Koro Dewes
Māori language revivalist
Te Kapunga Matemoana "Koro" Dewes (7 April 1930 – 17 August 2010) was a kaumātua of the Ngāti Porou iwi of New Zealand. He was a pioneer of Māori education and an advocate for the Māori language.
Biography
Dewes attended Horoera Native Primary School and won a scholarship to Wesley College, where he became dux and head prefect. He went to Ardmore Teachers' College (now part of the University of Auckland) in 1949 and taught at Tikitiki District High School and St. Stephen's Anglican Māori boarding school. From 1962 to 1966, he lectured in the University Extension Department (adult education) of the University of Auckland, and then was appointed as a lecturer in Māori language at the Victoria University of Wellington. At Wellington, he helped to extend courses to allow students to complete a degree major in Māori language. He wrote a master's thesis on the work of composer Henare Waitoa, which was submitted in Māori in 1972. The title of the master's thesis was Ngā waiata haka a Hēnare Waitoa o Ngāti Porou (modern dance-poetry by Hēnare Waitoa of Ngāti Porou). He was awarded an honorary doctorate of literature (DLitt) by Victoria in 2002.
The public source identifies “Koro Dewes” as māori language revivalist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Koro, Dewes and Māori.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 17, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q6432473. VIAF identifies the subject as 172167001. The Library of Congress control number is no2011102238. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1930, 2010, 1949 and 1962.
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This entry incorporates text from “Koro Dewes” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.