Ko te pukapuka o te whakapapa o Ihu Karaiti, tama a Rawiri, tama a Aperahama. 2 Na Aperahama ko Ihaka; na Ihaka ko Hakopa; na Hakopa ko Hura ratou ko ona tuakana, ko ona teina; 8 Na Aha ko Iehohapata; na Iehohapata ko Iorama; na Iorama ko Ohiaha; 16 Na Hakopa ko Hohepa, ko te tahu a Meri; whanau ake ta Meri ko Ihu, e kiia nei ko te Karaiti. My own suggestions on these verses, finally adopted by the full committee, reads: ‘It is worth while going back to the original, as in the 1844 edition, it is more Maori, simpler, and reads better, while still retaining the implication of “begat”. Actually, the only place where “whanau ake ta” applies is in verse 16, where it can be said that “whanau ake ta Meri ko Ihu”….’

THEY TYPED TO THE FINISH With our modus operandi clearly set out, this seems a fitting place to pay a tribute to our typists, who did a wonderful job of work right through. We started off with three—Miss Frances Mitchell, of Ohinemutu, Miss Moe Poata and Mrs Tom Kaua, both of Gisborne, who carried on to the finish. Mr Bird always spoke at our meetings of the good work of the girls, and moved a vote of thanks in appreciation of their labours. But on more than one occasion there was a smile on Sir Apirana's face, when his own typing measured up (as he put it) to that of the girls. He did the major part of the typing himself in the beginning, and all through he saw to it that enough typescripts were available to carry on. Members will not easily forget our session in ‘The Bungalow’ at Waiomatatini, when the soft clatter of the typewriter was heard up to two o'clock in the morning. Sir Apirana was seeing to it that we had enough script to last out the session there. But that does not in the least detract from the fine performance put up by these good ladies. Was the revision of the Maori Bible fully justified? If so in what way? Busy men like Sir Apirana, John Laughton, Bishop Bennett, Eru Te Tuhi, and so on, giving over three years to such a task, should be sufficient answer to the question. In varying degrees we were all busy men. One can only give some of the more salient points which made the work of revision very satisfying. There were, of course, verses throughout the older version which seem to miss the point altogether. To take a very simple example there is the oft-quoted phrase, more used than any other at a Maori tangi. ‘Ta koutou i tenei ao he matemate, otira kia maia, kua taea hoki e ahau te ao.’ Translate that back to English you get: ‘Your lot in this world is (simply) to die, but be of good cheer, etc.’ That seems far removed from the English version, ‘In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, etc.’ We made the slightest alteration here by changing the word mate-mate into mamate (misfortune) but what a difference! It now reads: ‘Ko te koutou i tenei ao he mamate (misfortune) etc.’, which any Maori scholar will appreciate to the full.

PART FOR A PARTICLE One thing which afforded the committee much pleasure was the restoration to the Maori Bible of the use of the specific particle ‘ko’. Right from the beginning, Mr Bird insisted that ‘ko’ should be restored to its rightful place, not only from the grammatical standpoint, but because it is the correct Maori. And so we started off with the title, ‘Ko te Paipera Tapu,’ and inside the title page, ‘Ko te Paipera Tapu ara ko te Kawenata Tawhito me Kawenata Hou.’ Anyone looking at that quite dispassionately would agree with us that it meant more than the mere restoration of a particle, but the restoration of the old dignity of the Maori Bible. And so the work went on, adding ‘ko’ to the title of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, and the text of the Bible itself. One recollects the innumerable ‘ko's' added in one morning's sitting of the committee which brought forth the remark that it must have been dropped as a measure of economy in the printing! Unworthy thought! But when the particle was dropped, and why, are two questions to which we have not been able to give an answer. But we found that our main quarrel with the former version was in the lack of emphasis, or, in countless instances, misplaced emphasis. I suppose that is a besetting sin in any work of translation. In the process of transferring the thought from one tongue to the other, invariably the emphasis is lost or misplaced. That was the case with our Maori Bible. The corrected version more often than not consisted simply of the same words arranged in a different order. Let us look in for a moment at a full meeting of the revision committee. The tables are covered with books—all the authorities, dictionaries, concordance and so forth. Each member has a typed carbon copy of the particular portion under review. One member is reading aloud from his script, and enjoying it because it is all in his dialect. Eru Te Tuhi has the 1925 edition before him, and notes any departure