Pita Russell Sharples

Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Pahauwera

1941 -



Pita Sharples was born at Waipawa in the Hawkes Bay and educated at Takapau Primary School, Waipukurau District High School and Te Aute College. He continued his studies at Auckland Secondary Teachers’ College and Auckland University, graduating with a Diploma of Teaching and BA in Geography and Anthropology from Auckland University and MA (1st class Honours) in Anthropology in 1968. He continued with PhD studies while working at Auckland University as a tutor, temporary lecturer and a full-time lecturer in the Anthropology Department and completed his PhD in 1976. He worked as a teacher at Lynfield College for two years.

In 1972 he began working as CEO in the Office of the Race Relations Conciliator and in 1980 worked for the Māori Affairs Department for eight years. Hee has subsequently worked as a consultant for government departments, and was awarded a visiting fellowship to the Education Department of Auckland University. He “has sought to challenge the education and justice systems from a community base. Without making a fuss, he has quietly established community court hearings, set up kohanga reo and kura kaupapa Māori…. He has also been involved in setting up Hoani Waititi Marae, Auckland’s first multi-tribal, multi-cultural marae - of which he is now director. Sharples’ driving desire is to keep Māori culture alive. As well as leading the spectacular haka in the Commonwealth Games opening, [he] has previously choreographed and performed four Māori welcomes for Royalty.” He is the author of many papers on Māori and race relations. He is an Honorary Māori Welfare Officer for Western Auckland, and is a member of the Board of Governors of Rutherford Memorial High School.

In 1998 he took up a Professorship at the International Research Institute for Māori and Indigenous Education, Faculty of Arts at the University of Auckland. The following year he became a member of the Waitangi Tribunal. In 2000 he became inaugural chair of Te Rōpu Whaiti Māori Education Authority – Te Manatu Matauranga Māori. He was appointed adjunct Professor at UNITEC, Auckland in 2001 and in 2003 he became director of Arapita Limited. In 2005 he became director of Paerangi Ltd Education Board. In 2004 he was appointed co-leader of the Māori Party and is currently member of Parliament for Tamaki Makaurau. In 1990 he received the CBE for services to New Zealand in education.



Biographical sources

  • "Auckland Race Relations Officer." Te Māori: The Official Journal of the New Zealand Māori Council 3.2 (1972?): 25.
  • Christchurch Star 15 March 1991: 11.
  • "Kura Kaupapa Māori." Education is Change: Twenty Viewpoints. Ed. Harvey McQueen. Wellington, N.Z.: Bridget Williams, 1993. 11-21.
  • "Members of Parliament: Current MPs." New Zealand Parliament. http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/MPP/MPs/MPs/1/a/e/48MP125791-Sharples-Pita.htm 23 Oct. 2008.

    Fiction

  • "The Fledglings." Te Ao Hou 34 (1961): 27-30.
  • This story, written when Sharples was a student at Te Aute College, explores the impact of the urban drift on Māori youth. Mahu Herewini leaves the warmth of her home community and sets off full of ambition to study anthropology at Auckland University. Slowly and insidiously, the pervasive and corrupting affects of city life steer Mahu away from her study plans and ultimately she succumbs to a life of socialising, leaves university and becomes a shop assistant. This story won the 1960 Te Ao Hou Literary Competition
  • Films/Video

  • Magic Kiwis Mar. 16, 1991.
  • Dr Peter Sharples is the subject of an episode of Magic Kiwis.
  • Non-fiction

  • "Bringing Young People Together: The Marae Community." People Like Us: Celebrating Cultural Diversity. Ed. Anthony Haas, Allison Webber and Pam Brown. Wellington, N.Z.: Asia Pacific Books and the New Zealand Govt. Printer, 1982. 11-16.
  • Sharples gives a description of the place of the marae in traditional Māori society and discusses the changes to marae since the Pakeha settlement and Māori migration to the cities. In examining the functions of the marae in contemporary New Zealand society, Sharples contends that marae provide a place where ‘Māori customs can be carried out with full dignity and spirituality....[and] a learning institution for things Māori.’ Using John Waititi Marae as an example, Sharples notes that marae ‘have assumed a major role’ in the Māori cultural renaissance and he describes the wide range of activities fostered at John Waititi Marae.
  • "Māori Education and Te Reo Māori: Its Status Within The Culture Of This Country." Te Māori News Nov. 1992: 12-13.
  • This is the second part of a speech delivered by Sharples to the National Conference on Community Languages and English - for speakers of other languages.
  • "Kura Kaupapa Māori." Education is Change: Twenty Viewpoints. Ed. Harvey McQueen. Wellington, N.Z.: Bridget Williams, 1993. 11-21.
  • Sharples briefly describes his own education and belief system and then provides a history of Māori education, notes the effects of Pakeha education and shortsighted education policies directed towards the Māori and writes of the development of Kohanga Reo and Kura Kaupapa Māori.
  • Poetry

  • "Te Mihini ātea/The Space Invaders Machine." The Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse. Ed. Ian Wedde and Harvey McQueen. Auckland, N.Z.: Penguin, 1985. 438-440. Written in Māori with English translation.
  • The speaker mourns the loss of his brother Hori to the Black Power gang and finds solace in the space invaders machine which numbs the effects of his depressed home life.
  • "Haka: Te Puāwaitanga/Haka: The Blossoming." The Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse. Ed. Ian Wedde and Harvey McQueen. Auckland, N.Z.: Penguin, 1985. 440-444. Written in Māori with English translation.
  • A haka asserting the identity and courage of a warrior ‘born to fight’ and the desire to fight for the ‘blossoming’ of the Māori people. Margaret Orbell writes that this haka was ‘composed for Te Roopu Mautaki and subsequently given to the Ngāti Kahungunu people of Hawke’s Bay, [and] identifies the challenges which face the young Māori today with the battles of the past. It incites the taua to warfare: the "enemy" is the task of keeping the Māori language alive’ (The Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse).
  • "E Rere te Hukarere/The Snow Fluttered Down." The Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Poetry/Ngā Kupu T˚tohu o Aotearoa. Ed. Miriama Evans, Harvey McQueen and Ian Wedde. Auckland, N.Z.: Penguin, 1989. 443-445. Written in Māori with English translation.
  • In this poem a Māori kuia visits a museum in the USA in order to tangi for her ancestral taonga, to bless and warm them so that they might ‘remain in peace.’
  • "Hine-ahu-one/Hine-ahu-one." The Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Poetry/Ngā Kupu T˚tohu o Aotearoa. Ed. Miriama Evans, Harvey McQueen and Ian Wedde. Auckland, N.Z.: Penguin, 1989. 445-446. Written in Māori with English translation.
  • The speaker pays tribute to the women leaders of the past and calls upon Hine-ahu-one, ‘the origin of the human race....[to] return to correct [her] people’ and to ‘Arise and uplift [her] daughters.’
  • "Takiri Mai te Ata/Dawn Breaks." The Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Poetry/Ngā Kupu T˚tohu o Aotearoa. Ed. Miriama Evans, Harvey McQueen and Ian Wedde. Auckland, N.Z.: Penguin, 1989. 443-445. 446-449.
  • The speaker grieves over the devastating impact of the European colonisation of Aotearoa and contends that ‘the strangers to this / land... trampled the creativity / of [his] people’ and ‘crushed the natural / talents of [his] children.’ The speaker calls upon Tawhirimatea, the Māori god of the wind, to send forth Tuparara, Haupauma and Kohengihengi to blow away the great fog that is ‘suppressing the very customs and /language of [the speaker’s] ancestors,’ so that the ‘spiritual force, / ...mana / of ages gone / be restored to our people.’

    Other

  • "Auckland Race Relations Officer." Te Māori: The Official Journal of the New Zealand Māori Council 3.2 (1972?): 25.
  • A short article on the appointment of Sharples as Executive Officer in the Auckland Race Relations Office.
  • "1990 Queen’s Birthday Honours." Te Iwi o Aotearoa 34 (1990): 20.