I have a family connection to New Zealand/Aotearoa, with many relatives there. I’ll tell you the story of how that happened.
My uncle Murchadh was at sea, and returning home to Lewis. He was returning through the Panama Canal, and got to talking to some Lewismen going in the opposite direction. One of the men had just heard of a family bereavement, and so they agreed to swap passages. My uncle went back out to New Zealand, and stayed.
One of my other uncles, Tormod ended up in Australia. He “jumped ship”, staying in the country illegally. Some people called him by his alias for the rest of his life. He was a fireman out there, as was another of my uncles, Finlay, in London. They weren’t short of stories, the three of them.
Murchadh would write every week (a ‘bluey’ airmail), and he spent a lot of his time in his imagination in Ness, Lewis. He was harbourmaster in Wellington, and he would go around the docks with a massive board with “Any Lewismen on board?” written on it. He taught me his complicated but ultimately successful system for eating porridge.
I recently worked on a drama with Māori writer Tihini Grant. I’ll talk a little about some of the feelings that this work woke up, what Tihini calls “the deeply saddening burden.” I’ll also talk about the Gaelic connection with Aotearoa - on which Dr Viki Marker has done fascinating work.
There were two things I didn’t know before I worked with Tihini. I didn’t know much about the Clearances in the Outer Hebrides and I didn’t know anything about the Māori experience.
Even great academics like Alexander Fenton talked about the “paternalistic” view of Lewis landlords and that this limited the severity of the Clearances. It didn’t. Reading about this awoke a lot of grief.
As early as 1793, Mr Francis Humberston Mackenzie, later Lord Seaforth, advertised the whole parish of Uig for letting as a sheep farm… As Seaforth’s financial affairs deteriorated, the number of removing summonses increased. In 1796, there were no fewer than 358 issued, 150 for Barvas, 133 for Uig, 44 for Lochs, and 31 for Stornoway…. during the years 1818-32, the number rose to over 2,300. (MacDonald, p. 160, 1978)
Look at the Clearances in Uist, Gordon of Cluny, who made his money in slavery and had the idea of turning the island into a penal colony. Over three thousand people were made to leave their homes in Uist, sent to Canada.
New Zealand was one of the places the displaced went. It’s estimated, by looking at registers of assisted passages, that in the 1870s ~23% of emigrants to New Zealand came from the Highlands and Islands. (Lenigan, 2015).
The settlement of New Zealand was a tragedy for the Māori people. Tihini puts it like this. “In the end, such a tragedy is unknowable in its entirety. We can only glimpse it in parts. For if we did, it would surely overwhelm us.”
Māori tribes agreed to sell land to the British for varying reasons. To increase trade, for security. They were promised schools and hospitals in exchange for land and that culturally important sites would remain in their possession. With some contracts, they were promised that they would keep a tenth of the land.
In one transaction, 20 million acres were “bought” for £2000. The tenths deals weren’t honoured. Some tribes lost 99% of their ancestral lands.
The Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840. The Māori representatives were given a different translation in Māori to what was in the English version. In the Māori version, the Māori tribes kept authority over their lands and way of life. In the English version, the text gave the British Monarch sovereignty over New Zealand.
Tihini said “We try and make some sense of things through art. But that can only go so far.”
Michael Newton writes very well on the subject. In an article called Decolonization is for everyone, especially white people.
The fact is that it is a messy, complex, and ugly set of intersections and it takes a great deal of effort to unwind the many facets of this history in the detail that it deserves. Decolonization is an enormous challenge, even explaining it and why it is relevant.
I don’t know where even to start with the “unwinding”.
Tihini and I found a lot of common ground - from material culture, to the shape of songs and concepts in common such as dùthchas and tūrangawaewae - identity connected to place.
Dr Viki Marker has done some really interesting research on Gaelic and Gaelic speakers in Aotearoa. Tìr nam Māori, was one of the names for it in Gaelic - the Land of the Māori. Some words from Māori were borrowed into the New Zealand Gaelic dialect, like tapueadh - from tapu.
Here are three of the stories Viki told me. The first is about an Iain MacGriogair, who went to New Zealand in 1838.
MacGriogair was in the army during the Taranaki Wars. At one point he was stationed in Auckland, keeping guard over Māori prisoners of war. He started to collect songs from the prisoners.
I asked one of the Maoris if he would write out a few Maori love songs, as I wished to see some of their songs in writing. He was willing to do so if I supplied the materials. […] and in a day or two I received eight pages of Maori songs, and was told if I gave more paper some others would like to write songs. I did so, and in a short time I received some 21 more pages. […] The circumstances were favourable to obtaining the songs in genuine Maori form, as they were written by Maoris, and were carefully copied exactly as written.
He published a collection of “Māori Songs” in 1883, with over 60 “waiata”. Love songs, haka songs and laments. Research on the songs has been conducted by Māori scholars at Victoria University, Wellington, Dr Arini Loader and Dr Mike Ross.
Another story was about an Alexander Macdonald, who went to New Zealand in 1840, when he was twelve years old. He became friendly with Māori children at Kaiwarra pa, and became fluent in the language.
He was of the view that the Treaty of Waitangi had not been honoured by the Crown and European settlers and became an activist, appearing in the Native Land Court of behalf of Māori who had claims ignored.
He lost his job as a government appointed sheep inspector and his activism became more pronouced. He would destroy survey stations on disputed land. He was eventually arrested and sentenced to three years of penal servitude.
His family were destitute when he went to prison. The Highland community helped them, as did the Māori community, who transferred 800 acres of their remaining land to his wife and family, as well as money they raised.
Viki also researched the stories of other Gaels were part of the colonial machinery, such as Donald Maclean, who went to New Zealand in 1840. He was appointed “Protectorate of Aborigines” in 1844 - fluent in te reo Māori and Gaelic. Here is a quote form Alan Ward:
McLean too was strongly culture-bound. When Māori rejected his paternalistic programme for goals and methods of their own, McLean emphasised his Britishness, became as aggressive as any, and cloaked his aggression with self-righteousness. In the last resort, though a very senior official and politician, he was a servant of British colonisation, and his career depended on securing Māori land.
The Māori language from 1800 till the present day.
Here is what Tihini told me of the story of the Māori language, from that time to today.
Māori was the main spoken language in Aotearoa until the early 1800s. Even the missionaries and traders who went there to trade needed to learn it, as it remained the language of commerce and trade through that period.
The first real attempt to write the language down came in 1844, when William Williams released his dictionary. Over time, though, the language began to decline. In particular, children were forced to attend schools where the official policy was English only, and te reo was actively discouraged.
That school system caused real trauma for my grandparents’ generation — trauma that my own generation has largely been able to work through.
There is now a real resurgence, with growing numbers of speakers. When the last language survey was done in 2021, it showed real, measurable growth. Tihini said:
A big part of that turnaround goes back to around 1972, when we campaigned to have te reo Māori recognised as an official language. It wasn’t until 1987 that this happened. New Zealand now has three official languages: English, New Zealand Sign Language, and te reo Māori. A great deal of work by our elders lay behind that recognition.
A clause in the Treaty of Waitangi, signed in 1840, commits the Crown to preserving and protecting what the Treaty calls “taonga” — the resources and treasures of Māori tribes — and to upholding tribal authority over them.
It was successfully argued before the Waitangi Tribunal that te reo Māori itself is a taonga, and that the Crown had failed in its obligation to protect and preserve the language. Once that was recognised, there was a campaign for a Māori Language Commission to be established.
Tihini also said that a lot of hard work — legal and educational — went into securing radio frequencies for each tribe, to promote and normalise hearing te reo. Every tribal group now has its own radio station. Communities also set up and ran kōhanga reo — (largely unfunded) Māori-language preschools.
From there, that flowed on into kura kaupapa Māori (Māori-medium schools) at primary and secondary level, so children could continue their education immersed in te reo. The generations who came through that system now make up the bulk of our current te reo Māori speakers.
More recently, though, things have taken a difficult turn. With a centre-right coalition government in power in New Zealand, there’s been a politicisation of the language over the last couple of years.
Government departments that had adopted Māori names have, in some cases, been forced to revert to English ones — our health system is one example, and our transport agency (NZTA) another. It’s part of a broader pattern where not just Māori language but Māori culture, and initiatives aimed at improving Māori health, education, and income outcomes, have been targeted.
I asked Tihini why the language matters so much. He said:
It connects us back to our land, our culture, and our ancestors’ ways of seeing and understanding the world. Māori words and concepts express things in a fundamentally different way from English, and you can only really understand what our ancestors meant — when they named a place, or expressed an emotion, an idea, a philosophy — by engaging with the language itself.
One of Tihini’s responsibilities in his community is running a traditional medicine school. Students learn to identify plants and harvest them, and as part of that they talk about the language of the forest.
One of the words you’ll hear when we talk about trees here is rākau. There’s a scientific understanding of a tree, and there’s a cultural understanding embedded in that word that simply isn’t there in the English word “tree” — it doesn’t carry that same layered meaning.
That’s part of how I encourage students to pick up the language: it opens the door to mātauranga Māori, traditional knowledge and wisdom, which is very much a living, practised body of knowledge guided by that tradition.
When his daughter was born (she’s 21 now), he made sure she was raised with the language.
I didn’t grow up with it in my own home, but I wanted that to be different for her, so te reo Māori was her first language. She speaks both English and Māori, and she also picked up some Spanish, which was taught as a third language at her Māori-medium school.So yes — the language matters hugely on a personal level.
I’d like to thank Tihini for his time and also Dr Vikki Marker for sharing her research with us. Thanks for reading.
SOURCES
Lenihan, R. (2015) From Alba to Aotearoa: Profiling New Zealand’s Scots migrants, 1840–1920. Dunedin: Otago University Press
Macdonald, Donald. Lewis: A History of the Island. Edinburgh: Steve Savage/Gordon Wright, 1978
Ward, A. (1990) 'McLean, Donald', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand [Online]. Available at: https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1m38/mclean-donald (Accessed: 22 August 2026).
GAELIC VERSION
Tha tòrr càirdean agam ann an an Tìr nam Māori. Seo mar a thàinig sin gu bith.
Bha an uncail agam, Murchadh, aig muir. An turas seo, bha e a’ tilleadh air ais dhachaigh gu Leòdhas agus thòisich e a bruidhinn ri fear às an àite a bha air an t-slighe a-mach. Bha bàs air a bhith san teaghlach, agus mar sin, rinn e fhèin agus Murchadh suaip. Chaidh an duine dhachaigh, agus chaidh Murchadh a-mach a New Zealand, far na dh’fhuirich e.
Bha uncail eile agam a landaig ann an Astràilia às dèidh dhà “jump ship” a dhèanamh. Ghabh e ainm eile, agus ’s e sin an t-ainm a bhiodh aig feadhainn air fad a bheatha. ’S e neach-smàilidh a bh’ ann, coltach ris an uncail eile agam ann an Lunnain, Fionnlagh. Cha robh iad gann de yarns, na triùir aca.
Bha Murchadh beò na inntinn ann an Nis, bhiodh e a’ sgrìobhadh dhachaigh a h-uile seachdain (airmail ‘bluey’). Bha obair aige mar ‘harbourmaster’ ann an Wellington. Bhiodh e a’ dol timcheall le bòrd mhòr air an robh “Any Lewismen on board?” sgrìobhte, Agus dh’ionnsaich mi dòigh annasach airson lit ithe bhuaidhe.
Bho chionn dreis, bha mi ag obair air pròiseact le sgrobhadair Māori, Tihini Grant. Dhùisg seo diofar faireachdainnean unnam, an “deeply saddening burden” a th’ aig Tihini air.
Ag obair air a’ phròiseact seo, bha mi a’ rannsachadh nam fuadaichean anns na h-Eileanan an Iar, agus cuideachd eachdraidh nan Gàidheil ann an Tìr nam Māori. Thionndaidh mi gu Dr Viki Marker airson barrachd ionnsachadh mu dheidhinn a’ chuspair.
Tha fiù ’s daoine leithid Sandy Fenton ag ràdh nach robh na fuadaichean cho dona sna h-eileannan seach ‘s gun robh dòigh-smaoineachaidh diofraichte aig na h-uachdarain ann. Ach nuair a leughas tu mun chuspair chì thu nach eil sin fìor. Seall air fuadachean Uige, no ann an Uibhist, leis am fear Gordon of Cluny. A thug air trì mìle duine an eilean fhàgail. Dhùisg seo tòrr bròn agus fearg.
’S ann gu New Zealand a chaidh gu leòr dhen fheadhainn a chall an cuid dachaighean. Thathas a’ smaoineachadh, tro bhith a’ coimhead air àireamhan na ghabh “assisted passages” anns na 1870mh gu robh timcheall air 23% dhe na daoine a chaidh a New Zealand bhon Ghàidhealtachd agus na h-Eileannan. (Lenigan, 2015).
Cha tig a chur ann am facail, a’ bhuaidh a thug seo air na Māori. Thuirt Tihini “In the end, such a tragedy is unknowable in its entirety. We can only glimpse it in parts. For if we did, it would surely overwhelm us.”
Dh’aontaich treubhan Māori talamh a reic airson diofar adhbharan. Airson a bhith an sàs anns a’ mhalairt a bha a sìor fhàs aig an àm, agus cuideachd air adbharan tèarainteachd. Chaidh sgoiltean agus ospadalan a ghealltainn dhaibh airson na talmhainn, agus cuideachd glè thric gum biodh iad a’ cumail aon phàirt ann an deich dhen talamh dhaibh pèin. Ach chan e seo a thachair.
Chaill aon treubh 99% dhen talamh aca. Bha aon treubh a’ “reic” 20 millean acair fearainn airson dà mhìle nota, ’s nach fhaca gin de na buannachdan a chaidh a ghealltainn dhaibh.
Chaidh Aonta Waitangi a shoighneadh ann an 1840 eadar na treubhan Māori agus Breatainn. ’S e eadar-theangachadh diofraichte a bh’ anns an dreachd Māori, an taca ris an dreachd Bheurla. Anns a’ Bheurla bha e sgrìobhte gum biodh uachdaranachd aig Banrigh Bhreatainn thairis air an tìr gu lèir. Chan e sin a bh’ anns an dreachd Māori.
Thuirt Tihini “We try and make some sense of things through art. But that can only go so far.”
Tha liut aig Mìcheal Newton, sgrìobhadh mun chuspair. Seo na thuirt e ann an alt - Decolonization is for everyone, especially white people.
The fact is that it is a messy, complex, and ugly set of intersections and it takes a great deal of effort to unwind the many facets of this history in the detail that it deserves. Decolonization is an enormous challenge, even explaining it and why it is relevant.
Chan eil càil a dh’fhios agam far an tòisich duine leis an “unwinding”. Ach chuidich còmhraidhean le Tihini, a’ bruidhinn mu dheidhinn cànain agus cultair. ’S e “tūrangawaewae” am facal ann am Māori airson dùthchais. Bha tòrr ceangalaichean ann.
Tha Dr. Viki Marker air obair ionmholta a dhèanamh air na Gàidheil ann an Tìr nam Māori. Tha coltach gun robh facail bho Māori air an toirt a-steach dhan chànan, leithid “tapueadh” bho “tapu”.
Seo sgeulachdan mu dheidhinn triùir a chaidh a-mach gu New Zealand, a fhuair mi bho Viki.
Bha fear ann, Iain MacGriogair, a chaidh a-mach gu New Zealand ann an 1838.
Bha MacGriogair san Arm, mu àm Cogaidh Taranaki. Aig aon àm bha e ann An Auckland, air bòrd soitheach, a’ coimhead às dèidh prìosanaich Māori. Dhùisg seo an ùidh aige anns na h-òrain a bh’ aca agus thòisich e gan cruinneachadh. Dh’fhoillsich e cruinneachadh - “Māori Songs” - ann an 1883, le barrachd air 60 “waiata” - òrain gaoil, òrain haka.
I asked one of the Maoris if he would write out a few Maori love songs, as I wished to see some of their songs in writing. He was willing to do so if I supplied the materials. […] and in a day or two I received eight pages of Maori songs, and was told if I gave more paper some others would like to write songs. I did so, and in a short time I received some 21 more pages. […] The circumstances were favourable to obtaining the songs in genuine Maori form, as they were written by Maoris, and were carefully copied exactly as written.
Chaidh tuilleadh rannsachaidh a dhèanamh air na h-òrain le dithis à Oitlhigh Bhictòiria ann an Wellington, Dr Arini Loader agus Dr Mike Ross.
Bha sgeulachd eile ann mu fear, Alasdair MacDhòmhnaill a chaidh a New Zealand ann an 1840, nuair a bha e dusan bliadhna a dh’aois.
Dh’fhàs e càirdeal le clann Māori nuair a bha e òg, ann an Kaiwarra pa, agus dh’fhàs e fileanta sa chànan.
Bha e den bheachd nach robh a’ Chrùn a’ cumail ri Aonta Waitangi agus thòisich e a’ strì na aghaidh, a’ toirt taic dha Māori anns a’ chùirt, nuair a bha deasbad ann mu phìos talmhainn.
Chaill e chuid obrach mar neach-sgrùdaidh chaorach. Thòisich e a’ dèanamh rudan mar stèiseannan-suirbhidh a sgriosadh. Bho dheireadh thall, chaidh e dhan phrìosan airson trì bliadhna.
Bha a chuid teaghlaich ann an taigh nam bochd, ach chuidich Gàidheil eile iad. Chuidich cuideachd a’ choimhearsnachd Māori iad, a thug airgead agus 800 acair fearainn dhan teaghlach, bho na bha aca air fhàgail.
Bha Gàidheil eile ann leithid Dòmhnall MacGill-eathain, a chaidh a New Zealand ann an 1840. Fhuair a obair mar “Protectorate of Aborigines” ann an 1844 - fileanta ann an te reo Māori agus Gàidhlig. Seo na thuirt Alan Ward mu dheidhinn:
McLean too was strongly culture-bound. When Māori rejected his paternalistic programme for goals and methods of their own, McLean emphasised his Britishness, became as aggressive as any, and cloaked his aggression with self-righteousness. In the last resort, though a very senior official and politician, he was a servant of British colonisation, and his career depended on securing Māori land. (Ward, 1990)
Sgeulachd iomadh-fhillte a th’ ann, dha-rìribh.
Nuair a chuir mi a’ cheist air Tihini, mu cho cudromach ’s a bha an cànan dha, seo a thuirt e.
It connects us back to our land, our culture, and our ancestors’ ways of seeing and understanding the world. Māori words and concepts express things in a fundamentally different way from English, and you can only really understand what our ancestors meant — when they named a place, or expressed an emotion, an idea, a philosophy — by engaging with the language itself.
Seo ceangal ris an agallamh a rinn mi le Tihini mu dheidhinn ath-nuadhachadh a’ chànain, a tha uabhasach inntinneach (chì sibh gu h-àrd san airtigeal e).
Taing mhòr gu Tihini agus gu Dr. Viki Marker airson an cuid ùine.
TÙSAN
Lenihan, R. (2015) From Alba to Aotearoa: Profiling New Zealand’s Scots migrants, 1840–1920. Dunedin: Otago University Press
Macdonald, Donald. Lewis: A History of the Island. Edinburgh: Steve Savage/Gordon Wright, 1978
Ward, A. (1990) ‘McLean, Donald’, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand [Online]. Available at: https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1m38/mclean-donald (Accessed: 22 August 2026).
END.
Tha seo air leth inntinneach.