KUA TU PU TE PA HARAKEKE DEVELOPING HEALTHY WHANAU RELATIONSHIPS L�P�A,Vui, N �Opvv Uit,Y\,€/C£Iu11te.Yo-Rv
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KUA TU PU TE PA HARAKEKE DEVELOPING HEALTHY WHANAU RELATIONSHIPS L�p�a,vui, N �opvV Uit,Y\,€/C£iU11te.Yo-rv A. Opening with Pepeha A. Opening with Pepeha Ko Taranaki te maunga Taranaki is the ancestral B. Retaining Our Identity mountain Ko Waitara te awa Waitara is the river C. Puriikau:Traditional Stories as Ko Nga Tai o Rehua toku Nga Tai o Rehua is the Guidance moana ocean Ko Tokomaru te waka Tokomaru is the canoe D. Teachings about Relationships Ko Te Atiawa, Ngati My tribal groups are Mahanga, Nga Mahanga Te Atiawa, Ngati Mahanga E. Traditional Maori Society and Views a Tairi oku iwi a Tairi, Ngati Mahanga Ko Ngati Rahiri toku hapu My subtribe is Ngati Rahiri on Family Violence Ko Leonie Pihama toku My name is Leonie Pihama ingoa. F. Colonization and Family Violence Ko Taranaki te maunga Taranaki is the ancestral G. TuT ika oAroT ika mountain Ko Urenui te awa Urenui is the river H. Glossary Ko Nga Tai o Rehua te Nga Tai o Rehua is the moana ocean I. Resources Ko Tokomaru me Takitimu The canoes are Tokomaru ngawaka and Takitimu Ko Ngati Mutunga me Ngati My tribal groups are Ngati Kahungunu naa iwi Mutunga and Ngati Kahungunu Ko Kaitangata me Ngati My subtribes are Kaitangata Pahauwera oku and Ngati Pahauwera hapu Raumati is my extended Ko Raumati te whanau family Ko Ngaropi Cameron My name is Ngaropi toku ingoa Cameron 225 We have opened this chapter with our pepeha. aware of the connection. Through this process we link Pepeha are ways through which our people introduce to people whom we may never have met before.We link ourselves. These vary from tribe to tribe. The essence on an ancestral level. We link on a spiritual level. We of pepeha is that it links us to our tribes and all associ link on a tribal level. These connections keep our ated with it-our mountains, our rivers, our canoes, relationships, our collectivity, our language, and our our ancestral lines. It links us to each other. It places knowledge alive. And they remind us we are respon us, as Maori, within a wider collective consciousness sible for one another and for all we live alongside of on and set of relationships. It is important to highlight Papatuanuku, this great Mother Earth. that the term Maori is a term that brings us together This knowledge has been passed down to us from as Peoples. It is a term that our people have chosen our tupuna, our ancestors. It is exactly the knowledge to use as a means of unifying ourselves in the wake of and protocols that our colonizers sought to deny us. the arrival of our colonizers. Prior to colonization all The systematic and unrelenting attacks on our lan identification was done through our whanau (extended guage and culture have been deliberate. They are acts family structure), hapu (group of whanau connected of denying our identity as Tangata Whenua (People of though common ancestor/sub-groupings of iwz) or iwi the Land). For Maori, the suppression of our language (nations connected through common ancestor). Maori and culture was key to the denial of Maori knowledge means to be "normal" or "pure," a fitting term foran that enabled healthy relationships. As is the case on Indigenous People. We have, however, also been active Great Turtle Island, violent attacks upon our language in maintaining our hapu and iwi identities, and it is and culture aligned with acts of war and murder of through pepeha that we can culturally share that iden our people. The importation of guns, alcohol, and the tity with one another. Our people have been doing this Bible brought about significant societal changes both for generations. And in spite of colonization seeking to within and between tribes. undermine our cultural identity, many of us continue to do this. B. Retaining Our Identity Locating ourselves in relation to our natural The struggle to retain our identity as Indigenous world, our relations, and our lands is important to Peoples is a part of a wider struggle to decolonize. Maori. It acknowledgesand affirms our cultural con Colonization has violently forced ways of being upon nections. It reminds us of our cultural obligations to our communities that have changed our lives in ways one another, to the land, and all our relations who live that our ancestors could never have imagined. In our with us on our lands. It recognizes the many genera context within Aotearoa (referred to in colonial terms tions that have come before us and gives those around as New Zealand), Maori have been struggling for the us an ability to place ourselves within the Maori world. past two hundred years to find ways to maintain those That is also important. cultural protocols, language, and practices that enable Often when our people recite their pepeha in a us to hold our place as Indigenous on our own lands. gathering, you will hear responses within the group The experience of family violence within our commu that indicate a dose relationship. People will respond nities is a symptom of historical acts of genocide and kia ora whanaunga, "Greetings relation," to make us ethnocide upon our Peoples. ACTIVITY: Are there particular ways that your People/nation introduce themselves or express their identity that affirm an Indigenous identity? C. Purakau:Traditional Stories as findhim. Mataora spoke with Uetonga of his desire Guidance for Niwareka to return with him to the earthly world. This is the story of Niwareka and Mataora, two Uetonga questioned the act of abuse, stating that, well-known ancestors in Maori tradition who brought like temporary moko, that was not the way of their to our people the arts of moko (Maori tattoo forms) people. Mataora pleaded with Niwareka to return and tiiniko (a decorative formof weaving). This story, with him and, in doing so, agreed that by wearing the as is the case with Indigenous traditional stories, pro permanent moko ofUetonga he would take to his vides insights and messages for our people today. people both moko and the challenge to stop any abuse amongst his people. Niwareka agreed to return and Niwareka lived in Rarohenga ( the underworld). She she took the art form of taniko weaving back to the chose to go to the world above, to Te Ao Marama World of Light to share with the people above. (the world oflight) to live amongst those tangata (human beings) who live in this world. In the world This chapter is about relationships. It is about of light Niwareka partnered with Mataora. Mataora how our ancestors have passed to us knowledge about was abusive to her and in response Niwareka returned ·what is and is not acceptable amongst our people. It to Rarohenga to be amongst her people who did not is also about how traditional ways and stories, in their agree to such behavior. Mataora followed Niwareka many forms,provide us with guidance in this contem- and after overcoming many trials and challenges he . porary world as we live on our own lands that have came across her father, Uetonga, who was a great been colonized by others. It is argued that there is a carver of moko. Mataora wore the painted markings need to draw fromtraditional knowledge as a source of of the human world on his face, but in his encounter healing contemporary issues. with Uetonga he was told that the markings of Raro There is a growing focus on drawing upon henga were permanent, and in time Uetonga began traditional knowledge to support the revitalization of to place permanent moko on the face of Mataora. our language and culture. This has been difficultto During that time Niwareka became aware of the achieve given the impact of colonial beliefs and prac presence of Mataora in the underworld and went to tices upon our people. The denial of te reo Maori (Maori language) through the imposition of English Indigenous People have for some time critiqued the and the native schooling system has had a huge impact ways in which our histories have been told from the on being able to access knowledge. The attack on our perspective of the colonizer. This concern over the language was part of a sustained process by which to representation of Indigenous Peoples by our coloni advance the assimilation of colonial ways of being. zers is held by many Indigenous Peoples around the Many of our people have been forced to live on tribal world. Vine Deloria Jr. wrote that "for most of the lands that are not theirs in order to findjobs and feed fivecenturies ...whites have had unrestricted power to their families. describe Indians in any way Colonization undermined Di Grennell, a long-term worker in they chose." What this means Maori cohesion and relation is that we must be vigilant in the area of family violence, has high ships through acts that stole our the telling of our own stories in lands and individualized the lighted the importance of traditional ways that are grounded within little that remained. The impact knowledge to healing in her work: our own cultural frameworks. of the historical trauma associ It is also clear to Indigenous Drawing on the wisdom of our ated with colonial oppression Peoples that the translation upon generations of our people tupuna (ancestors) and traditions is and interpretation of our sto is clearly evident. This chapter not to return us to a mythic past or ries through the colonizers' focuses on how we can draw language can create both golden age-our people have always upon traditional knowledge understandings and misun as healing in a contemporary adapted to new circumstances and derstandings-the story of context.