Katerina Te Hei Koko Mataira

Katerina Mataira was born at Waipiro Bay and was educated at Manutahi Native School and St Joseph’s Māori Girls’ School. She went to Ardmore Teachers’ College and completed further studies with the specialist arts programme at Dunedin Teachers’ College. From 1953-61 she worked as an itinerant art teacher. She then taught at Northland College and began a Māori language programme. Mataira moved to Wellington and began writing through the encouragement of John Waititi who wanted literature in the Māori language to supplement his grammar book. In Wellington, she became involved with the play-centre movement. This was a stimulus for her writing. When her husband was appointed to Teachers’ College in Hamilton she decided to go back teaching and taught art in an intermediate school. She continued to write and was seconded for a year to write for school publications at which time she began Te Atea. She went to Fiji from 1973-75 where she was asked to work for the University of South Pacific; there she worked with Pacific Island people and networked with South Pacific Teaching at the Senior Teachers’ College in Fiji. The Teachers’ College in Fiji asked her to study tapa making. She was then called to Rarotonga to help them revive tapa making, an art form which had not been practised for fifty years. She went to Samoa, Ngauru and Gilbert Islands to run art programmes and to recover old art forms and learn new forms for tourist-screen printing. On returning to New Zealand, Mataira decided to take up a research fellowship at Waikato University. She used that time to explore language teaching in a bid to find some approach to stave off the decline of te reo Māori. She graduated with a B.Ed., continued as a research fellow and completed an M.Ed. Mataira decided to put all her research into practice and developed the Ataarangi movement with Ngoi Pewhairangi. Mataira went back to the art world at the request of Nga Puna Waihanga; she worked with them as an executive officer. She spent time in California at the University of Berkeley looking at bi-lingual education and went to work for Lily Wang Fillmore who was conducting research on bilingual education. Mataira came back to New Zealand convinced of the effectiveness of the immersion principle for language learning. After Ataarangi was established, Mataira worked with Pita Sharples in establishing Kura Kaupapa Māori for three years. Mataira formulated a training programme for ataarangi teachers and desired to have these validated in a nationally recognised certificate. Since 1987 she was very involved with the Māori Language Commission. She wrote a lot for Kura Kaupapa Māori and worked with a number of younger writers writing in Māori. She was a member of the editorial board of Pacific Moana Quarterly.

Mataira received various awards for her contribution to Māori literature. In 1979 she was awarded the second Choysa Bursary for Children’s Writers to enable her to complete four children’s picture books based on Māori legends. She received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Waikato in 1996 and in 1998 was awarded Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. She received the Te Tohu Tiketike a Te Waka toi/Te Waka Toi Exemplary Award in 2001 and the Betty Gilderdale Award in 2007. In 2009 she received the UNESCO Linguapax Award ‘an international honour which recognises the preservation and promotion of mother languages as essential vehicles of identity and cultural expression.’ She wrote stories for Whare Kura and illustrated some of her own stories. She wrote whakapapa books for her own whanau and she wrote the first novel in te reo Māori.

Kāterina was created Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the Queen's Birthday Honours List 2011.

Katerina Mataira passed away 16 July 2011 at the age of 79.

The Maori party said tonight Dame Katerina, of Ngati Porou, earned universal respect for the passion she helped generate in the revival of te reo Maori.

Biographical sources

• Phone interviews with Mataira in August 1992, and 11 Aug. 1998.
• Correspondence from Mataira, 8 July 2004.
• Contemporary Māori Writing. Comp. and introd. Margaret Orbell. Wellington, N.Z.: Reed, 1970. 149.
• Into the World of Light: An Anthology of Māori Writing. Ed. Witi Ihimaera and D. S. Long. Auckland, N.Z.: Heinemann, 1982. 102.
• "Linguapax Award Ceremony." 28 July 2009. http://www.voxy.co.nz/politics/linguapax-award-ceremony/5/19271 8 Oct. 2010.
• "Dame Katerina Te Heikoko Mataira." Storylines. Storylines Childrens Literature Charitable Trust of New Zealand, 2013. (online) 4 September 2016
• http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10739075 4 September 2016