OUR PLACE AND STORY

UNDER EVERY ROCK  A STORY

He aha te hau e wawara mai

He raki nana i a mai te pupu-tarakihi ki uta 

I tu ai te pou whakairo ki Waitemata

What is this wind that disturbs me tis The North Wind

That brings good and bad to Waitemata

Ah, my vision

(Titahi's prophesy)

  

Ngati Whatua kaumatua Te Puna Danny Tumahai once told us, "... protect the past by preserving the best of the present to guide the future."

Centuries old stories abound everywhere we look; on the summits of mountains, waterways and headlands, and under every rock along and in the habour, each weaving a tapestry that hold meaning.

My advice, unlock that wealth of information by working with place names across Tamaki Makaurau-Auckland.  It isn't surprising that Aucklanders know little or are indifferent to the richness that can be readily grasped around the isthmus.  For a start, names are like pneumonic reminders that recall precise details of family and tribal whakapapa (genealogical histories).  They are like road signs that show us where we have been and where we are going.  

There is so much value in the work of local iwi of Ngati Whatua, Tainui and Ngati Paoa to reclaim and preserve old names that  could easily have become obsolete through lack of usage or understanding.  Auckland possesses a rich heritage that can easily be untapped.  To do less is to betray generations to come.  Te Reo is slowly regaining a former life, so I therefore commend place names as a starting point for the learner.  These names are not vestiges of the past but each throbs with the vibrancy of a heart.

This knowledge would open up another world for Aucklanders if they could hear and know about Te Pane-o-Horowai (St Helliers), Mataaho (volcano deity), Te Hororoa (Pt Britomart), or Te Ara Whakatekateka a Ruarangi (Meola Reef), now how about the green-eyed fish of Poutini that came to Waitemata, names that echo of our origins.

Kupe was our earliest known ocean going navigator who left many names that defined our coast-line that became critical signs for the navigators who followed in his wake.  Kupe took back with him the prized greenstone.  This important find was quickly identified as Poutini the spiritual home of pounamu along the Arahura River.  Maps came later, much later with Abel Tasman, James Cook and Marion du Fresne.

Early waka sailors followed the stars, whales and birds yes, but they also followed 'sign posts' along the coastline, mountains and rivers adding their own narratives to an overlay of stories. Sailings to Aotearoa were no mere accident.  These were planned over generations of aggregated knowledge, skills, experience and sheer guts and intuition; prodigious journeys of the mind, spirit and body.

This week Aucklanders were welcomed aboard The Sarah Gifford, a restored flat-bottom scow for a trip around Waitemata to experience something of the richness of Maori place names and the Maori language.

A short welcome, a karakia, mihi and a waiata, then the two names our city: Tamaki Makaurau (place of many lovers) and Auckland (Lord Auckland).  Two stories that resonated with manuhiri (guests) were,  'Patupaearehe and The Harbour Bridge', and the other, 'Mataaho-the fiery keeper of volcanoes'.       

What our guests experienced during two sailings was the richness of both languages, English and Maori in stories so redolent with episodes of our city's ancient and recent past.  

Names therefore carry knowledge and power in the spoken word.  The speaker (male or female) used the mana of a living taonga (heirloom).  The spoken word is held sacred because through it the wisdom of the ancestors is presented and communicated and made objective in our world.  A single word or name is there for the transfer of knowledge. 

Tamaki Makaurau, Nga Tapuwae, Ihumatao, Te Pane-o-Horowai, Te Hororoa, Rangitoto, Toangaroa, Pukekawa, Motu Tapu and so on around a glistening harbour to Te Ara Whakatekateka-a-Ruarangi.   

Our guests had fun spotting and matching names to the landscape and by weaving these lyrical and poetic names around their tongues and having a laugh doing it together.

Maori Language Week when it closed on Sunday should not stop there.  I commend the taonga of language to you.  Haere mai ki Tamaki Makaurau.

A nation that understands and accepts its holiness, is a nation blessed.

Haare Williams 9 July 2013

White Lies Tuakiri Huna

Speaking te reo was a prerequisite for early settlers here for reasons of survival and security. And as well to establish rapport with tangata whenua laying the foundations for trade and commerce as Maori quickly adapted into the spirit of building the new colony.  Speaking English came quickly to tangata whenua and in the 1820s and 1830s Church mission schools flourished with translations of The Bible. But by the 1930s, instruction in schools was solely in English with te reo banished (almost) to extinction as a colonial relic.

Here again in the start of another Te Wiki o Te Reo, we celebrate through Maori Language Week a taonga (national treasure) and what better way to kick start it with the movie ‘White Lies’.  This movie does that.  If nothing else - te reo is given the power it deserves in snapshots of Ringatu karakia, waiata tawhito (ancient songs), conversational English and Maori which flow regally together owing as much to the skill of Whirimako Black who brings the richness of her lines and character into a natural blend of languages together with a balance of wit and humour. This congruency, I am sure sat well with a responsive audience.  A celebration too through Ringatu, the church founded by Te Kooti and the easy-to-read subtitles.


I went along with a colleague and friend Karena from The Voyager Museum and tread the red-carpet for the premier of ‘White Lies’.  I noted her occasional sniff and sob and the raising of her hand (Ringatu) for moments in praise of God.  It was, for us a rare chance to meet the players and Author Witi Ihimaera (DCNZ, QSM) with his Gisborne family along with Tuhoe supporters.

This is a story that resonated with me around the Tuhoe struggle for survival.  It opened with a prelude in karakia, mihi, and a brief comment by Ihimaera.

 

Powerhouse acting by three women; Whirimako Black in her debut role as Paraiti will arguably put her up as one of our premier screen actors; gentle, warm, compelling and humane.  Maraea is played by Rachel House also brilliant who, with Rebecca, played by Antonia Prebble is a wealthy young wife with a secret; three very different portrayals that bring a sharp contrast to the screen. Paraiiti is a natural winner.  

The other winner is Alun Bolinger (NZOM) cinematographer who brings this movie together in breathtaking scenes that take us into quintessential Urewera in its spiritual overlay of people ancestors, and land set against a misty landscape merging seamlessly with Ihi, (challenging and spine tingling), wehi (awesomeness, inspiring), wana (artistry, beauty,  rhythm to behold, inner glow), and mana (authority from the ancestors).

“I suffered from a respiratory sickness and the medicine of Te Urewera cured me of that the inspiration came from her,” Ihimaera told us before the start of the movie.

This is a portrayal of a head-on clash of beliefs, deception, and ultimate salvation.                         

A modest kuia living in Te Teko who, in real life played out episodes as a nurse, mid-wife, life-giver, sometimes on horseback with a dog; Putiputi O’Brien is a living legend.  As well, I recall vividly stories from my grandmother Wairemana (granddaughter of Tutakangahau of Te Urewera) telling in graphic detail of the devastation of her Tuhoe people who like other iwi were caught up in a time of dislocation and upheavels in a changing world.  As a child, I heard of torched buildings, the destruction of crops and fruit trees, guns smashed, and left only with old horses.  Police Commissioner, John Cullen with ninety-nine fully armed and mounted police on Sunday 2 April 1916, crushed a peaceful village with violence with the deaths of two men; Toko Kenana and, Te Maipi.  Wairemana told me, she and her whanau moved out of their cherished kainga forced out by poverty through the pandemic and tortuous blitzes inflicted upon them by Crown authority.  I commend this movie to you all.  Says Karena,

“You must see this movie! It has everything; beautiful cinematography; stunning acting; a potent, powerful story.  The subtitles are more than just helping you to understand what is being said. They make a statement about a comprehensive effort to destroy a culture and people through outlawing their language.”  (Karen Walters)

 

Against this backdrop, you may recall that *The Tohunga Suppression Act of 1907 outlawed any practice of Maori medicine. This story also explores deep seated dilemmas in New Zealand; questions of identity, societal attitudes, the roles of women, and as well the tensions between western and traditional practices that still exist. The third winner is te reo.

Ihimaera opened the movie with a mihi to an expectant audience and ended to a spontaneous applause, many dabbing away tears and sitting through to the end of the credits roll.

Director Dana Rothberg, Writer John Barnett, Camera Alun Bollinger.

Haare Williams 26 June 2013

* An Act of Parliament intended to stop people using traditional healing practices which had a spiritual or supernatural element.  It was repealed in 1985.  Rua Kenana, of Tuhoe was the target of this Act.