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Novelist Witi Ihimaera would like to see more contacts between Maori and the indigenous people of Taiwan.
Ihimaera was part of a large delegation sent to the Taipei book fair, where New Zealand was this year's guest of honour.
The Maori in the party got the chance to meet members of the Atayal tribe, and the kinship as confirmed by close genetic links was readily apparent linguistically, in appearance and in customs such as moko.
"I was in a bookstore and a young girl came running up to me without really looking at me and she thought I was her grandfather, and it's that kind of close, but there's also an emotional as well as a physical rekationship with those people and I really hope that in the future Te Puni Kokiri and many of our peole start to look towards that part of the world because it makes much more sense for us to make those relationships with people with whom we share ancestry," Ihimaera says.
FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH WITI IHIMAERA CLICK ON THE LINK
https://secure.zeald.com/uma/play_podcast?podlink=MjcyMjY=
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