We welcome your contributions to Northern Edge and we will publish as many communications as we can. In this section, we publish your correspondence, responses and short postings. You can contact us here. Request a notification when the next issue is published.
Maureen Boustred writes:
My family emigraterd to New Zealand when I was young. From 1954-55 I attended Wellington Teachers' College to train as a primary schoolteacher. Whilst at College I joined the Maori Club, a once a week 'culture' club which I thoroughly enjoyed. There I learnt Maori songs and 'action songs' which are a means of holding and transmitting Maori history and legends. Maori history record is essentially an oral history.
News came to me recently about Victoria Cross recipient Te Moananui a Kiwa Ngarimu, previously only known to me as the 'Maori VC'. When I attended Maori Club we were lucky to have his sister as 'leader'. I think her name was Horowhai(!) Ngarimu but we all called her Bubbi and she came from the East Coast area - the home of the Ngati Porou tribe. All Maori members of that Club were Ngati Porou.
For teaching experience in my second year I did a month at the Dominion Museum where I had to show groups of children around a special 'Colonial Exhibition. Round the outside walls were mock-ups of ship's cabins and one or two house rooms exhibiting items which the early pioneers brought with them to NZ. The travellers kitted out the ship cabins with furniture and other domestic items that they thought they would need where they would be settling.
In the exhibition central area were glass cases containing original documents and paper work relating to what I can only call the 'land-grabbing' that went on during the 1800's and early 1900's. Maori chiefs gave up thousands of land acres via 'pakeha' (white man) legal terms. The transactions were authorised by the chief's thumb print. Red sealing wax came in handy. A blanket or two, or a pointed red night cap with a bobble given to the chiefs really clinched 'the deal'.
From what I have been reading lately it seems that there is growing recognition of the rights of female Maoris - wahine. In the 1800s - before pakeha intervention, quite a lot of land was owned by Maori women in their own right, and often managed on behalf of the tribe. This ownership was completely ignored by the pakeha transactions and document writers at the time.
In closing, I include a side issue - which may help in understanding current 2021 health crises. The Maoris were a very healthy race, but they were unable to cope with tuberculosis brought by the Pakeha. Indeed, three miles south of the township of Waipukurau in Central Hawkes Bay, on a hill, Pukeora (Healthy Hill), a hospital was built which was originally intended as a sanatorium for TB patients.
Best wishes - and Kia ora (Good Health!)
Maureen.
Here is the link that prompted me to write this. I'm not sure if this is 'Bubbi' Ngarimu, but the article says that she was an 'educator. M.
Maureen is currently living in Bournemouth, England, which does not seem to be a hotbed of permaculture activity. If you know about any interesting local projects in the Bournemouth area, please send a message to her via Northern Edge. - Ed
Boyd Lee writes
My basic logic goes like this:
Water could become a local state currency in a number of interesting ways. For instance, the conservative estimate for the volume of water used in making a car is around 400,000 litres. Depending where you are in the world a litre of water is a litre of water but it's numerical value is say around $£€1 in a city or town store, So economically a car must be worth about $£€400,000 as an object in most parts of the developed world before you move it from the showroom or pump any oil?
 |
 |
On that basis you could house people without debt by simply providing families an incentive of a home rather than a car and bunker the fuel for essential purposes?
The upgrade cycle for a car is 3 years. (£400k - 3yr gap - £400k - 3yr gap - £400k - 3yr gap - …)
Most places could practice this - elementary maths and resource allocation, and everyone would be better off in many ways:
A 9 year old child could have £1.2M in their piggy bank for not driving? That would become the policy?
zzzzzzzzzzzzz fall asleep.
Woke up to this:
 |
| 3D-printed floating homes |
|