Hira Nathan: whakawhetai (gratitude) journal with te ao Māori at its core

Electrician-turned-author Hira NathanPhoto / Jason Oxenham

Electrician-turned-writer Hira Nathan (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngā Puhi) has created the first whakawhetai (gratitude) journal with te ao Māori at its core. Nathan originally self-published this journal thinking friends and whānau might buy it through Facebook. It ended up on the shelves at Whitcoulls and went on to sell thousands of copies.

A couple of years ago a friend gave me a journal and I was like, what is this? I wasn’t really into it. He said, “Just do it for a couple of weeks, practise gratitude and if you hate it, don’t worry about it.” So, I said, “Sweet as,” and I tried it.

I’ve always been a pretty relaxed guy, an electrician by trade but I would get annoyed at little things. The typical Auckland traffic or I might be late home from work and be annoyed by that. Gratitude changed the way I looked at things. I would be driving along and someone would let me in traffic and I would think, “Oh that’s going in my journal.” I would plan a trip to see whānau and think, “This is going in my journal.” I was constantly looking for good things throughout the day.

When you start from a place of gratitude, everything else is extra. You’ve already got enough. If you’re busy being happy and looking for things to be grateful for, it’s more difficult to be angry and disappointed. It’s hard to be angry and have a smile on your face.

I finished the journal and I went to buy another one and it was $70. At the time I was studying te reo Māori and so I thought, why don’t I make my own and make a bilingual version?

Whakawhetai, by Hira Nathan.

I went to kōhanga reo when I was little and then I went into mainstream education and that’s when my te reo Māori went out the window. I didn’t start learning again properly until my mid-30s. Te reo Māori is everywhere now and I want to be a Māori out loud. We don’t have to leave the reo at home, we don’t have to do it in secret. It’s everywhere. Creating the Whakawhetai-Gratitude journal was a way for me to have reo in my life every day.

I’ve always loved writing. I studied English and te reo Māori at university but then I got a job doing electricity and ended up becoming an electrician.

I had no idea how to write a book or even approach a publisher, so I googled how to make a book. I decided to self-publish and then I said to my girlfriend, “I think I’ll get 50 printed for friends and whānau.” She said to get 200 printed, just in case. The 200 sold in three days so we got 500 more ordered and they sold out before they even arrived. And that’s how it happened. I worked with publishers Allen & Unwin on a new edition and I was real stoked because we were able to bring on board Huriana Kopeke-Te Aho, a Māori takatāpui artist who did the cover art. I love it and her art has really brought out the wairua of the journal. It completes it.

Holistic health is something Māori have been doing forever but we just don’t call it gratitude. For example, karakia is a time to acknowledge, to reflect, to express gratitude for kai, or to make space before a hui. Same as a mihimihi when we acknowledge the atua for existing, when we acknowledge the mate, our ancestors, the people in the room. We express gratitude in different ways.

I think people talk about gratitude and mindfulness a lot in Aotearoa but I haven’t seen anything like this, a journal that is uniquely ours. People see it and think, “This is ours, this is Aotearoa” and it resonates in that way. It’s been a rough time for people in the last couple of years and I just want people to love it and to get joy out of this book. That’s it, really. It’s already surpassed everything I expected it to do.

I’m working on a kids’ version of Whakawhetai, which will be more interactive and have activities and a harikoa happiness meter on the side. I’m looking forward to that.

As told to Shilo Kino

Whakawhetai-Gratitude, by Hira Nathan (Allen & Unwin NZ, $37) is out now.