Finding whanau

MOVING MANNEQUINS: Tracee-Lee Wilcock (pictured with pram) and her relatives, from left, Jakob Teneti, Maihana Teneti, Kelvin Teneti, Jordan Teneti, Kelsey Teneti, Harper Wilcock, Jess Helm, Taimana Teneti, Georgia Teneti and Louise Teneti hold their poses during the filming of their mannequin challenge video at the Tolaga Bay wharf, which has been viewed 89,000 times. Dave Wilcock (pictured centre back) is controlling the drone which captured the video footage.

A “MANNEQUIN challenge” video filmed in Tolaga Bay which has been viewed close to 100,000 times has a heart-warming real-life story to match it.

The video, posted on Australian woman Tracee-Lee Wilcock’s Facebook page and shared more than 1000 times, with 3100 “likes”, shows a group of summer revellers standing like mannequins on the Tolaga Bay wharf before breaking into dance.

Mrs Wilcock’s husband Dave, a professional photographer, filmed the video during the couple’s trip to New Zealand this summer.

Contrary to the video’s light-hearted aesthetic, their trip was no casual summer affair.

“It was this time last year that we found all our whanau and decided to come over to New Zealand for Christmas,” Mrs Wilcock says from her home in Noosa.

The whanau Mrs Wilcock is referring to are the eight half-siblings and numerous nieces and nephews she never knew she had.

“My parents were together for a short time, I think. All my sister Jess (Helm) and I knew about my dad was his birth date and that he was from Gisborne,” says the 34-year-old.

“We didn’t have a birth certificate, we didn’t know his last name, we didn’t know anything.”

Photographic evidenceThat was until a photograph emerged.

“Two years ago, our uncle said, ‘I’ve got this photo of your dad’,” says Mrs Wilcock.

Under the direction of her sister, Mrs Wilcock posted the photograph on various East Coast Facebook pages, with the hope that someone would recognise the man in the picture.

“I wrote everything I knew about him and posted it on a few Gisborne Facebook pages, including the Tikitiki page,” says Mrs Wilcock.

“Little did I know, that’s fate really, my dad was from Tikitiki.

“It took about 12 hours and people started commenting, ‘that’s uncle Te Whitu’. That was the first lead we had ever had.”

Following the initial responses, a woman from Tikitiki contacted Mrs Wilcock telling the Australian mother she knew the man in the photograph, and his children; Karla, Thomas, Victor, Kelvin, Darrly, Cardeen, Louise and Laveena.

“I contacted Karla and I said, ‘I think I’m your sister’,” says Mrs Wilcock.

Meeting upThe pair then met online in a video conversation.

“When I told her where I lived, she said, ‘my younger brother lives 15 minutes down the road from you’.”

“It’s just the most incredible thing. I’ve gone my whole life not knowing my dad and yet I’ve lived here in Noosa for 15 years and my brother has lived down the road the whole time.”

Mrs Wilcock met this brother and then another brother who was visiting Australia with his daughter.

“My brother Kelvin (Teneti) was over here because his daughter was competing in a waka ama meet,” says Mrs Wilcock.

“(His daughter) Kelsey just came up to me and said, ‘Auntie, are you going to come for Christmas with us?’ ”

Mrs Wilcock was warmed by the invitation, so in December last year she arrived in Gisborne to meet her family for the first time.

She was overwhelmed by the warmth and openness of her Kiwi relatives.

“They’re just all absolutely incredible,” she says.

“We really hit the jackpot, out of everyone in the world we could have got as our family.”

While Mrs Wilcock was in the region she tasked herself with learning about the culture and heritage she never knew she had.

“I sat down with my 17-year-old nephew Jakob (Teneti) for hours. He helped me learn (Maori) pronunciation,” she says.

“I really wanted to learn my pepeha and surprise my brother Thomas (Teneti). I knew nothing before I came, all I knew was kia ora.”

Mrs Wilcock was especially thankful to Thomas Teneti, who took her to the family urupa (graveyard) for a special ceremony.

Mr Wilcock asked Mr Teneti what he had said when they walked on to the urupa.

“Thomas said, ‘I call you to welcome your granddaughters home’.”

Mrs Wilcock then gave her pepeha.

“It was really beautiful. It was like, I was finally home,” she says, her voice breaking with emotion.

Mrs Wilcock says she has struggled throughout her life with not knowing the identity of her father.

However, one of the people she was most struck by during her visit has no blood connection to her.

“One of the most influential people I met was Mumma P (Patricia Teneti),” she says.

“You see, Jess and I have a different mother to the rest of our siblings. But she (Mumma P) is my dad’s wife, they never got divorced. She was the most welcoming, warm, compassionate and empathetic person — she just cracked me.”

The pair now speak regularly on Facebook.

Mrs Wilcock was so humbled by the meeting, she asked the East Coast woman for her blessing to name her now four-month old child after Mumma P’s husband and her own father, Te Whitu Teneti, who died on November 14, 2000.

Mrs Wilcock also brought her two children’s placentas back with her to be placed in the family river, the Waiapu, and she took a reminder of her heritage home, a ta moko (tattoo) of the manaia (a mythological creature that is a common motif in Maori carving and jewellery).

“The day I left, my family all sang a beautiful song and did the family haka for me,” she says.

“I said to them, ‘In 30 years I’ve been dreaming of this meeting and I could never have imagined you to be this kind and beautiful’.

“They just have the same heart as Jess and me. That’s how I knew they were my family.”