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11 Comments

    1. As the English language opened up western scientific discoveries and medicines and commerce for Māori, Māori inturn traded dialects for what Timoti Kāretu used as transliterations. So a lot of Māori words are contimpary rather than traditional meanings. But ultimately pakeha refers to a kiwi of European decent.

      The key determining factor is less than 10% of the Māori population are fluent speakers so using the rest as a source of language identification isn’t all that useful. Better the ones that use it regularly should determine its usefulness.

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  2. I wrote a paper on Pakeha identity when I was a academic. I claimed it for myself when I was in my teens because both parents were descended from 19C settlers. I rejected European, seemed appropriate for recent arrivals. Pakeha means you are a non Maori NZer (although Maori living in Australia use it to identify white Australians).

    As for translations of Pakeha, Harry Orsman’s NZ dictionary traces various documented meanings/origins of the word in the 19C. I don’t think he included ‘bugger you’ – perhaps it is a recent 20C version, a myth for the past.

    Unlike Janine, I recollect European (including European seats in Parliament)as being common in my youth in the 50s.

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  3. Funny.

    Poaka ma = white pig.

    Pakeha = fair skin.

    You can see how through anglicizing the two it might have come to mean something else,… probably was a bit of rhyming pun humour.

    🙂

    Patupaiarehe was the original name for the fair skinned fairy’s of legend , and there were other names as well. And thats interesting because it seems that there were fair skinned peoples in NZ in pre European times.

    It is alleged that they generally and eventually assimilated into the Maori tribes. Apparently many were in the South Island, where you can see red hair and green eyes among the Maoris today.

    But one thing you wouldn’t want to be is the Mohau man.

    Moehau Man – New Zealand’s Bigfoot | Paranormal NZ
    hauntedauckland.com/site/moehau-new-zealands-bigfoot/

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  4. My understanding as a Southern Pākehā is that we named ourselves, the early whalers etc were forever saying “bugger yuh” and so Pākehā was how local Māori heard us and named us.
    Very much like how the French got the name Wīwī from always saying Oui oui {or however they spell it}
    I am cool with Pākehā and NZ Euro does not explain most of us ex Irish, Cornish or Ukish at all well.

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  5. My understanding as a Southern Pākehā is that we named ourselves, the early whalers etc were forever saying “bugger yuh” and so Pākehā was how local Māori heard us and named us.
    Very much like how the French got the name Wīwī from always saying Oui oui {or however they spell it}
    I am cool with Pākehā and NZ Euro does not explain most of us ex Irish, Cornish or Ukish at all well.

    Reply

  7. Part of my heart is with maori, and as a pakeha I don’t mind either way as long as my maori brothers and sisters always accept me as both.

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  8. I think the term ‘Pakeha’ was much more commonly used when I was young (40 years ago) and the term ‘New Zealand European’ has become prominent quite recently.

    Personally I’m happy to be identified as either. To my thinking they mean the same thing but in different languages.

    However if forced to choose only one I’d stick with Pakeha.

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  9. With organic names like “pakeha” every flaw and inconsistency is magnified abit like the brand “Air New Zealand” getting front page access for minor employment spats (covering up tradition tattoos) or The Herald being used as customer complaints ie not enough Koru lounge space for jimmy.

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