The Journey continues: Am I a soon as I was born he registered my names that to get an excellent education was descendant of a Cook Islander, you after a Tainui paramount chief called Te Tuhi paramount and not to limit myself in my job and my second name after a Ngapuhi and life skills endeavours. That to be be the judge. paramount chief called Tauratumaru, much to competitive in the job market and get the disgust of my mother who wanted me to recognition from pakeha, I had to have better My grandfather, Leslie be called Leslie (hello!). Te Putu got his way qualifications than they had, I had to be George Kelly or Te Putu an (thank goodness) thus honouring the family better than them. So where a job called for ancestral name he was connections between those two tribes, school certificate as a minimum, I had to have given by his relation, Te through our Waikato ancestress twins, Reitu university entrance and when the minimum Puea Herangi of Tainui, and Reipae. was university entrance a university degree. began a journey to There was a downside and that was being discover his Maori roots In keeping with the tradition, many of my called “an over educated nigger” by this over 80 years ago. With whanau have continued to name their pakeha fullah who incidentally was darker the help of his sister-in-law, Aira Totorewa children after tupuna, including my youngest skinned than I was, as I was the only Maori Ueke, who was his relation on the son who is named after me. In NZ te reo trade qualified engineer in this marine Rongomate, Waikato, line of descent, the maori, the word tuhi or tuhituhi also means to workshop, with our trades assistants being result was the publication of the renowned write, so the loose translation apart from the Maori, Tongan, Samoan and Niuean, basically book Tainui and the driver behind his ancestral connection, is he who writes or he skilled labourers. Going for other engineering continuing interest in searching for his who maintains lore, appropriate don’t you jobs and being told by pakeha employers that Polynesian roots and connections. There was think? My youngest son and I, you will recall I was over qualified for the job, used to annoy some controversy when the book was first he has my name as well, came out to the Cook me no end and in the years I was an published as Pei Te Hurunui Jones felt that his Islands in April 2010. I was contracted by the apprentice, I was the only Maori in my year. contributions to the book Tainui did not Cook Islands Ministry of Education to set up a Funnily enough Australia with its shocking receive more recognition. A number of NZ new HR Division. It was also an opportunity treatment of Aboriginals, took me in with writers supported Jones’s stance including the for me to pick up where Te Putu had sown the open arms because they wanted my late Michael King and aspersions were cast seeds all those decades ago. I married a local engineering skills and judged me on that against Te Putu with accusations of and the Cook Islands are now my home. My unlike NZ. Before my Koro Tiwene passed he plagiarism. If they had properly done their transition during those troubled decades gave me the korowai for the Tiki whanau in research they would have found the sparked my interest in picking up where my Whangarei, literally the cloak which the chief accusations were false and I wrote in defence grandfather had left off. I always had a keen wears, bypassing his last surviving son and my of my grandfather in my biopic of him in the interest in marae protocol and whakapapa two eldest male cousins whose father was Dictionary of NZ Biography in 1998. In 1950 passed down from the writings of my from Ngati Kahungunu ki Heretaunga and he came to the Cook Islands and stayed grandfather Te Putu of Tainui and also their mother was the eldest daughter of Koro briefly in Rarotonga and Aitutaki painstakingly whakapapa from my mother Pirihira Rohe Tiki Tiwene. researching his whakapapa. He was very of Ngati Pukenga. Having worked with many clever with his hands and our whanau have Maori over the years, I learnt their protocols I always had this sense of standing on the many examples of the whakairo and Maori and greetings as well as connecting their edge of a sea cliff in NZ looking out across the weaponry and the wooden toys he made over whakapapa to mine. I was always concerned ocean to the horizon. My whakapapa spread the years. He was also an accomplished that where we lived in South Auckland, my out behind me trailing into the distant amateur photographer and he took many feeding children might get hooked up with a landscape like strands of pearls on a necklace, black and white snapshots of the local tangata close relation so my children used to dread ending abruptly at my feet, with the waves whenua and then colouring them by hand, no bringing home their Maori boy or girl friends, pounding the bottom of the cliff. It was like mean feat in those days. Those photos are the because my first question to them was “No being cut off from my past, present and future only record that iti tangata have of their whea a koe”, where are you from?“Ko wai tou and what had been missing until now were tupuna and I have made these available over ingoa whanau? What’s your family name? my Polynesian whakapapa connections into the years. The really sad thing is their Cook From the whakapapa I would tell them that the pacific, Moana nui a kiwa. NZ Maori had Islands descendants have very little or no idea their whanau was not from that area and that preserved their whakapapa for generations who these people are from 60 years ago. He their tupuna had moved to those areas during which was a good start for research, with also journeyed to Fiji, Samoa and Niue in his the late 1940’s early 1950’s and they would reference being made to waka and who the quest for knowledge about his roots and tell me that their family had never told them people were and the islands they came from whilst he learnt much about his connections, this, they thought they were Ngai Tahu, but in but it all ended pretty much at that sea cliff. he was not able to make as much headway as fact they were Ngapuhi. Then I would tell my The only way to connect with Polynesia was he would have liked. In many instances the children that they were closely related to this to actually go there and see for oneself. It was whakapapa was incomplete, people with the person and ‘sorry bout’ it you can be friends made the more challenging by the different knowledge passed on or unavailable and he only. pacific island names and spellings given to the could not make the connections that would same person and then being misinterpreted close a chapter for him. He passed in a tragic I am privileged that I can walk and talk quite by later followers of whakapapa, train crash in 1959 and with him might have comfortably in the pakeha world and I have anthropologists and Christian missionaries been the end of a legacy of tireless research, spent many years studying for academic trying to make sense out of something they inquisitiveness and adventuring. However this qualifications, knowledge and skills that struggled to understand. We also had families was not to be as his eldest son had an eldest would assist me in my later life and my CV experimenting with the truth about their son and that grandson, first born or in NZ attests to my background. My late Koro, lineage to push forward their claims for titles, Maori terms, ‘mataamua’ had taken up the Tiwene Ngarunui Tiki on my mother’s side land, kaimoana access, you name it they were challenge which began all those decades ago. was of Ngati Pukenga on his father’s side and all being economical with the truth. We had That grandson is me, born in 1954, five years Ngati Hine on his mothers gave me good also adopted the pakeha way of genealogy by after the publication of the book Tainui. As advice. He told me when I was growing up using their familial terms such as father, 1 mother, grandfather, uncle, nephew, niece descendant of a Cook Islander from another I don’t apologise if anyone takes umbrage at and cousin with unfortunate results. So we journey began over a millennium ago. me for any perceived errors or inferences I ended up with a confused whakapapa and the have made in this article. I also don’t confusion led to names being omitted others Tom Davis’s book ‘Vaka, Saga of a Polynesian apologise for the whakapapa, this is my being added to ensure the whakapapa aligned Canoe’ and Ron Crocombe and Ross Holmes’s journey and I am eternally grateful for those chronologically. This has led to some 3 volume ‘Southern Cook Islands – Customary who managed to preserve for posterity sakes confusion with family relationships not being Law, History and Society’ were very helpful in their whakapapa and for those who recorded quite accurate, but still giving an insight or a providing background material for this feature it and made it available for us their picture into what had gone before.