“For people like me – non-Māori, Māori, if you like – it feels like the net has been cast wider and we’re being welcomed with a warm embrace,” writes Chris Mirams on connecting to his mother’s whakapapa. (Photo supplied)
I was a blue-eyed, blond-haired 11-year-old, the spitting image of my Irish father, when I found myself at the Department of Māori Affairs in Wellington to interview for a secondary school grant.
My father had died when I was 2. My mother, who has whakapapa to Ngāti Pāoa, had dedicated her life to giving me, her only child, the best education possible. Her dream was for me to have a shot at a better life than hers. The department’s mission was to promote Māori health and education, and an education grant would be a springboard to achieving that for us.
It was 1971. The interview room was intimidating. Intricately carved panels lined the walls, telling stories of ancestors, and a large wooden table dominated the space. Seated at this table were four elderly Māori men with pads, pens and a thin pile of papers in front of them. On the opposite side, I sat alone, in my school uniform.
The questioning began. I recited my whakapapa with a precision that my mother had drilled into me. Then, about 10 minutes in, they asked what school I’d be going to. The shutters rolled over their eyes when I replied Whanganui Collegiate, and not Te Aute, St Stephens or Hato Pāora College.
In that moment, I realised that, to them, my choice of school defined whether I was Māori enough. This experience reflected the views I’d grown up with, where being Māori was seen through a narrow lens.
My identity, as the child of a Māori mother, remained a product of nurture not nature. I was shaped by both my mother’s perspective on her own history, and the dismissive, often derogatory societal views about Māori at that time, where a half-done job was a “Māori job”, tomato sauce was “Māori gravy”, and someone was “okay –for a Māori.”
During my mid-late teens and 20s, Māori protests for more rights created a “them and us” environment. My read at the time on the mood of Māori was: “If you don’t look like one or sound like one, you’re not one of us.”
My mother’s view of her heritage was shaped by her life experiences. She’d been one of eight children born to an Irish father and a Māori mother during the Depression of the 1930s. Her mother’s lineage stretched back three generations across the Hauraki Plains, threading through Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Hako, Ngāti Tamatera, and Ngāti Pāoa. On iwi land, Mum’s parents developed a small plot of vegetables, fruit trees and chickens so they could be as self-sufficient as possible.
Mum told me that after her mother died giving birth to a ninth child, the iwi no longer wanted to accommodate what were then labelled “half-caste” children and their non-Māori father.
With few other options available to their father, the children ended up being placed in an orphanage on Auckland’s North Shore. The whānau land somehow ended up in a relative’s name. Mum and her siblings were essentially erased from their own history.
When I failed to secure the secondary school grant, it felt like another form of erasure. The practical implication was that my mum had to work up to 18 hours a day to afford my tuition at Whanganui Collegiate. I’m eternally grateful for her sacrifices. I loved that school, and two of my three children have gone there too. Our lives would’ve taken a different trajectory without her dedication.
Thanks to Mum, we lived the middle-class lifestyle she strove for. She had an Ena Sharples manner about her, sharp elbows and a sharper tongue. She had overcome the odds and was successfully self-employed, owning and operating a 12-bed rest home in Lyall Bay.
New Zealand in the 1960s and ‘70s was difficult to navigate for all women, let alone a widow, let alone a widow who was Māori. Locked out of traditional bank lending on all three of those counts, she secured funding for her business through a lawyer who placed his mother in her nursing home in exchange for free care.
Throughout this time, Māori topped many of the unfavourable social statistics – unemployment, crime, prison, poor academic achievement. These realities were the stark backdrop to my mother’s drive to do better. Often, when she saw a TV news report or read in the paper about the land protests or Māori seeking a more even playing field, she would unleash one of her venomous barbs. “Always wanting something for nothing ... Go get a job, you lazy buggers ... Nothing in life is free.”
Given her harsh upbringing and the rejection by her iwi, I can understand why she felt this way. Her bitterness came from a lifetime of personal struggles that were imposed on her.
Yet not all of her siblings shared her attitude toward Māori. Uncle Joe, for example, was deeply involved in the community, connected to the culture, and worked as a gang liaison officer in South Auckland. Though I don’t recall meeting him, his tangi left an impression on me as an older teenager.
It was held at his home in Pukekohe. White and blue tarps were pitched off the house, creating a covered area over the sizeable backyard to shelter the constant stream of visitors who came to pay their respects. As a mark of that respect, no gang patches were worn. Everyone chipped in to help with the cleaning, clearing up and comforting each other, and women worked tirelessly in the kitchen, making and serving kai day and night.
On the second day of the tangi, Mum and I walked down the road toward Uncle Joe’s house. We didn’t say so out loud, but we knew we were outliers. As we neared the house, we saw a group of teenage boys leaning against a fence. One of them called out to me: “What are you doing here? I’m talking to you, boy.”
Mum, snappy in a matching jacket and skirt with a handbag hanging from her wrist, hissed back: “Watch your tongue.”
Another boy, further down the road, jumped off the fence and ran toward the group, yelling: “That’s Aunty Marjorie. They’re family. Hello Aunty.”
As the hours passed and we settled in, the kindness and sense of care filled the air. Joe’s body lay in an open casket in the lounge room, and spending time with him as whānau was an honour. He was buried the next day – and after a blessing of the house, stories flowed, guitars were strummed, and mini tankers of beer arrived. When the beer ran dry, large pots from the kitchen were passed around to collect money for refills.
Standing among my whānau, sharing stories and laughter, I felt connected, despite how different our lives were. Mum had created a life of advantage and opportunity. By comparison, some whānau lived pay cheque to pay cheque. But they were so generous, humble and warm-hearted.
It wasn’t until another death, last year, about 45 years later, that l felt something similar. This time, it was Mum who’d passed away, at 91, the victim of a horrible road accident.
The months immediately following were emotionally and mentally fraught. It seemed almost as if my mother had put a curse on me. My wife didn’t like going to Mum’s house, or being in parts of our own house, because she felt a dark presence. She suggested we needed spiritual help and that I should get in touch with the iwi. I did.
It was one of my best decisions. Hau Rawiri and his wife Maea guided us through the Māori spiritual approach to death. It helped us find acceptance, peace and happiness. The way they did that, in such a generous, humble and caring way, reminded me of Joe’s tangi.
I’m sure that, for a growing number who’ve experienced it first-hand, that open-heartedness has played a part in transforming their view of Māori since the 1970s. For people like me – non-Māori Māori, if you like – it feels like the net has been cast wider and we’re all being welcomed with a warm embrace. Blonde hair and blue eyes don’t stop us from being included. The view we have of each other is more inclusive and supportive, with the promise of more to come.
Over the last dozen years, every corporate I’ve worked for has been committed to learning about tikanga in some meaningful way. The result is that tens of thousands of New Zealanders have had an introduction to Māori culture in a supportive environment. And this is happening in areas well beyond business, creating a positive groundswell.
Not long ago, I had to go into hospital for an operation. The day before, I got a text message asking if I’d like a karakia before surgery. I went back straight away with a “Yes, please.”
It was the last thing done before going into the operating room, and even though I couldn’t understand the reo, I could feel the warmth and kindness and the calm that came through the words.
I got the text because I’d ticked “Māori” in one of the ethnicity boxes on the admission form.
We’ve all come a long way.
Chris Mirams lives in Tāmaki Makaurau with his wife Juliet and is a former radio and print journalist. Mirams is also the author of several books, including A Hell of a Way to Make a Living, a biography of Ken Rutherford, Beleaguered, an investigation into how Eric Watson purchased the Warriors, and Terminated, on the relationship between David Tua and Kevin Barry. Mirams is on a journey of rediscovering and understanding his whakapapa. He is proud to know he is Ngāti Pāoa.
This article was first published by E-Tangata.
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