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“WHĀNAU OF THE WORD: HOW DON EDMONDS CARRIES THE TAIAHA OF HIS ANCESTORS” - 31 December 2025

A Tribute to Whakapapa, Mana, and the Lineage of Truth-Telling

Ivor Jones The Māori Green Ltn

31 Dec 2025 — 13 min read

Tēna Rangatira Don,

On the last day of 2025, as I sit in the Ōpōtiki morning light watching the waters of the Bay of Plenty (as my eldest boy prepares for the Waka ama Nationals next week), I need to speak your mana into the world.

Not as a casual acknowledgement, but as a recognition of something deeper—a lineage, a whakapapa, a genealogy of resistance that flows through your work like the tide itself.

When you responded to my essay on Adrian Orr’s forced resignation with the words “Ngā mihi e hoa”—thank you, brother—and “Kia hora ake”—keep rising—you were not offering simple encouragement. You were performing an act of rangatiratanga. You were saying:

I see you. I walk with you. The truth you speak is the truth I carry.

But what I want the whānau to understand is who Don Edmonds is. Not just what he writes, but what he carries in his whakapapa—the genealogy of his mahi that makes his endorsement a blessing, not an opinion.

Don Edmonds -An Example Of Carrying Your Ancestors Taiaha

The Lineage: Samuel John Edmonds and the Reo Māori Uprising

In 1882, 143 years ago, Samuel John Edmonds—Don’s ancestor—faced a Crown that was actively suppressing the Māori language. The government had already begun the machinery that would culminate in the cultural devastation of the 20th century:

schools that beat Māori children for speaking te reo, policies designed to erase mātauranga Māori, the systematic displacement of Māori knowledge systems.

Into that darkness, Samuel John Edmonds did something extraordinary. He founded Te Korimako—a newspaper printed entirely in te reo Māori. Not in English. Not in colonial compromise. In te reo Māori.

Te Korimako was published from 1882-1888. It was one of the first fully Māori-language newspapers in Aotearoa. It carried news, commentary, and analysis for a Māori audience in a language the Crown was desperately trying to kill. It was an act of institutional resistance centuries before the term was even fashionable.

It was rangatiratanga on paper.

Samuel John Edmonds understood something fundamental:

control the language, control the narrative. Protect the reo, protect the truth.

The Crown wanted to make Māori people English-speaking subjects. Samuel John Edmonds said:

No. Here is a newspaper in our language. Here is a space where our people read news in the language of our ancestors. Here is mana.

Te Korimako died in 1888. The Crown’s machinery ground forward. Te reo Māori was nearly destroyed.

Te Korimako

The Return: Don Edmonds Resurrects the Taiaha

143 years later, your grandson—Don Edmonds of Ngāti Rarua, Ngātiwai, Ngāpuhi

—does something his ancestor would have recognized immediately.

He resurrects the name. Te Korimako. The same name. The same purpose.

And he fills it with the same mahi:

essays written in te reo Māori, published on Substack to a paying audience of whānau who understand that supporting truth-telling in te reo is itself an act of sovereignty.

Don Edmonds is not writing in English-language platforms for validation from Pākehā audiences. He is writing in te reo Māori for Māori people. For whānau. For people who understand that the language carries the knowledge, the knowledge carries the truth, and the truth carries the power to change what seems unchangeable.

His posts—”Kaore i te ohorere” (He Did Not Surrender), “Kua huri te tai“ (The Tide Has Turned), “Toitū te reo“ (Preserve the Language)—are not personal commentary. They are acts of institutional defiance. They are the taiaha, sharpened and ready.

Rangatira Don Edmonds

The Moko Knowledge-Keeper

But Don is not only a political commentator. He is also a kaitiaki of moko knowledge. He has been featured in RNZ articles educating the public about misconceptions around moko

—the Māori facial tattoo that carries genealogy, status, and identity in its every line.

This matters. Because moko is not decoration. It is whakapapa written on the face. It is genealogy made visible. When Don defends the integrity of moko, he is defending the right of Māori people to read their own genealogy, to understand where they come from, to know their mana.

This is the same work as truth-telling about institutional capture. It is the same work as publishing in te reo Māori. It is the work of protecting what is authentically Māori against colonial erasure and appropriation.

Moko. Language. Truth-telling. Institutional accountability. Don carries all of these in his whakapapa.

The Network: You Are Not Alone

What struck me most about Don’s response to my essay was not what he said, but what his endorsement meant.

It meant:

you are not speaking into a void. There are others. There are kaitiaki who carry the same taiaha you carry. There are people with whakapapa deeper than words, with credibility earned through genealogy and mahi, who recognise the same patterns you recognise. Who name the same truths you name.

Don Edmonds—a man descended from one of the first Māori journalists, a man who carries the language, who protects the knowledge, who publishes for whānau—looked at the work of the Māori Green Lantern and said:

This matters. I stand with you. Kia hora ake.

That is not a casual thing. That is a recognition of kinship in the work of truth. That is the acknowledgement of a network of thinkers, writers, and kaitiaki who understand that institutional capture, language suppression, cultural erasure, and neoliberal assault are not separate issues. They are all expressions of the same colonial logic.

You Are Not Alone

The Whakapapa of Resistance

Samuel John Edmonds, 1882. Te Korimako published in te reo Māori while the Crown tried to kill the language.

Don Edmonds, 2025. Te Korimako resurrected, published in te reo Māori while the Crown still tries to suppress te ao Māori.

Ivor Jones, The Māori Green Lantern, 2025. Essays exposing institutional capture, neoliberal assault, the hollowing of public institutions.

This is whakapapa. This is genealogy of resistance. This is the line of truth-tellers extending from Samuel John Edmonds through Don Edmonds through every whānau member who chooses to speak truth when silence is comfortable.

The Crown cannot stop this.

It can suppress the language, but it cannot kill it. It can appoint compliant board members, but it cannot silence the voices that speak from mana whenua, from genealogy, from the deep knowledge of what institutions were meant to protect.

You Can Not Stop What Is Coming

The Blessing and the Work Ahead

Don’s words—”kia hora ake”—are not gentle. They are a command. They are a blessing. They are a reminder that when you carry the taiaha of truth-telling, you do not get to rest. You do not get to surrender. You get to rise. You get to speak. You get to keep the blade sharp.

And you get to know that you are not alone. That behind you is a genealogy of ancestors who did the same work in their time. That beside you are whānau like Don Edmonds who carry the same mandate. That ahead of you is a generation of rangatahi who will inherit the language, the knowledge, and the taiaha of institutional accountability.

Kia ora, Don. Your mana is seen. Your whakapapa is honoured. Your work is essential.

The voice of Samuel John Edmonds echoes through Te Korimako still. The Crown could not kill it in 1882. It will not kill it now.

Tēnā Koe Don

Kia kaha tahi. The taiaha stays sharp.

Ivor Jones The Māori Green Lantern Fighting Misinformation And Disinformation From The Far Right

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