Hīkoi ki Waitangi with Karuwhā

On Sunday February 1st Martin and I caught the bus to Waitangi to participate in Karuwhā's annual commemoration of the signing of the Treaty/te Tiriti.  I wasn't all that sure what to expect (and was pretty apprehensive of how my energy would hold up!), but was hopeful it'd be a thought-provoking week.

In the mid-1990s I was in the young adults group of the Baptist Tabernacle when one of the other young adults, a law student called Sam Carpenter, was starting to think about how Christians might respond to the repeated dishonouring of the Treaty.  He was a direct descendant of Henry Williams (whose Māori name was Karuwhā), the man who translated the treaty into te reo Māori.  Karuwhā was born out of that thinking, and exists to encourage Christians to know and respond to the treaty story they are part of - particularly bearing in mind the strong involvement of Christians at the time of the signing and the much lesser involvement ever since.  They run a variety of events (many of them Haerenga/journeys like this one), but their 'signature' event seems to be this annual trip to Waitangi.  Over four days the participants are welcomed by Te Tiriti O Waitangi marae, told stories of our nation's early days by Māori, serve the marae as it hosts thousands and thousands of people, do guided reflections and participate in prayer times and a church service, and observe the treaty sites and happenings there over February 5th and 6th.

I'd long heard that, whilst Waitangi Day on TV looks like non-stop political arguments, in person it's much more joyous, and that was 100% my experience - although there were clearly many serious discussions going on, and if we go back some time I'd like to listen in to more of those.

Highlights of the trip

Daytrip to the Rangihoua historic sites

I've grown up with the story of Samuel Marsden preaching the first sermon in New Zealand at Oihi Bay on Christmas Day 1814, so I was delighted to be able to go and see the site for myself.  We were hosted by a man whose name I didn't catch, who I believe was Ngāti Torehina - the local tribe to whom that first sermon was preached. 

He was an excellent story-teller, and told of how, when his people settled the Rangihoua area, they received a prophecy that people would come and tell them about the God whose name was 'the son who was killed' and that he was a good God who they should follow.  That preparation by the Holy Spirit led to the local people receiving Marden's words with joy when he finally came.

I was struck by how he spoke of the good news needing to be received like the egg of the pīpīwharauroa (the shining cuckoo, which lays its egg in the nest of another bird to be raised by them).  I guess all missionaries everywhere are pīpīwharauroa, really - planting an egg to be nurtured and raised by others.

He also spoke of the great darkness his people currently live in, and how he dislikes the emblem of the Kiwi as it is a bird that lives in darkness.  He would rather we saw ourselves as kāhu - the Australasian harrier - which soars on the wind, the wind of the Spirit.  He is celebrating that there seems to be a revival at the moment amongst Māori in the North, including in his own whānau and looking forward to the end of a prophesied 200 years of trouble which was also expected to follow the arrival of the Pākeha.

 

Serving at the Hākari

A core part of the Karuwhā 'experience' is service.  The local marae is hosting tens of thousands of people over a few days, and we were to help them in that by helping keep the toilets clean, the rubbish bins empty and the kitchen churning out good food.

Due to my health I'd asked to be excused from the mahi roster, but I had been encouraged to help out spontaneously as I could.  Over the first few days I kept on hearing people say how their mahi shift had been so meaningful to them, so on the 5th I started actively keeping an eye out for something I could realistically do.  On the morning of Waitangi Day Martin and I were waiting for the arrival of the waka (something many people had told us was amazing) when a message came through that they needed extra people to serve the meal that day.  I hadn't realised, but on the 6th Te Tii marae puts on a feast for anyone who wants it (and knows about it!).  Martin and I put our hands up and spent half an hour laying serving tables with massive vats of food (I ended up serving chowder from a bowl that must have been close to a metre across) then another half an hour serving the endless line of people coming through.  (I only lasted half an hour - I think Martin was serving people continuously for about two hours!!)

 

Martin's generous lunch!

 

It was an astonishing piece of generosity: feeding all-comers with an incredibly generous meal.  I had tītī (muttonbird) for the second time in my life (it was yum!) and there were immense piles of chicken, pork, beef, mussels, raw fish, heaps of different salads, great mounds of fruit.  It was such an honour to be able to be part of it.  The marae was really letting us "in" - if we did a bad job, it was them it would reflect badly on.  My friend Anna has been heavily involved in cooking there for the last 10 or so Waitangi Days, and in the past I'd delighted in the way they acknowledged her skill by letter her be involved, but I hadn't previously understood the vulnerability of what they were doing by allowing outsiders 'in' like that.

The magic environment

Martin and I went up a couple of days early so I could have a proper rest day before the busyness began.  We were camping on the side of the Waitangi River, and each day we were there we got to see waka practising on the river.  I think the waka parade on the 6th had 20 waka in it, but we got to see up to six or eight at a time on the other days as well.  It felt magical to be lying in the tent hearing the chants drifting across the water - and astonishing to walk over to the river's edge and watch them.  From the Tuesday morning the marae started to run pōwhiri, too, and we started to hear the sounds of haka drifting over from there as well.

These waka were actually coming into the beach - I never got a good photo of them on the river.

 Some of the waka arriving in the waka parade on the 6th.  We left soon after this, but it sounds like the ceremonies as they came up on the beach were amazing.

It felt magic to me, and I was wondering what that would be like for a Māori person.  We've built such a white-centric world here, it would surely be awesome to have the opportunity once in a while to hang out in a world that felt Māori instead. 

Thoughts 

As a teenager, my high school was strongly connected to the Ngāti Whātua Ōrakei marae.  I was familiar with the story of the protest at Takaparawhau/Bastion Point, pronounced Māori place names correctly, attended pōwhiri a few times a year (and understood bits and pieces of them) and even enrolled in the Māori bilingual unit for 4th form (although it was cancelled for that year so I never actually participated in it).

As an adult I've largely lost connection with te Ao Māori, and I was hoping this trip would help me to think about some of those things again.

I came away with two main thoughts: a challenge to greater generosity/inclusiveness, and some questions about living on stolen land.

Generosity/inclusiveness

I came to feel that I live in a culture where generosity and inclusiveness are largely structural and planned.  I feel like Martin and I have done a reasonable job at living simply so we can give away more to others, but I've been feeling challenged for a while now about the more spontaneous generosity of sharing what I have.

I think I started thinking about this when a Niuean friend from church who works for the Salvation Army brought zillions of bananas to church (excess from her work).  I took what I thought we could use, but she was urging me to take more.  I said this was all I could use, and she said "take more, share them with your neighbours!".  That simply hadn't occurred to me.  So I did, and the neighbours were pleased :-)  Recently she came to visit me, again bringing excess food from her work.  It was too much for us and I was about to start freezing the baked goods when I remembered what she'd said earlier.  So I kept what we could use there and then, then popped upstairs to a neighbour I'd recently met and gave the rest to her.  She's also Niuean and took it completely in her stride - clearly such things are much more part of life in their culture than mine.

More than that, I've been challenged by hearing on the grapevine that people from church who I know are often struggling financially gave a food parcel to someone else who was having a hard time.  That's not living simply and sharing the excess - that's giving what you have, when you see a need, and trusting God to sort it out.

I tend to give in a planned fashion, and out of my excess, rather than sharing the resources I'd intended to use for myself.  We've both felt challenged about this recently and have acted differently in a couple of situations as a result.

In the context of already thinking about our own non-generosity, it was striking to see so much generosity at Waitangi.

our group being welcomed onto the marae

the incredibly generous dinner (including a whole side of smoked fish!) we were each given after the pōwhiri

On the 5th we were taking a rest after lunch at the lower treaty grounds (a site full of food stalls) when a group of young people from a marae-based programme in Taranaki set up next to us.  Not only were the accompanying matua apologetic when they saw us and realised they'd set themselves up with their backs to us, when they got one of the young guys to buy mussel fritters for the group they automatically asked us if we'd like some, too!  I don't think a similar pākeha group would have done that, but it's something I've encountered from Māori and Pasifika a number of times now.

I also generally have good mobility now, but only if I don't do substantial exercise on multiple days in a row.  The Waitangi trip was really pushing it, with long days and heaps of walking day after day.  However, various organisations (the Māori wardens, the marae, maybe others) had laid on shuttle vans and golf carts to get kaumatua around the massive site on the 5th and 6th.  I knew I wasn't going to be able to see or do very much if I had to walk everywhere, so I made heavy use of these.  It wasn't always easy to work out how to connect with transport, but people were super-helpful (even if they didn't always understand what we were after!), and I was humbled by the generosity of the volunteer drivers working so hard, and the generosity of the groups that had made the vehicles available.  And the huge kindness and respect.  Once Martin got out of a golf cart to make space for someone with actual mobility issues (he was just accompanying me) and got his had shaken with great sincerity for doing so.

One miscommunication even led to a pretty special experience!  On Waitangi Day we got into a van to head up to the top of the treaty grounds.  The others in the van were waka paddlers, heading for the main carparking area maybe 15 minutes drive away.  They didn't realise until too late that we'd meant to get out before that, so we ended up having a lovely drive through the bush in an airconditioned vehicle - which was a great break in the middle of a hot day full of people!

I was also struck by how clean the grounds were, despite an estimated crowd of 35,000 people, and how friendly the atmosphere was.  I even got called whaea (twice!) for the first time in my life.  It felt like everyone was being treated like they belonged.

Living on stolen land

The matua who spoke to us at Rangihoua said one thing that really shocked me.  He said, when Marsden came, his tribe had 10,000 hectares.  Now they have only one (or not even one? I don't quite remember) and they don't even have a marae.

To hear a man who was gifting us with so much of his knowledge say that, a man who clearly was a strong follower of Jesus, really hit me.  I know that is the story of Aotearoa, but somehow I 'felt' it much more that day.

I have lived basically all my life on Ngāti Whātua o Ōrakei land.  I don't know much of the story as to why this land is legally now mine and not theirs, but I do know that, in general, land in this country was taken in various illicit ways.

What do I do with that?

I want to live in Aotearoa.  I also don't have the legal right to live anywhere else, so raising the question as to whether I should have the legal right to be here feels a bit scary.

I also want to live in a home that I own, not rent.  The only reason Martin can do his current job (especially at 30 hours per week) is because we own our apartment outright so don't need to pay either rent or mortgage.  I like the financial flexibility that has given us, and the physical stability.

And yet, if I had bought some furniture for our new house on TradeMe, and it later transpired the person I bought it off had stolen it, the position of the law is basically 'sucks to be you'.  If you receive stolen property, knowingly or unknowingly, my understanding is that it simply isn't yours and you're not eligible for compensation.

No one is arguing that I should give this land back to Ngāti Whātua - not even Ngāti Whātua, so far as I know.  Treaty settlements thus far have only dealt with crown land and stuff like fishing rights, not private property.  And when Martin's sister was living on land traditionally owned by the iwi of a chap from our church, he didn't seem in the least bothered by that situation when I raised it with him.  And yet, surely that's primarily an issue of practicality?  Like, there's no point asking people to give up the land they live on and bought with their hard-earned cash - everyone knows that would lead to riots in the streets.  So why bother.

But, as a Christian, should I be accepting that?  It's one thing for Ngāti Whātua not to demand land back - it's quite another for Christians to choose to give it.

And maybe there are other possibilities, too?  I've recently heard that Ngāti Whātua has some land that they make available to all comers under leasehold.  People can live on it for the long-term (having the stability I value), but they pay Ngāti Whātua a fee for the right to be there.

I went to high school near St John's College, as well as near the Ngāti Whātua o Ōrakei marae.  They rent out land that they own using a leasehold model, and I've learned from their experience that there are complexities to that - in particular, their model gives people stability by keeping the fees constant for 25 years, leading to periodic criplingly high fee increases as Auckland's house prices soar.  But it still feels like a model with potential - although part of me wonders if I should be the one suggesting solutions at all.

Or could we live here till our deaths, but bequeath the 'house' portion of our estate to Ngāti Whātua to return it then?  That would certainly be more convenient!  I don't know.

I'm not at all sure what to do with these thoughts.  I've been getting to know a woman who comes to our church when she's over this way, but who is Ngāti Whātua and recently moved into the papakainga development at the Ngāti Whātua o Ōrakei marae.  I'm thinking at least to ask her if she'd be willing to talk some of this stuff through with me when next I see her.