Background reading · Social Sciences

Words on paper: written te reo and the printing press

How te reo Māori was written down, why printing mattered, and how quickly Māori made reading and writing their own.

Before 1814, te reo Māori was not written down. Knowledge was carried in whakapapa, waiata, whakataukī, carving and weaving, and passed on by expert memory. Then, within about 30 years, thousands of Māori were reading and writing in their own language.

Getting the sounds right

Early visitors wrote Māori words the way they heard them, so names came out in strange ways: Hongi became 'Shunghee' and Te Pahi became 'Tippahee'. In 1815 the missionary Thomas Kendall made the first small book in te reo, but the spelling was still messy.

A trip to England

In 1820 the rangatira Hongi Hika and Waikato sailed to England with Kendall. At Cambridge University they worked with Professor Samuel Lee to set out an alphabet and grammar. Many of the spellings we use today come from that work. Hongi also met King George IV and received gifts, which he traded in Sydney for muskets on the way home.

The printing press

In 1834 William Colenso arrived at Paihia with a printing press. Printing meant hundreds of identical copies could be made quickly. Colenso and his helpers printed thousands of books, most of them parts of the Bible in te reo Māori. In 1840 the same press printed copies of te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Making it their own

Māori often taught each other to read, passing skills from village to village faster than missionaries could.

Rangatira wrote letters to each other and to governors.

Later, Māori started their own newspapers in te reo.

Reading and writing became a new kind of power: a way to record, argue and hold others to their word.

Sources and further reading

Written for Kōkiri Learn students in our own words. Check facts against the sources.

Used in: Tō Mātou Rohe: Stories of Our Place