I whanau mai a Te Haumihiata Mason (Tuhoe, Ngati Pango, Te Arawa) ki nga paparinga o Tauranga Moana, ka whakatipuhia ki te wharua o Ruatoki i roto o Tuhoe. Ko te reo Maori te reo o te hapori katoa i tona tamarikitanga, i pono ai tona ngakau ki te reo Maori. He wa hoki tera i ora ai te wharua i ona whenua, i ona ngahere me ona awa, me te aha, whakatokia ana ki roto ki a Te Haumihiata te aroha ki te reo, ki nga tini a Tane, a Tangaroa, me te hiahia tonu ki te whakatipu i nga momo mea katoa. Ka whakahaungia e Timoti Karetu kia haere ia ki te whare wananga i ona tau 30, nawai a, ka noho ia hei kaiako i te Tari Maori o Te Whare Wananga o Waikato. No muri ka haere ia ki Te Taura Whiri, ka noho hei Kaitiaki Reo mo te motu. Ko tana pukapuka o na tata nei, Te Rataka a Tetahi Kohine, tana whakamaoritanga o te Diary of a Young Girl a Anne Frank, i tohaina ki nga kura o Aotearoa i te 2019. Born by the sea in Tauranga Moana and raised in Ruatoki in the nation of Tuhoe, Te Haumihiata Mason (Tuhoe, Ngati Pango, Te Arawa) has spent a lifetime devoted to te reo Maori. Her formative years were spent in a monolingual Maori language community at a time when most of the food on the table was sourced from the land, bush and river. Growing up in this environment instilled in Te Haumihiata a passion for te reo Maori, a love of native flora and fauna and a compulsion for growing things. Persuaded by Timoti Karetu to attend university in her 30s, Te Haumihiata went on to become a lecturer at Waikato University and then worked for many years at Te Taura Whiri, eventually becoming Kaitiaki Reo and a national authority on the language. Her recent book Te Rataka a Tetahi Kohine, a translation of Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl, was distributed to schools across Aotearoa in 2019.