Covid lockdown changed the way Māori could grieve at tangihanga

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When funeral director Allen Pukepuke escorted the tūpāpaku (body) of a kuia to the gates of her urupa just south of the Auckland boundary during level 4 lockdown, he knew that he was unlikely to ever forget this moment. Pukepuke has overseen thousands of funerals and tangi in his 30 years as a funeral director.

The kuia had died during the Covid lockdown. Problem was, her whānau lived south of Auckland near the Firth of Thames, also the location of her marae and urupa.

Arrangements, including a police escort, were made for Pukepuke's Haven Falls, Henderson, team, to escort the body south to her urupa. They would deliver the tūpāpaku to the urupa gate and leave.

It is not Māori protocol or tikanga to leave a loved and treasured whānau member at the gates of an urupa alone.

The funeral procession made its way south past the Bombay Hills police checkpoint. A sombre yet calm mood oversaw the change over as Pukepuke's team readied themselves for departure from the urupa.

The whānau took over and carried the tūpāpaku to a graveside service and burial.

Pre Covid, that was the norm and easily accommodated, but level 4 restrictions changed the landscape, especially for Māori.

Pukepuke said when the Covid tangi restrictions were quickly imposed for lockdown, he knew it was drafted by bureaucrats - not those on the front line of delivering tangi or those with knowledge of the cultural wellbeing of the tūpāpaku or whānau. It even, he said, had an underlying anti-Māori trust feel about it.

All hui, tangi or whānau gatherings were considered major Covid outbreak opportunities, while health officials deemed congregating outside supermarkets and mile-long lines outside bottle shops stocking up on booze and other essentials, okay.

Also compounding issues was New Zealanders continued to die - 34,000 in the 2019-2020 year and the same in the 2020-2021 year (according to Stats NZ), averaging about 95 Kiwis a day.

As a funeral director - Pukepuke, the key Māori advocate for the New Zealand Funeral Directors and the NZ Embalmers Associations - is used to dealing with emotional and troubling scenes and grieving whānau.

Funeral director Allen Pukepuke, and colleague Tyrone Raumati discuss the Covid pandemic and its effect on tangi. Photo / Sylvie Winray

But he said the Government guidelines around tangi exposed a cultural impasse. Funeral directors on the frontline should have been part of the consultation group, but instead became the grim reapers mopping up at the end.

"When we went into level 4, things went from hero to zero very quickly. Numbers who could attend tangi changed as more and more issues were exposed," Pukepuke said.

"It also meant the final time whānau saw their loved one was at a hospital or an accident scene, or at the whānau home when we would arrive to uplift the tūpāpaku from the home. That was the last and the everlasting scene whānau had of their loved ones.

"They couldn't come to the marae or urupa to say goodbye. Māori are a collective culture. A tangi is a major collective event and we come together, from those on the paepae to the kitchen to the gravediggers to the kaumatua/kuia, to play a part.

"To suddenly see that gone overnight was a big shock for Māori. Those ceremonial and cultural rituals of tangihanga, probably the pinnacle of us as a people, were taken from us.

"That impact from the eyes of te mahi tūpāpaku was nothing less than culturally tragic and there should have been another way for whānau to express their grief.

"Before Covid, we would turn up to a whānau home dressed appropriately. Next minute we were like Martians in PPE gear, double-gloved, full-face masks and all the kit. We turned up like it was a crime scene.

"At times whānau had to be taken out of the whare because they couldn't be inside with us. That's not our tikanga, bro.

"That was not our Māori cultural approach. We would hongi, offer a hand not turn up in a hood. It wasn't pleasant for anyone."

Funeral directors also had to become police informants and ensure strict guidelines were enforced.

Pukepuke said some lockdown guidelines, like closing down funeral homes, was, in hindsight, flawed and a cultural jack-knife for whānau forced to bend to the whims of officials, who did not take tikanga or Māori protocols into consideration.

Pukepuke's colleague and Ngati Whātua o Kaipara cultural adviser Tyrone Raumati agrees.

"From a cultural lens, the rights to afford a person the ceremonial rights and the spiritual aspects of what happens after a loved one passes were taken away from whānau," Raumati said.

"So we had to adapt our tikanga to allow that to happen. Whānau were saying their goodbyes to loved ones in the driveway when we turned up to take the tūpāpaku, or the hospital or the accident scene.

"During the lockdowns, whānau were locked down in their homes and had to continue those cultural practices using new technology, like Zooms, Facebook Live and other social platforms. That gave some cultural element to how we grieve and how we express love.

Auckland funeral director Allen Pukepuke talks about Covid and tangi and the cultural collateral. Photo / Sylvie Whinray

"As Māori our role was to keep whānau safe. All our urupa bear the scars of the influenza outbreak and we didn't want Covid to be another instance where Māori did not have the ability to protect our whakapapa."

But not all change was bad, Pukepuke said.

"One aspect is that new technology has bought whānau, especially those scattered around New Zealand and Australia, more together and whānau hui are now the norm."

Pukepuke also suffered his own sadness during the lockdown.

"My younger brother passed away during the Covid lockdown restrictions and I had to not only look after his final wishes but also his wishes for his children overseas to come home," Pukepuke said.

"The kids returned and came through the 14 day-isolation period. That was a long time and I had to act as a professional, as the whānau leader, but also on a personal level, had to deal with my own brother and look after his tinana [wellbeing].

"On a personal level it is hard to extend and carry on grief for that long, but I did it for the love my brother had for his children and the love they had for him and they wanted the best send-off possible.

"It was sad and made us as an industry pivot, and we Māori are creative.

"Like us turning up at a MIQ facility to perform a waiata outside so the whānau inside knew we were thinking of them."

Another sad case was that of a grandmother looking after three of her moko.

"They were staying with her in Auckland and, like most nannies, she was telling the children, aged 5-9, to pick up their toys," Pukepuke said.

"She had a medical event and the lasting memories those mokopuna had was their nana telling them off before passing. The Coroner became involved because of sudden death, and they turned up to take the nana away.

"That is not the long-lasting memory we want our tamariki to have of their nana.

"We would have made nana presentable so those children would have meaningful memories, but we could not wrap a cultural korowai around the tamariki. They were robbed of that."

Staff would turn up at one of Pukepuke's four funeral homes - Henderson, Whangarei, Rotorua and Porirua - to find flowers at the front.

"That became the flowers at the door scenario. We would arrive to find flowers at the door and whānau finger marks on the front glass," Pukepuke said.

"If the fingers on the door are not an impact of sadness and people feeling despondent, then I don't know what is.

"We had people coming to us begging to come inside to be with their loved one. That was hard to deal with not only as a Māori but as a human being.

"We also had whānau turn up to conduct their own services in carparks. In those instances we would try to take a camera or a Facebook Live so whānau could see their loved ones."

Pukepuke said being part of the NZFDA and NZEA associations ensured his facilities were meeting all industry-standard requirements and a tūturu Māori voice was heard at the top table to ensure future pandemic tangi policies have a Māori cultural lens upon them.

He said another bright aspect is once estranged whānau are now communicating.