Il linguaggio come strumento di avvicinamento ad una realtà altra:

il caso di The Matriarch di Witi Ihimaera

Simona Nati

N Word Freq. %1 THE 13.134 7,342 AND 5.353 2,993 TO 5.120 2,864 OF 4.799 2,685 WAS 3.190 1,786 I 3.017 1,697 A 2.941 1,648 IN 2.798 1,569 THAT 2.085 1,17

10 IT 1.839 1,0311 YOU 1.733 0,9712 HE 1.714 0,9613 SHE 1.644 0,9214 HER 1.497 0,8415 WITH 1.245 0,716 HIS 1.175 0,6617 HAD 1.144 0,6418 AT 1.105 0,6219 FOR 1.096 0,6120 WERE 1.064 0,59

N Word Freq. %21 AS 1.034 0,5822 IS 1.031 0,5823 ON 1.030 0,5824 MY 998 0,5625 FROM 944 0,5326 ME 942 0,5327 S 939 0,5328 TE 914 0,5129 BUT 878 0,4930 THEY 861 0,4831 NOT 854 0,4832 BE 852 0,4833 HAVE 793 0,4434 THIS 776 0,4335 HIM 748 0,4236 SAID 734 0,4137 WE 696 0,3938 YOUR 673 0,3839 THERE 663 0,3740 ALL 661 0,37

N Word Freq. %41 BY 646 0,3642 WHEN 603 0,3443 SO 568 0,3244 BEEN 548 0,3145 MAORI 517 0,2946 T 514 0,2947 LIKE 508 0,2848 WOULD 504 0,2849 INTO 474 0,2750 LAND 473 0,2651 ONE 472 0,2652 THEIR 459 0,2653 PEOPLE 453 0,2554 OUT 445 0,2555 THEN 443 0,2556 WHO 428 0,2457 THEM 423 0,2458 ARE 416 0,2359 US 407 0,2360 WILL 403 0,23

N Word Freq. %61 OUR 392 0,2262 IF 386 0,2263 NO 373 0,2164 RIRIPETI 373 0,2165 WHICH 373 0,2166 WHAT 366 0,267 COULD 349 0,268 UP 347 0,1969 OR 329 0,1870 TIME 320 0,1871 NOW 313 0,1872 AN 312 0,1773 ABOUT 292 0,1674 DO 291 0,1675 BEGAN 283 0,1676 BACK 273 0,1577 SOME 271 0,1578 ONLY 267 0,1579 ITS 266 0,1580 KNOW 260 0,15

N Word Freq. %81 DOWN 258 0,1482 HOUSE 257 0,1483 HAS 255 0,1484 ARIKI 253 0,1485 PAKEHA 253 0,1486 GRANDFATHER 247 0,1487 COME 244 0,1488 DID 244 0,1489 CHILD 243 0,1490 LET 243 0,1491 AGAIN 238 0,1392 AFTER 233 0,1393 AWAY 230 0,1394 MADE 227 0,1395 THROUGH 225 0,1396 SAW 223 0,1297 SHOULD 223 0,1298 OTHER 222 0,1299 SEE 219 0,12

100 BECAUSE 217 0,12

1. The Maori had 66 million acres of land2. Europeans will not give their lands for 6d. an acre - not

for two pounds, or three, or ten pounds an acre3. I think that only giving a small payment for the land - I

think that amounts to murder: it is tantamount to killing people

4. If I were to introduce a Bill preventing any more land being sold, I do not believe there is one European member who would sympathise with the Natives and vote for the Bill

5. Who left us a few years ago to see if all the stories about a great and beautiful land far to the south were true?

6. Then, sitting together on the Stairway to Heaven, she would tell me about the genealogy of the land and the iwi

7. If a block of land is sold in accordance with this Act there will be no trouble amongst the Natives

8. For administering the portion of the land now held by Natives

9. I think every step should be taken to obtain for the Natives the best advantage on account of their land

10. He played power games with the Maori, administering ‘Native’ affairs and keeping prosperity—and the land—from Maori hands

11. And was there nothing new under the sun, for 100 years later, the same arguments were still being raised by Maori people against the selling of Maori land to the European

12. Do not let us be frightened into doing anything against our will; because our land is dwindling down

13. Maori activists who held that all transfers of Maori land to the Crown should be repudiated arrived to protest the Commission’s deliberations

14. They have to pay ten percent on all sales and leases of land

15. According to the old Native custom, the chiefs derived all the benefit from the land

16.And that is why it is desirable that we should find some way by which land may be dealt with in a straightforward manner, and also that some of the land may be retained by the Natives

17.Altogether, 3,215,172 acres of Maori land was confiscated in the Waikato, Taranaki and the Bay of Plenty to pay for Maori insurgency

18.The land was being taken and where there was no land the people had to leave and find new livelihoods in strange, alien cities

19.The deed of cession supposed that it was possible to identify these two groups and that useful tracts of land could be taken from rebels only

20.The land is therefore ours

1.With firmness, she therefore pushed Wi Pere towards a sacred education among her own people and not a profane one in the Pakeha world—time enough for that

2.They turned those tribes sympathetic to Pakeha against those who wanted to lead a total resistance against the Pakeha

3.Was on 10 November 1868, and it was commanded by a small number of the Pakeha and many Maori troops: two hundred and seventy of the Ngati Kahungunu; sixty of the northern Kahungunu; one hundred of the Rongowhakaata.

4.But they need to be told the truth: the Matawhero Retaliation was part of a religious war which the Pakeha himself began

5.His Pakeha elders, realising his gifts as an orator, began to consider that he should have a role as a mediator between Maori and Pakeha

6.Only then would I be able to understand how the Pakeha had used the law to dispossess Maori of the land

7.The Treaty has therefore been praised for its High Mindedness, its Attempt at an Honourable Solution to Accommodating the Needs of the Pakeha (and Maori), its Integrity

8.Again, when he refers to the ‘Matawhero Massacre’ what he is really referring to is Te Kooti Arikirangi’s retaliation against a whole history of Pakeha abuse of Maori people, custom and land

9.How can we prepare you when even our houses of learning have long ago been destroyed by the Pakeha, and our religious precepts made mockery of by the crooked cross?

10.Well, of course, everybody, all the rangatira Maori and Pakeha, were there—at least that’s what we thought

11.We must warn the settlers, all the settlers Maori and Pakeha on the Gisborne flats

12.All our Maori men marrying Pakeha women, aue13.Who among us could resist the tangi, the weeping for

our Aotearoa, and for those of us who had already been slain by the Pakeha in our lands of the Taranaki and Waikato?

14.My own knowledge was seriously flawed because, in the years following Riripeti’s death, and alienated from her great dream for me, I had to strike out for myself and find an alternative destiny in the Pakeha world

15.Even though you didn’t take over from her, and therefore didn’t have a career in the Maori world, you confounded all expectations and made it in the Pakeha world instead!

16.Let the Pakeha choose to put up his boundaries if he wished, and to believe in those things that could only be proven; our world was a continuum in which all things possible and impossible could bind together

17.The Maori atua were similarly suppressed and replaced by the one Pakeha God

18.Primarily, the Maori of Poverty Bay and the East Coast were already divided into those who were pro-Pakeha and those who were anti-Pakeha

19.Better still, at least Maori were still mainly fighting one another and not yet the Pakeha

20.And the Pakeha, thank God, still had the musket