Resurgence of traditional rongoā Māori explored at Kaitāia’s ‘Fabulous Friday’ sessions

Tina-Lee Yates and Joe Body with hangehange - an edible native plant - at a recent rongoā Māori session in Kaitāia.

The resurgence of traditional rongoā Māori is on display at the regular “Fabulous Friday” sessions in Kaitāia.

There is a clinking of glass, a pause, a “mauri ora” or two, and a bottoms up as a group of keen rongoā Māori practitioners test out their fresh batch of pātētē infusion - which is good for weight loss - on a typical Friday morning in the Far North town.

They are from Tuia Maara Whenua, one of four rongoā Māori hubs that form the Te Hiku Rongoā Māori Collective, and they are at the forefront of redressing health equity for traditional hauora Māori practices on the incoming tide of current health system reforms.

The traditional Māori method involves the use of native plant-based remedies (rongoā rākau), massage (mirimiri) and spiritual healing through prayer (karakia). Rongoā is about wellbeing, the wellbeing of the person, the whenua, the soil, and the water flowing through the whenua.

Since June 2020, ACC has been offering rongoā Maori as an option for people in their recovery and has delivered rongoā in more than 10,000 claims. There are now 200 practitioners registered with ACC from the Far North down to Stewart Island.

There are 24 organisations / practitioners in Northland registered with ACC to provide rongoā Maori services, and from June 2020 to March 2024, ACC has supported access to rongoā Maori services for 658 kiritaki in the Northland region.

The Te Hiku Rongoā Māori Collective is a Te Hiku-wide network of traditional rongoā Māori practitioners with clinics that span across north Hokianga, west, central, and eastern communities, that provide Māori-based health and wellbeing services to rural whānau.

Each hub has been holding space on the ground for access to rongoā Māori for a long time. Now, they have received boost in support to collectively continue their work under the Taikorihi locality, one of 12 national prototypes set up under the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022 to influence and inform the future investment of public health in New Zealand.

The collective has received funding via Te Whatu Ora through the Taikorihi innovation fund to collaborate and collectivise services and approaches to inform what future investment in rongoā Māori in Te Hiku could look like.

“A lot of whānau have been asking for options to access traditional rongoā Māori. We need to be seen at the forefront, just as much as any other hauora service provision. Our whānau are screaming for it and still want it. We just want to be able to do it and get resourcing because we all know the deficit kōrero around our whānau. We can work with our own, in our communities, to address those inequities within the health sector,” Jo Murray said.

And it works. Soul Within’s Bernie Brophy operates from Mitimiti to cover the north Hokianga catchment area. Brophy said demand for her services in romiromi and wairua work from birth to death to aftercare is high.

“We’ve found a lot more grief, loss, and stress on top of the cost of living. For our whānau accessing healthcare, what that looks like is they can’t get in to see doctors for two weeks to a month in some situations. There is lots of desperation, because there isn’t that immediate medical care available, when kānohi ki te kānohi is where our people connect from.”

She said the advent of Covid 19 enabled many practitioners to move into a digital space to continue to provide services.

“We still work online today because of the accessibility. We call it the eight-minute lifeline. If someone needs to talk, we just ring, connect and do what we’ve got to do, and do it fast, and let it go because people are in such dire straits. It only takes eight minutes of somebody listening for them to be able to move and shift their psyche from the darkest of places,” she said.

Murray said witnessing time and again the impact of rongoā Māori to heal whānau firsthand is validating and supports the evidential data being gathered by the collective on health stressors from their observations working with whānau.

The current central hub hosts wānanga under the tutelage of kuia and kaumātua who Murray said are critical in sharing the intergenerational transmission of rongoā Māori knowledge alive in contemporary times.

“It’s around that retention of mātauranga rongoā. If we don’t share it, we’ll lose it. It is not just about providing the rongoā, but also providing the opportunity to learn how to harvest, how to prep it, and how to make it. It’s that whole idea around gifting the fish or gifting the fishing rod,” she said.

The collective has already helped organise a number of wānanga and is getting ready for the upcoming Te Tai Tokerau Rongoā Māori Hui-ā-Rohe being hosted at Otiria Marae in Moerewa from August 3-4, as they are also part of a wider Te Tai Tokerau Rongoā Māori Collective.

The Tuia Maara Whenua meets each “Fabulous Friday” from 10am to 2pm for rongoā preparation, workshops and shared kai at 168 Commerce St, Kaitāia. All are welcome and for more information, visit https://www.facebook.com/tuia.maarawhenua.