm looking forward to finding out more and sharing with others through my work as an Educator and Artist. The quote below is from an article in Ngai Tahu's 'Te Karaka' on Dr Stevens project.   

“One of my overall goals is that I want everyone who has a connection to Bluff to see some part of themselves in the book I end up writing; I would like them to see some sense of themselves in New Zealand history that they don’t see at the moment. I also hope that they find out something about themselves and our little corner of the world that they didn’t know before.”

I can definitely say this has happened for me.