Sidney Moko Mead
Encyclopedia
Sir Sidney Moko Haerewa Mead, KNZM
(born 8 January 1927) is a New Zealand anthropologist, historian, artist, teacher, writer and prominent Māori leader. Initially training as a teacher and artist, Mead taught in many schools in the East Coast
and Bay of Plenty regions, and later served as principal of several schools. After earning his PhD in 1968, he taught anthropology in several universities abroad. He returned to New Zealand in 1977 and established the first Māori studies department in the country. Mead later became a prominent Māori advocate and leader, acting in negotiations on behalf of several tribes and sitting on numerous advisory boards. He has also written extensively on Māori culture
.
, Hawke's Bay on 8 January 1927, the son of Sidney Montague Mead, a Pākehā
from Wairoa, and Paranihia "Elsie" Moko, a Māori from Te Teko
in the Bay of Plenty. He is of Ngāti Awa
, Ngāti Tūwharetoa
, Ngāi Tūhoe and Tūhourangi
descent. Sidney had an older brother who died as a young child. His parents also separated while Sidney was young, and he subsequently moved with his mother to her hometown of Te Teko.
Growing up during the Great Depression, much of his early childhood was spent in the care of his grandmother while his mother lived elsewhere working. He attended Te Teko Native School until age nine, at which age he was taken in by a foster family in Murupara
. There he was enrolled in the Rangitahi Native School. One of his teachers at the Murupara school was Bruce Biggs
, who later became a prominent Māori academic and mentor to a generation of other Māori scholars. During his high school years he received a scholarship to St Stephens Anglican College in Auckland, before transferring to Te Aute College
, a prominent Māori school in Hawke's Bay.
region, starting off at Manutahi District High School in Ruatoria
and working as an itinerant teacher in many schools across the East Coast. During this time he also married June Te Rina Walker, of Ngāti Porou
. Mead later taught in schools in the neighbouring Bay of Plenty region, including in the Urewera Valley
, Whakatane
, Tauranga
and Te Kaha
.
Mead became a headmaster of several schools in the region. His first appointment as headmaster was at Minginui Māori School in the Urewera Valley, where he remained in the position for eight years. He later took up headmaster positions at Waimārama Māori School and Whatawhata School. Formalising his academic qualifications, Mead earned a Diploma in teaching in 1962, followed by Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees at the University of Auckland
, which were both completed by 1965. Mead earned his PhD at the University of Southern Illinois in 1968, with his former teacher Bruce Biggs acting as one of his supervisors.
and the University of British Columbia
in Canada. After finishing a stint as associate professor at McMaster University's anthropology department, he returned to New Zealand and became the first Professor of Māori at the Victoria University of Wellington
. After his arrival in 1977, he restructured the Māori Studies department at the university, developing it into the first stand-alone Māori Studies department in the country, starting in 1981.
In the early 1980s, Professor Mead was largely responsible for the establishment of Te Herenga Waka Marae, the first university-based marae
at a mainstream campus. He was also a co-curator of Te Māori, an exhibition of Māori art and cultural treasures from museum collections that toured the United States during the mid-1980s. Professor Mead retired from the Victoria University of Wellington in 1990 after 14 years at the head of New Zealand's first Māori studies department.
. This led to the publication of the Ngāti Awa Raupatu Report in 1999, which outlined Ngāti Awa's historical grievances dating back to the Land Wars
and subsequent land confiscations
. Mead acted as chief negotiator for the tribe during settlement negotiations with the Crown. Five years from the publication of the raupatu report, a settlement
between Ngāti Awa and the Crown was reached in 2003 and enacted by the government in 2005. Professor Mead also became the inaugural chair of the new Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Awa, which replaced the Ngāti Awa Trust Board as the administrative body for the iwi.
In 1992 he helped to establish Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi based in Whakatane, which in 1997 became only the third wānanga
in the country recognised under the Education Act 1989. He was also appointed to Waitangi Tribunal in 2003, and has served on numerous advisory boards, including the New Zealand Bioethics council, the New Zealand Council for Educational Research, Toi Māori and Te Māori Manaaki Taonga Trust. Five years after successfully concluding Ngāti Awa's settlement with the Crown, Mead was chosen as the inaugural chair of the Institute for Post Treaty Settlement Futures, an initiative of Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi with support from Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Awa, which aims to provide strategies to help iwi with settlement negotiations with the Crown as well as managing settlement assets.
In 2007, Mead was made a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit
for services to Māori and education. He was later knighted in 2009.
New Zealand Order of Merit
The New Zealand Order of Merit is an order established in 1996 "for those persons who in any field of endeavour, have rendered meritorious service to the Crown and nation or who have become distinguished by their eminence, talents, contributions or other merits."The order includes five...
(born 8 January 1927) is a New Zealand anthropologist, historian, artist, teacher, writer and prominent Māori leader. Initially training as a teacher and artist, Mead taught in many schools in the East Coast
Gisborne Region
The Gisborne Region is an area of northeastern New Zealand governed by the Gisborne District Council, a unitary authority. Its largest settlement, the city also named Gisborne, is located at the northern end of Poverty Bay on the east coast....
and Bay of Plenty regions, and later served as principal of several schools. After earning his PhD in 1968, he taught anthropology in several universities abroad. He returned to New Zealand in 1977 and established the first Māori studies department in the country. Mead later became a prominent Māori advocate and leader, acting in negotiations on behalf of several tribes and sitting on numerous advisory boards. He has also written extensively on Māori culture
Maori culture
Māori culture is the culture of the Māori of New Zealand, an Eastern Polynesian people, and forms a distinctive part of New Zealand culture. Within the Māori community, and to a lesser extent throughout New Zealand as a whole, the word Māoritanga is often used as an approximate synonym for Māori...
.
Early life
Sidney Moko Mead was born in WairoaWairoa
Wairoa is a town in New Zealand's North Island. It is the northernmost town in the Hawke's Bay region, and is located on the northern shore of Hawke Bay at the mouth of the Wairoa River and to the west of Mahia Peninsula...
, Hawke's Bay on 8 January 1927, the son of Sidney Montague Mead, a Pākehā
Pakeha
Pākehā is a Māori language word for New Zealanders who are "of European descent". They are mostly descended from British and to a lesser extent Irish settlers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, although some Pākehā have Dutch, Scandinavian, German, Yugoslav or other ancestry...
from Wairoa, and Paranihia "Elsie" Moko, a Māori from Te Teko
Te Teko
Te Teko is a small inland township in the Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand's North Island. According to the 2001 New Zealand Census of Population and Dwellings, its population is 627, a decrease of 3 from the previous census in 2001...
in the Bay of Plenty. He is of Ngāti Awa
Ngati Awa
Ngāti Awa is a Māori iwi centred in the eastern Bay of Plenty Region of New Zealand.Ngāti Awa comprises 22 hapu , with 15,258 people claiming affiliation to the iwi in 2006. The Ngāti Awa people are primarily located in towns on the Rangitaiki Plain, including Whakatane, Kawerau, Edgecumbe, Te...
, Ngāti Tūwharetoa
Ngati Tuwharetoa
Ngāti Tūwharetoa is an iwi descended from Ngātoro-i-rangi, the priest who navigated the Arawa canoe to New Zealand. The Tūwharetoa region extends from Te Awa o te Atua at Matata across the central plateau of the North Island to the lands around Mount Tongariro and Lake Taupo.The iwi is identified...
, Ngāi Tūhoe and Tūhourangi
Tuhourangi
Tūhourangi is a Māori iwi of New Zealand with a rohe centered on Lake Tarawera...
descent. Sidney had an older brother who died as a young child. His parents also separated while Sidney was young, and he subsequently moved with his mother to her hometown of Te Teko.
Growing up during the Great Depression, much of his early childhood was spent in the care of his grandmother while his mother lived elsewhere working. He attended Te Teko Native School until age nine, at which age he was taken in by a foster family in Murupara
Murupara
Murupara is a town located in the North Island of New Zealand. The town is situated in an isolated part of the Bay of Plenty region between the Kaingaroa Forest and Te Urewera National Park, on the banks of the Rangitaiki River, 65 kilometres southeast of Rotorua, along SH38. Murupara is the...
. There he was enrolled in the Rangitahi Native School. One of his teachers at the Murupara school was Bruce Biggs
Bruce Biggs
Bruce Grandison Biggs became an influential figure in the academic field of Māori studies in New Zealand...
, who later became a prominent Māori academic and mentor to a generation of other Māori scholars. During his high school years he received a scholarship to St Stephens Anglican College in Auckland, before transferring to Te Aute College
Te Aute College
Te Aute College is a school in the Hawke's Bay region of New Zealand. It opened in 1854 with twelve pupils under Samuel Williams, an Anglican missionary, and nephew and son-in-law of Bishop William Williams. It has a strong Māori character.It was built on land provided by Te Whatuiapiti, a hapu...
, a prominent Māori school in Hawke's Bay.
Teaching career
In 1944, Mead attended teaching college in Auckland, specialising in Māori education and art. He began teaching in Māori schools in the East CapeGisborne Region
The Gisborne Region is an area of northeastern New Zealand governed by the Gisborne District Council, a unitary authority. Its largest settlement, the city also named Gisborne, is located at the northern end of Poverty Bay on the east coast....
region, starting off at Manutahi District High School in Ruatoria
Ruatoria
The town of Ruatoria is located in the East Coast region of New Zealand's North Island. It is the second largest centre of population in the sparsely populated region, yet has a population of only 900 .- Geography :...
and working as an itinerant teacher in many schools across the East Coast. During this time he also married June Te Rina Walker, of Ngāti Porou
Ngati Porou
Ngāti Porou is a Māori iwi traditionally located in the East Cape and Gisborne regions of the North Island of New Zealand. Ngāti Porou has the second-largest affiliation of any iwi in New Zealand, with 71,910 registered members in 2006...
. Mead later taught in schools in the neighbouring Bay of Plenty region, including in the Urewera Valley
Te Urewera
Te Urewera is an area of the central North Island of New Zealand. Located in rough, sparsely populated hill country to the northeast of Lake Taupo, it is the historical home of Tuhoe, a Māori iwi known for their controversial stance on Māori sovereignty...
, Whakatane
Whakatane
Whakatane is a town in the eastern Bay of Plenty Region, in the North Island of New Zealand, and is the seat of the Bay of Plenty Regional Council. Whakatane is 90 km east of Tauranga and 89 km north-east of Rotorua, at the mouth of the Whakatane River.The town has a population of , with...
, Tauranga
Tauranga
Tauranga is the most populous city in the Bay of Plenty region, in the North Island of New Zealand.It was settled by Europeans in the early 19th century and was constituted as a city in 1963...
and Te Kaha
Te Kaha
Te Kaha is a small New Zealand community situated in the Bay of Plenty near Opotiki. It has a population of about 375, approximately 70 percent of Māori descent....
.
Mead became a headmaster of several schools in the region. His first appointment as headmaster was at Minginui Māori School in the Urewera Valley, where he remained in the position for eight years. He later took up headmaster positions at Waimārama Māori School and Whatawhata School. Formalising his academic qualifications, Mead earned a Diploma in teaching in 1962, followed by Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees at the University of Auckland
University of Auckland
The University of Auckland is a university located in Auckland, New Zealand. It is the largest university in the country and the highest ranked in the 2011 QS World University Rankings, having been ranked worldwide...
, which were both completed by 1965. Mead earned his PhD at the University of Southern Illinois in 1968, with his former teacher Bruce Biggs acting as one of his supervisors.
Academic career
Mead taught abroad during the early 1970s, including at McMaster UniversityMcMaster University
McMaster University is a public research university whose main campus is located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land in the residential neighbourhood of Westdale, adjacent to Hamilton's Royal Botanical Gardens...
and the University of British Columbia
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
in Canada. After finishing a stint as associate professor at McMaster University's anthropology department, he returned to New Zealand and became the first Professor of Māori at the Victoria University of Wellington
Victoria University of Wellington
Victoria University of Wellington was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a former constituent college of the University of New Zealand. It is particularly well known for its programmes in law, the humanities, and some scientific disciplines, but offers a broad range of other courses...
. After his arrival in 1977, he restructured the Māori Studies department at the university, developing it into the first stand-alone Māori Studies department in the country, starting in 1981.
In the early 1980s, Professor Mead was largely responsible for the establishment of Te Herenga Waka Marae, the first university-based marae
Marae
A marae malae , malae , is a communal or sacred place which serves religious and social purposes in Polynesian societies...
at a mainstream campus. He was also a co-curator of Te Māori, an exhibition of Māori art and cultural treasures from museum collections that toured the United States during the mid-1980s. Professor Mead retired from the Victoria University of Wellington in 1990 after 14 years at the head of New Zealand's first Māori studies department.
Māori leader
From the 1970s onwards, Mead became more involved in tribal affairs, particularly those of Ngāti Awa. He helped to establish the Ngāti Awa Trust Board in 1980, the first representative body for the tribe in the 20th century. For almost 20 years the Trust Board helped to research and prepare Ngāti Awa's case for historical redress with the Waitangi TribunalWaitangi Tribunal
The Waitangi Tribunal is a New Zealand permanent commission of inquiry established under the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975...
. This led to the publication of the Ngāti Awa Raupatu Report in 1999, which outlined Ngāti Awa's historical grievances dating back to the Land Wars
New Zealand land wars
The New Zealand Wars, sometimes called the Land Wars and also once called the Māori Wars, were a series of armed conflicts that took place in New Zealand between 1845 and 1872...
and subsequent land confiscations
New Zealand land confiscations
The New Zealand land confiscations took place during the 1860s to punish the Kingitanga movement for attempting to set up an alternative, Māori, form of government that forbade the selling of land. The confiscation law targeted Kingitanga Māori against whom the government had waged war to restore...
. Mead acted as chief negotiator for the tribe during settlement negotiations with the Crown. Five years from the publication of the raupatu report, a settlement
Treaty of Waitangi claims and settlements
Treaty of Waitangi claims and settlements have been a significant feature of New Zealand race relations and politics since 1975. Over the last 30 years, New Zealand governments have increasingly provided formal legal and political opportunity for Māori to seek redress for breaches by the Crown of...
between Ngāti Awa and the Crown was reached in 2003 and enacted by the government in 2005. Professor Mead also became the inaugural chair of the new Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Awa, which replaced the Ngāti Awa Trust Board as the administrative body for the iwi.
In 1992 he helped to establish Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi based in Whakatane, which in 1997 became only the third wānanga
Wananga
In the education system of New Zealand, a wānanga is a publicly-owned tertiary institution that provides education in a Māori cultural context. Section 162 of the Education Act 1989 specifies that wānanga resemble mainstream universities in many ways...
in the country recognised under the Education Act 1989. He was also appointed to Waitangi Tribunal in 2003, and has served on numerous advisory boards, including the New Zealand Bioethics council, the New Zealand Council for Educational Research, Toi Māori and Te Māori Manaaki Taonga Trust. Five years after successfully concluding Ngāti Awa's settlement with the Crown, Mead was chosen as the inaugural chair of the Institute for Post Treaty Settlement Futures, an initiative of Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi with support from Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Awa, which aims to provide strategies to help iwi with settlement negotiations with the Crown as well as managing settlement assets.
In 2007, Mead was made a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit
New Zealand Order of Merit
The New Zealand Order of Merit is an order established in 1996 "for those persons who in any field of endeavour, have rendered meritorious service to the Crown and nation or who have become distinguished by their eminence, talents, contributions or other merits."The order includes five...
for services to Māori and education. He was later knighted in 2009.
Selected works
- 1995: Te Toi Whakairo: The Art of Māori Carving. Auckland: Reed Publishing.
- 1996: Tawhaki: The Deeds of a Demigod. Auckland: Reed Publishing.
- 1997: Māori Art on the World Scene. Wellington: Āhua Design and matau Associates Ltd.
- 1999: Taniko Weaving: Technique and Tradition. Auckland: Reed Publishing.
- 2001: Ngā Pepeha a Ngā Tupuna: The Sayings of the Ancestors. Wellington: Victoria University Press.
- 2003: Tikanga Māori - Living by Māori Values. Wellington: Huia Publishers.