Ko te toi o te tū tika/The Trick of Standing Upright

Lachlan Ewing (he/him)

Tēnā koutou ki ō tātou tipuna katoa nāna i whakaniko te wharenui o te Tumu Herenga Waka, nāna i mātakitaki a mātou i ō mātou akoranga reo. Ngā mihi nui ki a Ruka Broughton, nāu i whakatākoto te mauri o te marae nō Rangitāne. Me mihi atu ki a Wiremu Parker, nāu i tuku te ingoa o te marae. 

Ngā mihi ki ngā mana whenua o te Upoko-o-te-ika-a-Māui, ko Rangitāne, ko Te Ati Awa, ko Ngāti Toa, ko Raukawa. Nā ōu manaakitanga tonu e tū tika ana tēnei whare wānanga ki te Whanganui-ā-Tāra. Ngā mihi ki Te Kawa a Māui me ōku pukenga: ko Awanui Te Huia rātou ko Vini Olsen-Reeder ko Mike Ross. Tēnā koutou ki ōku hoa karaehe, ko te rōpū tino rawe ki tēnei whare wānanga!

After four years of study I am on the verge of completing a major in te reo Māori, and can safely say that a first-year change of heart to enrol in MAOR101 was the luckiest decision I have made in my time at Te Herenga Waka.

I am not writing to flex my reo rangatira. I am rooted firmly at the bottom of my class and regularly misunderstand our kaiako and stumble over my own kupu. Furthermore, Kelly Mitchell (Ngāti Māhanga, MAOR321 student) thinks that it is very important for Pākehā and tauiwi to choose their end goal in learning te reo very carefully. “[...] it’s all for nothing if those tauira only ever use the reo for themselves or for economic gain.” She lays down a wero for tauiwi learners to commit themselves fully to working throughout their lives to uphold Te Tiriti. 

Katelynne Pōtiki-Clune (Ngāti Porou, Waikato-Tainui, Tapuika, Ngāi Tahu, MAOR321 student) also emphasises the importance of language learners being self reflective about their motivation. “Te reo Māori is more than a language […] to properly engage and learn reo you will have to engage with some aspects of Te Ao Māori and whakaaro Māori.” She also sees a connection between learning te reo and upholding Te Tiriti, but thinks that people have to be ready to properly confront what they will have to learn and unlearn in order to do so.

I also do not want to preach that we all ought to learn te reo. I understand my incredible privilege that a reo opportunity presented itself for me at the right time and place. It is also a damning reflection of white privilege in Aotearoa that there are fewer barriers in the way of my people stepping into the reo for the first time than returning to it for many Māori.

I would simply like to share some important lessons a tauiwi can learn in studying te reo, and encourage those who are interested to begin their own haerenga reo. 

He reo, he mātauranga

Within te reo Māori is a thousand years of mātauranga on how to make it on these lonely islands in a remote corner of the world. For our tipua Pākehā to rock up on these shores and assume they could do without it was the height of imperial arrogance. Understanding te reo and the whenua around you begins to open up with meaning. At Pipitea, shellfish could be gathered from the beach in abundance, before the harbour was filled in and an industrial port took its place. Karori was originally Kaharore, where there were a great number of snares placed to catch birds on a once forested flat. Before it became known as Mount Victoria, Matairangi was known as a place from which to scan the sky. Every puke, awa, and kāinga across the motu has history and significance contained within their ingoa reo Māori. 

Furthermore, within the grammar of te reo are fundamental concepts that outline the relationships between people, places, and things. In English, we ask where a person is from. The reo Māori equivalent, “nō hea koe?”, instead asks “to where do they belong?” In English, the relationship between me and my cat, my daughter, my mum, and my school are all described by the same possessive pronoun. In Māori, however, different relationships call for different pronouns. Things fall into either the “ā” or “ō” category depending on the nature of the relationship between them. So my cat and my daughter are tāku ngeru and tāku kōtiro, as I exercise a degree of control or mana over them. However, my mum and my school exercise their mana over me, so they are tōku whaea and tōku kura. These are just two examples of how in te reo Māori you do not just express exactly the same ideas as English in different words, but instead describe the world from a different standing point. 

Ko te toi o te whakarongo: the art of listening

Far more important, however, than any particular vocabulary or grammar is learning how to whakarongo. I believe this is the most important lesson for tauiwi. Learning English, my young mind loved the feeling of being listened to, rather than listening. It would be a lie if I were to deny that when I enrolled for MAOR101, I entertained prideful fantasies of one day delivering fiery, eloquent kōrero from the pae.

But my hubris was checked by lessons such as those from Kelly and Katelyne, that are abundant in reo spaces. Te reo Māori cannot be learnt for the self benefit of any tauiwi. It must be learnt with careful goals in mind, and an honest intention to strive to uphold Te Tiriti.

To honour Te Tiriti, we don’t need an army of tauiwi spouting off in fluent reo. We need a community equipped with the listening skills to understand tāngata whenua when they stand and kōrero. When rangatira signed Te Tiriti 181 years ago, do you think they envisioned a house of parliament where some of their mokopuna deliver kōrero tino ātaahua, but it falls on mostly deaf Pākehā ears who zone out or scroll on Twitter? Our prime minister has talked at length about crossing “te arawhiti” (the bridge) into te ao Māori. But will we have the open ears and humility to receive the lessons from the other side of te arawhiti once we get there? 

Closely related to learning to listen is learning humility. For us tauiwi, I believe one of the quickest and most beneficial ways we can be humbled in regard to our place on these motu is diving into te reo classes, if appropriately available. In my experience studying here, you will likely be in the minority, not understand a lot of what is being said, and be confronted by challenges to your ancestors’ actions. Getting outside of your comfort zone in this way requires you to leave your ego at the door and turn on those taringa. 

In 1949, standing before the skeleton of a towering moa, feeling uneasy as a Pākehā in Aotearoa, the poet Allen Curnow wrote:

“Not I, some child born in a marvellous year,

Will learn the trick of standing upright here.”

It may seem that we need only our legs to stand, yet canals deep in the inner ear actually help us to maintain our sense of balance. Perhaps the trick to standing upright here is turning our ears to the reo of this whenua. After all, it is a lot easier to stand confidently when you understand where you are, the history of the ground beneath your feet, and the world of your hosts. As a tauiwi, I may never stand like a moa, but have found a lot of meaning in taking my first awkward pūkeko steps.  

Nā reira, nau mai, haere mai ki te Āo Reo Māori, ki te Āo Mārama.