Maori programme based on Chch author’s book

Press, 22 July 1987, Page 8

Maori programme based on Chch author’s book

By

JANE ENGLAND,

Maori affairs reporter

A television programme to screen this evening had its roots in a book by a Christchurch author, Dr Margaret Orbell. The programme, “The Natural World of the Maori," will screen on TVI at 7.30 p.m. Although it bears the same title and is based on the book, Dr Orbell said she had not had any input into its development since she approached television four yeare ago. But the book had been useful to the series, sparking the idea and providing a valuable glimpse into the existence endured by the pre-European Maori. Dr Orbell, a senior lecturer at the University of Canterbury, looks forward

to watching the series because the book was written to encourage a television presentation of Maori history and culture. She believed books which had previously been written on the Maoris and natural history of New Zealand failed to place them firmly in the landscape and reveal how their thinking and existence was shaped by the environment. By following the rich resources of Maori literature in stories, poems, folklore and mythology, she realised that the Maori people and their land should not be separated.

“I learnt how rich and complex their thinking was, the beauty and strength it contained, and

the ideas which were derived from the landscape and creatures around them — leading to a complex use of their environment. “That is something I tried to show in my book and if the series does that I will be pleased.” Mr Tipene O’Regan, chairman of the Ngaitahu Maori Trust Board which is based in Christchurch, was a researcher and writer for the five-part scries. He will also be the presenter for the programmes which were filmed in New York at Te Maori exhibition, Tahiti and the South Pacific, throughout New Zealand and the mutton bird islands.

Preview, page 16.