Lastly

One thing that makes me cringe, squirm and my ears ring is the mispronunciation of kupu Māori, particularly ingoa rohe, ingoa tāone – names of towns and regions.

I squirm and wriggle because the mana of those names can’t live to its fullest when it isn’t being given the room to.

Let’s have a look at one with huge mana that is constantly being mispronounced. Te Reinga or as some of you may know it, “Cape Ree-anger”.

Before we have a look at how it should be said, let’s have a look at the story behind the mana.

Te Reinga is right up the top of Te Ika-a-Maui, the North Island. It marks an area in the moana where the Pacific and the Tasman meet, which is pretty amazing, but that’s not even near the mana I’m referring to.

Te Reinga is the point where Māori believe, after dying, the spirit takes a journey from the body, walking all the way up to Te Reinga and dives in to the moana, right where the waters of Te Moananui-a-Kiwa, the Pacific and Te Moana-tāpokopokoa-Tāwhaki, the Tasman meet – the entranceway to the afterlife.

Pretty big mana, right? So it deserves to be pronounced correctly, no? Yes!

The first part, “Te” is pretty easy. We have that word quite widely in the Kiwi vernacular these days, but the second part, “Reinga” trips a few of us up. Say it like this…

REI = RAY (LIKE A STINGRAY)

For some reason, like I said earlier, it gets pronounced as “Ree-anger”, even though it doesn’t even look like that and is so much more work to say than the correct way!

The “ei” grouping of vowels sound like “ay” in English. It’s that easy!

Give it a try, so when eventually you pass on you get to the right place when you tell wairua Siri to plot your course on your wairua GPS and can dive in to the right place to get to Hawaiki in the afterlife.