Hoani Waititi

Te Ao Hou, December 1965, Page 3

Hoani Waititi The Editor, Te Ao Hou. On behalf of those who are now at Mt Crawford, and were formerly members of the Maungawhau Maori Culture Group at Mt Eden Gaol in Auckland, I wish to ask ‘Te Ao Hou’ to convey our deepest sympathy to the relatives and friends of the late Hoani Waititi: We mourn the loss, and pay homage to the memory of a Brother, Tutor and Rangatira who visited and worked amongst us with our betterment in mind. Haere e hoa! Haere ki te korekore, haere ki te wahangutanga o te tangata, haere ki te Po tiwhatiwha! D. PARANIHI (former secretary, Maungawhau Group) The Editor, Te Ao Hou. May I express my deepest grief at the death of Mr Hoani Waititi. I had known him for only one year, but have yet to meet another man governed so completely by a burning idealism to help his people. His energy, his forthrightness, his wisdom, his humanity: all these qualities made him the most sincere and memorable of men. The good he has done Maoridom is beyond estimate. By working towards the future he envisaged, we, the morehu, must make certain that his name, and the ideals for which it stands, are never forgotten. He pononga nui i te haha Maoritanga. Ka mate ahau i te pouri. I. K. MITCHELL (Auckland) A Maori Language Radio Station The Editor, Te Ao Hou. Has anyone ever suggested a Maori Language Radio Station? I have several Welsh relations and I visited them last year. One of them, though a very quietly spoken middle-aged school teacher, is actually, beneath his respectable exterior, a wild Welsh Nationalist. He told me that when the BBC first started broadcasting to Wales many Welshmen were very worried—they saw in the constant use of English over the air a threat to the Welsh language. English would be in everyone's home all the time and children would grow up never hearing Welsh spoken by anybody except their parents. But the BBC turned out to be the very opposite. Radio and television were the major cause of the rejuvenation of Welsh. The BBC was very generous of time and expense to its Welsh Service and gradually less and less needed to be broadcast in English and more and more programmes of all kinds used Welsh. My cousin was the first BBC rugby commentator in Welsh and he had to invent a few new words to make it possible. Now both BBC Television and Independent Television broadcast to Wales in Welsh, and a television studio game first played in Welsh has its English imitation! Broadcasting rescued the Welsh language from the pulpit and the kitchen. In those places Welsh was a fine and a wonderful language, but it was not used in the rest of modern life; the industrial revolution had left