Te Ataarangi badge

Te Ataarangi is a hugely successful Māori community movement which utilises fluent native speakers to teach Te Reo Māori to adults from all walks of life.

Te Reo Māori and Māori culture form a vital part of the larger identity of all New Zealand. The proportion of Māori language speakers has declined markedly over the last century, particularly following the rapid urbanisation of the Māori population in the 1950s and 1960s. It was not until the 1980s that major Māori language recovery initiatives began with Te Reo Māori being made an official language in 1987. Initiatives like Te Ataarangi immersion have been central in the process of Te Reo revival, aimed at appealing to Māori from all aspects of life with the aim of immersing them in a friendly supportive learning environment and teaching Te Reo based on proven methods from a kaupapa Māori.

This badge features the final lines of the waiata Kotahi Kapua composed by early members of Te Ataarangi: ‘Kia kore koe e ngaro taku reo rangatira’ – ‘so that you will not be lost my chiefly language’.

Te Ataarangi was developed in the late 1970s by Dame Kāterina Te Heikōkō Mataira (Ngāti Porou, 1932-2011) and Te Kumeroa Ngoingoi Pēwhairangi QSM (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Koi (Hauraki), 1921-1985). It was designed as a community-based programme to help revitalise Māori language learning. Te Ataarangi was modelled on mathematics educator Caleb Gattegno’s Cuisenaire rod method and was interwoven with tikanga Māori which opened the door to the Māori world. It became known as the ‘rākau method’.

Te Māramatanga o te tohu of Te Ataarangi

Rākau can mean both stick and tree – the badge’s tohu (sign) features a tree which represents the Cuisenaire rods. The red band in the middle with ‘Te Ataarangi’ represents whenua – the land and the living. 'The black branches above represent the young growth of today, the world of light, of life. The white branches below represent ancestors, tūpuna, who have passed on into the world of darkness.'

‘The branches above and below need each other and the security of the earth for survival. As a tree cannot grow without strong roots below, neither can the roots remain vigorous without strong growth above’ (Rina Kerei, Te Ataarangi, 2022).

The tohu of Te Ataarangi was created by Ben Leather in the mid-1980s; he was the husband of Te Ataarangi’s first President, Raukura of Ngāti Raukawa descent.

The badge helped to fundraise, and acknowledges the contributions of Ngoingoi Pēwhairangi and Kāterina Te Heikōkō who sowed the seeds of the Te Ataarangi method in Aotearoa.