Tangihanga

This week, Haare Williams reminds us that it’s okay to open your heart and sob openly.  Of all Maori institutions, he says the tangihanga is the most enduring and has survived the avalanche of European culture as he say farewell to Parekura Horomia.

“E tangi  te tangi hotu, tangihia te rangatira, whakangungua ki te waiata ki te roimata me te aroha …”.

In 1864 Kereopa Te Rau, a trainee priest of The Anglican Church at Rangiaowhia in Otorohanga Waikato was to challenge the very foundations of British colonisation.  While he was away on church missions amongst Maori, his wife, child and relatives were locked up in a chapel by British soldiers and torched.  Those who managed to get away were slashed or shot.  On his return, a distraught Kereopa returned to Taranaki blaming Anglican ministers for the carnage.  He renounced his Christian faith on the ashes of his whanau and turning to Hau Hau he vowed to kill the very next missionary he met.  That hapless person happened to be the missioner Rev Carl Volker who was amongst Te Whakatohea in Opotiki.  Kereopa fled back to Taranaki, but his Te Whakatohea hosts were either arrested or relocated.  Amongst Te Whakatohea leaders arrested, Mokomoko who with eight others was incarcerated in Auckland’s Mt Eden Prison without trial.  The moteatea that he composed and sang on 17 May 1866, moments before he was hanged was retribution for the death of Volkner.  His women were there to hear the song – a reminder of the pain born out of the Crown’s unfulfilled promises. 

 

The Tangihanga remains the last core practice in which taonga still play a major role, connecting ancestors and descendants with their wider estates, as these can still nourish communal well-being.

Parekura Horomia was sent off from a rain soaked Gisborne, where we were joined by hundreds on ‘The Chief’s’ last journey home.  Along forty long kms of winding East Coast road to Hauiti Marae to a welcome befitting royalty.  The rain pelted down.  In live action this is one of the most intimate of all Maori institutions; the tangihanga. It is here that you know it is okay to open your heart and cry openly.  It is to be Maori in its truest setting.  Except perhaps during the undertaker’s preparations, the body is never left alone attended constantly by kuia and closest kin.  Parekura was laid outside under the mahau (veranda) of the ancestral Ruakapanga.  In some districts the body lies inside.    Those around the casket glean comfort from the expressions of aroha through an embrace or hongi, and from the tributes made by a succession of orators.  As with a Pakeha funeral, the tangi is sad, it is also a joyous time and equally a time for the living.  It is a time to patch up rifts and reconcile whanau differences.  For that reason and for many others the tangi continues to be an enduring feature of Maori custom.  Waves of mourners came to pay their last respects each time keening break out afresh.  In one wave  alone busloads of Tuhoe, Ngati Kahungunu and Waikato with King Tuheitia was joined by the entire Caucus of Labour led by David Shearer and Shane Jones.  This was only the first day.  The eulogies reflected the greatness of a practical, humble and a humane leader. The tributes flowed inlaid with gentler moments of the former minister’s connectedness to people and nation.  An elder from Waikaremoana delighted with a story that was followed by laughter, nodding and clapping:

He arrived unannounced for a tangi at a Waikaremoana Moana where he later joined the kids outside the meeting house.  And with a beaming smile he spoke to them.

“Kia ora kids!”

“Kia ora chief.” Not knowing their guest, they asked,

“Ko wai koe – who are you?”

“Ko Parekura au, I’m Parekura.”

“Are you a big chief?”

“We’re all chiefs – you and me and everyone here. He rangatira tatau katoa.”

Then Parekura jammed the kids into his chauffeur driven limousine and took off around our dusty roads, into the bush and to the lake.  The kid’s impression at the end of their ride?

“Gee you’re ok chief.”

“Remember, you can be all be the best in what you do.”

He treated everyone as having chiefly status.

 Mourners came great distances often a day travelling and another going home.  Many travel only on the day of internment.  But for the ‘home folk’, relatives and for many who give their services, it means anything up to a week of constant assistance.  In earlier times, it still applies today in some areas, manuhiri did not arrive at the marae where there is a tupapaku after dark.  An ope would sit it out in their buses, vans and cars or move to another marae where there is no tupapaku.  Yet, in Te Tai Tokerau, I have walked on with a group irrespective of the time of day. We saw Police and The Maori Wardens Association in action managing traffic, behaviour and people like us trapped in a muddy spot.

Male elders must always be at hand for the obligatory whai korero (orations).  And after the burial there is still a great deal to be done before the whanau is returned to their home for takahi kainga (tramping the home).  Food, which plays a big part in manaakitanga, has to be gathered, bought, prepared, and served in this case continuously.

It is customary for women to head mourning parties when they move onto the marae.  The poroporoaki (farewells) are tributes delivered by the men in whai korero (orations) and by women in karanga (keening calls), apakura (long dirges) and waiata (song poems). 




Orations in the rain for a great man, Hauiti Marae in Tologa Bay 2 May 2013


An Ohaki (final song) is a living taonga handed down and offered and when performed shows great mana, the power of taonga to hold people together.  Mokomoko and his comrades finally received a pardon.  In 1991 on the Kaiaua Marae, not far from Tologa, their disinterred remains were finally brought home to rest alongside their tribal kin of Te Tairawhiti.

Parekura, you have been a totara whakaruruhau, a giant, a ‘chief ‘– we and your nation have been richly blessed by your life.