Back to Hawaiki

Nā Rangipurei Manley | Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Maniapoto,
Raukawa ki Wharepuhunga

Pā harakeke are scattered across generations
We migrate until we find rich soils
To lay our whānau foundation....

Rito tiptoe around it’s roots until rito fall and land in its swamps
Swamps deemed unworthy
Swamps lathered in sin

A rito haunted by it’s tūpuna past
We are taught we are the centre,
Then watered (showered) with trauma

Content is a distant memory
Resting on Hawaiki’s shores
Waiting to pōhiri us back to our kāinga

We were once nurtured at birth
Then shaken (in)to settle(ment)
By honey sweetened breaches 

Purposed to entwine both realms
Seperated from our whenua
Detached from our Atua

As if our frailed fibres could grow
Wooden bridges over the swamps of yesterday into those of
tomorrow.
Because the harakeke is always greener on the other side

We sow seeds in a garden we won’t get to see
our life expectancy
Will never be enough
To witness uri tell stories of our legacy

The Hara in our whānau is unspoken, unwoven, and untouched.
But when you strip harakeke down,
you are left with muka
Strong enough to bind sails that aid our safe return
back to our motherland
back to Hawaiki.

Māori ideologies of whānau are best represented by the Harakeke plant. The rito (shoot) is the child. The surrounding leaves are the awhi rito or parents, and the outer leaves—its grandparents. 

To be a rito or middle shoot is to be the weaver of the next generation. To be an awhi rito (parents/surrounding leaf) is to protect the rito. To be a tūpuna (elders/outer leaves) is to provide guidance and wisdom for the pā. 

But what happens when pā are pried at the roots and expected to thrive in foreign territories?

We must first look at the minerals that sustain its soil. These minerals are usually provided by fallen Kaumātua leaves that are buried at the flax’ roots. 

Just like our tūpuna, the minerals pass through our roots from one generation to the next. While our tūpuna have inherited resilience, innovation and adaptation; our tūpuna have also passed on loss of identity, whenua, and our sense of belonging. 

My pā harakeke is no healthy pā. Every day the swamp floods the soil, and every day the wind tussles at the leaves while our kaumātua fall. We shed our mamae until the wounds scar and the residue is left to rot. But these gaping holes can only be filled by those who stop the winds from blowing us away and those who shelter us from the storms that flood our soils. 

It is by recognising the sickness of our pā and empowering our whakapapa that we are able to nourish the shoots once again. 

What it means to be Māori is an ever evolving and an ever ongoing conversation. It changes as our taiao changes, it grows as our taiao grows. 

My Marae shapeshifts into the form of hapū Facebook pages, where whakawhiti kōrero takes place on the newsfeed. My māunga now stand tall over me within the borders of a framed print hanging on the wall. My awa flows through the veins that once carried my rangatiratanga. 

With our taiao around me changing, there will always be certain core truths. I am the link in the chain, the conclusion of my ancestors' tale and the prologue of my descendants' story. 

You see, my people are longtime masters in the art of navigation. But we have a wavering journey ahead in enriching the minerals that will supplement the healthy and steadfast growth of future pā. 

And in that time, 

I will grace the halls of Te Herenga Waka with the weight of my past, present, and future. 

I will let my ancestors cry on the tip of my tongue as I speak the language of genocide. 

Knowing we are not constituted and defined by war, confiscation or suffering, but rather by the blood of a people that will never lose sight of the way back to their motherland. 

Of the way back to Hawaiki.