September 20, 2021
Six of the best for reo speakers
Former Māori affairs minister and far north kaumātua Dover Samuels is calling for action on his claim over the punishment meted out to children speaking Māori at school.
Mr Samuels first lodged his claim in the 1980s, as Māori language claims were gathering momentum.
He says there has still been no formal apology or atonement for the state-sponsored violence meted out to tamariki like him in the so-called native schools who were told to leave their language and culture at the gate.
He says the teacher had a basket of metre-long canes of supplejack or kareao beside his desk.
“In the morning that was the ritual. He called out the names of the ones heard speaking Māori. The older prefects or the ones nominated by the teacher as the kūpapa tell the teacher ‘Dover has been speaking Māori, blah, blah, blah.’ So my name comes up in the board. In the morning there is this ritual. You’d walk out, bend over, he’d take out this cane and whack you, give you in the English terminology, six of the best,” Mr Samuels says.