--- title: Tikanga Māori perspective of the Internet description: Explore Māori words for internet and open source, and their significance in digital sovereignty and cultural connectivity. url: https://www.taiuru.co.nz/tikanga-maori-perspective-of-the-internet/ markdown_url: https://www.taiuru.co.nz/tikanga-maori-perspective-of-the-internet.md type: post slug: tikanga-maori-perspective-of-the-internet author: Karaitiana Taiuru published: 2026-10-10T22:18:04Z modified: 2026-10-10T22:28:11Z language: en-NZ taxonomies: category: - Te Reo Māori - Tech Tikanga Māori word_count: 1690 tokens: 2768 --- # Tikanga Māori perspective of the Internet Karaitiana N Taiuru · 17 April 2015 These two presentations were first presented by Karaitiana Taiuru to the Open Source/Open Society 2015 conference (Indigenous break out session) in Wellington on April 17 2015. N Part 1: The Internet infrastructure and technologies from an Indigenous perspective: comparing Māori traditions and genealogies Part 2: Impacts and Considerations for Indigenous Populations using Open Source Part 1: The Internet infrastructure and technologies from an Indigenous perspective: comparing Māori traditions and genealogies Overview An holistic description and comparison of Māori Culture and Society (Te Ao Māori) with the Internet Digital Colonialism Data Sovereignty Indigenous imagery Tino Rangatiratanga 1. (noun) self-determination, sovereignty, autonomy, self-government, domination, rule, control, power. (maoridictionary.co.nz) Whakapapa Genealogy / Whakapapa 4. (noun) genealogy, genealogical table, lineage, descent – reciting whakapapa was, and is, an important skill and reflected the importance of genealogies in Māori society in terms of leadership, land and fishing rights, kinship and status. It is central to all Māori institutions…. (maoridictionary.co.nz) The Internet infrastructure has whakapapa: Vint Cerf DARPA, ARPA All Māori Iwi now face an issue of recording genealogies in a cultural sensitive manner IP must fully remain with Iwi, hapū and whānau Systems must be culturally sensitive Indigenous view that images and names have spiritual connections. Gods – Atua Papatūānuku is the earth mother Ranginui is the Sky Father Tangaroa is the God of the ocean Tāwhirimātea is the god of the air and wind Te ao Māori/Māori world view The Internet compared to the natural world Indigenous Peoples relate to natural world. The Internet relies on the natural world to exist. Everything in the natural world had whakapapa and a god or supreme being. Internet – Ipurangi Internet is equivalent to the whole world. The Internet infrastructure (land, sea, air) in New Zealand is “Te Ao Māori – The Māori world”. Internet from Southern Cross Cable A vein inside Tangaroa Connects Papatūānuku and Tangaroa Māori belief is that seafood near the cable cannot be eaten Fibre and cables Veins inside Papatūānuku Cautious of significant land areas when laying cables Wireless Sending knowledge via Tāwhirimātea. What kind of knowledge is it? Is there sacred knowledge? Will there be a wifi connection next to a sacred land area? Caution: Wireless Digital Data is sent in packets through the air and through human bodies, resulting in an infringement of sacred knowledge. Network Providers / Iwi Network Providers are the same as Iwi. Iwi are large groups of related families who reside in the same geographic region. Networks / Hapū Corporate/Education/Organisation and personal networks are the same as traditional Māori hapū. A Māori hapū is a sub group of an Iwi that comprises of more closely related families in the same geographic region. Web sites / Whānau Web sites are the same as whānau Whānau is a Māori family of blood connections whom share the same DNA and tangata are the people. Computers / Rorohiko Computers are the people. Systems and apps are the body parts that make the people Systems and apps need whakapapa and appropriate names. Firewall and AntiVirus / Pā A pā is a fortified village that protected all members of a family, hapū and Iwi who sought safety. Often more than one and there were traps and decoys to protect the pā. Social media and crowd sourcing / Marae A marae is where Iwi, hapū, whānau and tangata met to discuss various topics, catch up with friends and to generally create a large social gathering. Māori culture are accustomed to crowd sourcing and open planning Mobile phone / Waea Pūkoro Traditional Māori musical instrument called a Pūrerehua created sounds in the wind and was used for communication. Open Source and Proprietary from an Indigenous view Commercial and Proprietary software and systems Could be referred to as colonial. Proprietary systems and software International conglomerates take Intellectual Property that has remained within traditional Indigenous knowledge for centuries. Māori cannot understand the environment Help and information are not readily available. A user pays for the right to access their own information Te reo Māori – The Māori language Te Reo Māori / Māori Language About 100,000 newly created ICT words since 1997 Linux distro was the first system to have majority localised into te reo Māori. Translators and experts do not want to share and give away their IP to corporate thus resulting in a lack of new terminology being created. Localisation Projects Historically failed to be successful due to lack of translators. 2015 there is a lack of communication between Indigenous Peoples and Open Source community. There are te reo sources for many projects Digital and Data colonialism and sovereignty Digital Colonialism A dominant culture enforcing its power and influence onto a minority culture to digitise knowledge that is traditionally reserved for different levels of a hierarchical closed society, or information that was published with the sole intent of remaining in the one format such as radio or print. A blatant disregard for the ownership of the data and the digitised format, nor the dissemination. Digital data that becomes the topic of data sovereignty. Conglomerates and government who use their influence to digitise data as they want. Don’t Digitise Indigenous knowledge without consultation Data Sovereignty Wherever your digital information is stored, it is subject to the laws, or legal jurisdiction, of the country in which it resides. Indigenous Peoples expect their knowledge to be held in their own country and to be secure. The USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, and the US PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005, permit U.S. government agencies to access any information stored within the U.S. legal jurisdiction without your permission or notification to you. This includes data held by any U.S. organisation which may hold your data in a country other than the USA. Data Ownership Social media grant extremely broad rights over your content… With these terms companies are saying ‘you own your content, but we can just use it however we want.’ Usage of images Seek Indigenous permission to use images. Don’t copy and paste from web sites Māori carvings and tattoos all have unique meaning Mark of Kri resulted in an Indigenous Hacker Download the original Part 1 slides (PDF) Part 2: Impacts and Considerations for Indigenous Populations using Open Source Introduction An holistic description and comparison of Māori Culture and Society (Te Ao Māori) and Open Source Culture (Te Ao Tino Rangatiratanga). I will conclude each page with a benefit to Māori and other Indigenous Peoples. The aim is to enlighten both the Open Source Community and Indigenous Peoples about each other. My intention… Open Source community will be able to see how Indigenous Peoples think and therefore be able to offer better solutions. Indigenous Peoples will better understand the need for Open Source technologies. Whakapapa/Knowledge Genealogy / Whakapapa Everything in the Māori world has whakapapa including all natural things, buildings, carvings, jewellery, people and places. Whakapapa meant supreme knowledge of the natural environment and how to appease the relevant gods, read the stars. Open Source has whakapapa in manuals, licences. Open Source is respectful to Māori as Māori can learn and become tohunga in Open Source Gods or developers? Prayers/karakia: Online forums, Manuals. All Māori Iwi now face an issue of recording genealogies in a cultural sensitive matter IP must fully remain with Iwi Systems must be culturally sensitive Indigenous view that images and names have spiritual connections. Tino Rangatiratanga / Open Source 1. (noun) self-determination, sovereignty, autonomy, self-government, domination, rule, control, power. (maoridictionary.co.nz) I have coined this term for Open Source. Internet – Ipurangi Internet is equivalent to the whole world. Māori understood there were other parts of the world such as Polynesia but they resided in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Internet from Southern Cross Cable This is equivalent to Aotearoa/New Zealand Further defined by… The next slides in this presentation are the same as in Part 1: Network Providers / Iwi Networks / Hapū Web sites / Whānau Computers / Rorohiko Firewall and AntiVirus / Pā Social media and crowd sourcing / Marae Mobile phone / Waea Pūkoro Tohunga / Learned Experts Every Māori community had Tohunga who were recognised experts in various parts of society such as: Celestial, gardens, spiritual world, medicine and education. Open Source communities have developers and software creators. Open Source and Proprietary from an Indigenous view The slides in this section are the same as in Part 1: Commercial and Proprietary software and systems and Proprietary systems and software. Te reo Māori – The Māori language This section opens with the Te Reo Māori / Māori Language slide from Part 1, then adds: Newly created ICT terminology Often come with licences and personal pressure not to share. Some translators are paid and others are not. New words created in isolation create confusion. Ensure you have a language expert such as Ian Cormack. It closes with the Localisation Projects slide from Part 1. Security Indigenous-led security Indigenous for Indigenous can benefit all. Perhaps not important for non Indigenous Peoples. Māori Diceware Password Generation Use a Creative Commons licensed publicly available te reo Māori word list of 250,000 words. Stripped down to meet diceware phrases Intention is for an offline javascript html page to generate high entropy diceware passwords using Māori words. Premise: 10 (or more) Māori words randomly generated from 12,585 word list is log2(12585^10 / 2) = 135.19 bits. http://world.std.com/~reinhold/diceware.html Pareto Security Designed as a broad-based PHP security fixer class for CMS such as Drupal, WordPress, Joomla, osCommerce and other content management systems. Written in PHP 5 This class can filter requests to recognise malicious values and either call a 403 access denied (default), or optionally add the offending IP address to the banned list in the root htaccess file of a website. Ngā Pātai / Questions What does OS mean to Māori communities Mātauranga Māori/Māori Knowledge? (Intellectual property/access) How can OS provide an opportunity better connect and engage with Māori/disengaged communities What could OS do to open up transparency and decision making in Māori communities? What are the current developments taking place in the Māori World that may be of interest to the OS community? Download the original Part 2 slides (PDF)