The Treaty of Waitangi

  The Treaty of Waitangi  

The Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840 by representatives of the Maori chiefs and the  European Crown. It was signed in a place called Waitangi which is in the Bay of Islands. The Europeans wanted control and mana over the the Maori land and they eventually sent William Hobson to announce British sovereignty over New Zealand.  After the Treaty was signed the Government wanted more land for the British settlers to live on. So there was a war between the Government and the Maori who wanted to retain their land. The Europeans developed their own administration that excluded the Maori, and by 1860 all of the South Island and ⅕ of the North Island was taken by the government or settlers. The Maori were not given any seats in Parliament, until the law changed in 1867 when the Maori were now included in Parliament but were only given 4 seats. By 1845 the Land Wars began, when the government sent British troops into the King Country to take their land by force.

The British Crown and settlers committed group sin against the Maori by dishonouring the Treaty of Waitangi. One example of this is the promise that was broken by the Europeans by not allowing the Maori to have ownership and control their lands and lives. Another example of this is the Execution and the detention of prisoners without trial which caused resentment and anger.

Christian people can restore tika (truth) and pono (justice) to the Treaty of Waitangi by learning the Maori language including teaching maori to students in schools. We could also increase the importance of Maori customs and culture, for example greeting each other with a hongi, removing shoes and respecting tapu when you enter a marae.  

Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi

                                                     

St. Michael the Archangel

St. Michael the Archangel

Who is he: He is the guard of heaven, he fought off the devil and his army of rebels and threw them out of heaven.

When he lived: He lived about in the time of  14thcentury. His feast day is on the 29th of September along with the other archangels.

Where he was born: It is not known where Michael was born, therefore he was created by God.

What he did : In the Bible Michael is mentioned with  3 other archangels : Raphael, Gabriel, and Lucifer. Although Lucifer is not any more known as Gods special angel, he is known as a very very harmful man which people call “Satan”

When he died: No one knows when Michael the Archangel will die, or when he will die, to me he is known to have eternal life.

Writing Assesment

I stop , I suddenly stop staring at all the objects in the distance, like the fire coloured like bridge that caught my eye, the ferries that you barely see , and most specially the jizzing cars in the corner of my eyes.

Finally I look to see what is in front of me 2 young boys which are in swimming gear , one boy in denim shorts and the other in black shorts. They were sitting on a smooth white brick wall that goes all the way till north to south. I turn my head for a split second , and turned it back again and I promptly saw one of the boys in mid air spinning his hands around and around in circles.Right across from the other boy in mid air I saw another boy  he was just on the end of the brick wall, just about to dive in too. The look on the boys face looked scared, terrified, his face was flushed. I looked up to the sky a saw the beautiful fluffy white cotton like clouds, the clouds looked as if they were drawn on because they made different patterns. I got interrupted by the clashing wind and made me looked down at the sea. The wind created ripples in the water and made the sea go up and down, and in different directions. The wind also brought up the smell of the sea, it smelt very salty which almost made me faint.

As soon as I saw the boy jumped off the brick wall , I wondered in my mind what if the boy didn’t check where he was going to land , and landed his head on a huge rock. That could cause severe head injuries, and can possibly that could  lead to death.

Matariki

Matariki

It is the very early morning and i am at the beach with my aunt, my uncle,  and my two cousins. We light up the bonfire , and it lights up the whole place. Suddenly my uncle shouts “ look up to the sky, Matariki is here!”. We are at the beach to celebrate the coming of Matariki.

As i look into the dark night sky I try to find Matariki but ,a few minutes later with no success of finding them yet, but. After a while of spinning my head in circles, my eyes suddenly land on a cluster of sparkling stars. Their beautiful  sparkles glisten in the aqua sea. As I gaze up to the dark night sky I can feel the cold breezy sea crawl up to my feet, at the same time I could feel the squelchy sang pulling me in like I am a predator.

At my last glance,at the sky, I wonder how other people would celebrate Matariki.

Beauty and the Beast Review

Beauty & the beast

Have you ever been to a live theater production ? On Friday the 9th of May at 12pm, my whole school went to the Manukau Vodafone event centre to watch a live Beauty and the beast show (Disney version). It was performed by Sancta Maria College and had a total of 13 characters.The main characters were : Beauty ( Belle), Beast, Gaston, and Maurice.

In this story there was a young prince. He was selfish, mean and cruel to other people around him, but one day there was a lady that disguised herself as an old woman, she went up to the prince’s castle and asked him for shelter and in return she’d give him a rose. The prince refused the old lady because of how ugly she was, then she melted and became a beautiful young lady. Then the prince started to  apologise for refusing her, but the young lady became angry and cast a spell on him that would make him a big ugly beast. She gave him the rose and said “ When the last petal falls on this rose and you haven’t found love, you will be a beast forever, but in order to turn into your normal form the girl that you fall in love with must love you back. Then the old lady vanished and the beast never saw her again.

In a small village near the beast’s castle there was a young beautiful lady named Belle. She was kind, caring and loving, but one day her father went missing she went through the forests and found a humongous castle she went in because she had thought her father would of been in there, she was right, then she saw her father in a jail cell she held her father’s hands through the big metal bars, suddenly she heard the “ROAR” of an angry beast.

I liked how the singers sang, they sounded perfectly trained and how they would actually sound  on stage. i also liked the props that they used because it showed that where the characters were.

I recommend this productions for all ages because it funny and romantic but for the younger children they should be warned that there are some romantic scenes and scary scenes.

Nunuku's Law

`Nunuku’s Law

Many many years ago, there was heaps of fighting and killing between the tribes of Rekohu. A chief named Nunuku was so fed up with war that he made a treaty to end it, all chiefs of Rekohu agreed to this treaty. If someone wanted to fight then they were only allowed to strike each other with a wooden staff, but if they were to draw blood they had to stop immediately.

In 1835 Rekohu got invaded by two tribes  from Wellington New Zealand ( Ngati Mutunga and Ngati Tama). The chiefs of Rekohu got together and decided what they were going to do, they decided not to disobey Nunuku’s special law of peace, so that meant that they were not going to fight.

After the invasion many many Moriori men, women, and children were killed by the two tribes from Wellington and many more became slaves. But in 1863 the remaining Morioris became free from slavery.

In 1870 the native land court gave 97.3 percent of Rekohu to Ngati Mutunga, and 2.7 percent of the land was given to the Moriori. In 2004 the Moriori got back their fishing rights from the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission.

By: Angelika