Anituatua was born in Ruatoki (Te Pohue Block, Ngai Te Kapo lands) and was educated in the ancient wananga a nga tipuna (Ngai Tuhoe). She attended Ruatoki District High School and Hukarere College. She is a trained primary school teacher and was part of the first intake in Kura Kaupapa Māori who trained at Hamilton Teachers’ College. She has passed two university papers in Sociology at 100 level. Ani has held lecturing posts in the Māori Studies Department at Auckland University and in the Social Work Course at Auckland Teachers’ College. She tutored in the Māori Studies Department at Waikato University and was part of an advisory group who worked on the development of the Māori Studies programme in Lopdell House in the mid 1970s. In 1977 she went on the 28th Māori Battalion Pilgrimage overseas. She taught at Morrinsville College for five years and established the college’s Māori Studies curriculum.
Her last position was as Kura Tangiwai at the University of Otago where she held a Teaching Fellowship by special recommendation of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, and particularly Miriama Evans, director of the Māori Women’s Secretariat, and was highly recommended by the late Sir Monita Delamere who held the post of cultural adviser to the Waitangi Tribunal. Ani established various papers at the Māori Studies Department at Otago including Te Mana Wahine (302) which focused on the role and cultural circumstances of women in traditional and contemporary Māori society. Her other papers included Kaupapa Motuhake (319), Te Manawa Pouaho (402), and she assisted in other 300-level papers and a 400-level paper.
Anituatua contributed to the Māori Women’s Writers Festival in Auckland in 1992 with an original collection of poems in Te Reo. She is a noted exponent nationally in Māori women’s oratory including karanga, powhiri, moteatea, haka, and waiata a ringa. Her research priorities cover the “Ancient Māori Power and Praxis of the Higher Arts”, “Ancient Māori Language and Oral Literature”, “Ancient Philosophy and Mythology”, and the “Development of Human and Spiritual Environment.” She is currently working on bringing these works together. She is one of six Māori poets whose poetry was included in a Language Teaching Resource compiled by the School of Māori Studies at Massey University in 1991-92 for 300-500 level students. Anituatua’s poems for this resource were recorded onto audio cassette in November and December 1992 and included “Te Kuia Turehu o te Po”, “Te Hotunui-a-Kapiti”, and “Tokanui-Toka Turi.”
Anituatua was one of the hundred Māori women presented to the Queen at Government House in Wellington during the 1990 Sesquicentennial Celebrations. She was the Kaiwhakawa Judge and Adjudicator for the Puka-a-Maui Regional Polynesian Cultural Competition in 1994 in Balclutha, and for the Secondary Schools’ Regional Speech Competitions in 1994 at Te Kura Taitoko (Teachers’ College). She did English to Māori translation work for the Auckland City Library Mission Statement, Vision and Goals in 1990, and thirteen translations for the Māori Affairs Board in 1994, as well as translations for the School of Pharmacy, Otago University in 1994.
"In 2005 Anituatua won the Te Waka Toi Awards' Te Tohu Aroha mo Ngoi Kumeroa Pewhairangi for contribution to te reo Maori for Poetry/songwriting.
Anituatua regards her main life's work as supporting her husband Stuart Tai Black, who passed away earlier this year, and their 10 children and 25 grandchildren. She has also collaborated frequently with her daughters Whirimako and Rangitunoa Black. In particular, over the years she has been involved with the 28th Maori Battalion. This included travelling to Cassino, Italy, with Stuart in 2004 to mark the Maori Battalions Contribution to the Freedom of the Italians. This tour was recorded by Maui Productions and broadcast on Maori Television."
Biographical sources
- Phone conversation with Ani Black, 14 July 1998.
- Correspondence from Rangitunoa Black, 18 July and 9 Aug. 1998.
- Women’s Studies Journal 8.2 (1992): 1.
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http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU0508/S00134.htm 14 October 20016
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https://www.thebigidea.nz/news/industry-news/2009/jul/58684-whirimako-black-website-launch 14 October 20016