Te wiki o te reo Māori has come and gone again, and with each year that passes I am consistently impressed with the momentum the movement is gaining. Te reo Māori is now no longer a ‘fringe’ subject to be studied by enthusiasts and activists. Rather, it goes without saying that it has become a part of mainstream life in Aotearoa New Zealand.
As a Māori language learner and teacher, I wholeheartedly celebrate this development and I can only see benefits for the wider society.
For me, learning te reo Māori has offered way more than learning another language (and I’ve learned a few others, for comparison).
It is a doorway into a beautiful culture, and an invitation to take on another way of being, that in my experience, is so much more in harmony with people and the planet.
It is a source of my own hauora (wellness), through connecting to this whenua (land), connecting to a community of Māori and tauiwi who are also learning, and connecting to my own soul through waiata (singing) and karakia (incantations/prayers).
I’d like to share some of the life-lessons I’ve gained since starting to learn te reo Māori over the past 14 years, but first, I’ll start with a story.
I stumbled into learning te reo. It was quite accidental and by chance that I found myself enrolling in a full-time, full-immersion course with Te Ataarangi in Otāhuhu, Tāmaki Makaurau. Having recently returned from living overseas, my husband and I had separated, and I needed a serious change. I think a friend of a friend had suggested I search up Te Ataarangi, an independent community provider of te reo Māori classes.
When I arrived for my interview one summery day late in 2008, a Samoan mareikura by the name of Fetu Sane looked at my quizzically as I removed my bike helmet and took a seat in front of her, all hot and sweaty from my long bike ride.
Unlike the rest of the students there, I had no personal connection to Te Ataarangi. I was also the only Pākehā enrolling in the course that year. Fetu raised her eyebrows at this skinny little blond-haired, blue-eyed Pākehā who arrived out of the blue, and I remember the interview proceeding a little awkwardly.
However, much to my surprise, I was offered a much coveted place on the course. I look back now and I still don’t understand why me. But the longer I’ve been around, the more I appreciate just how fortunate I was to be allowed access to te ao Māori through such a rich, authentic learning environment.
Meanwhile, I still had a long summer ahead of me before kura started, and following my fresh relationship break up, all I wanted to do was hit the road and feel free. So I packed my bags and took off on a solo hitchhiking trip around Te Tairāwhiti, the East Coast.
I remember being picked up one day by a group of te reo speakers who were on their way to a Te Ataarangi reunion in Te Kaha. I told them I was enrolled in Te Ataarangi and they invited me to camp at their place. Not a shy person, I was more than happy to accept their generous manaakitanga (hospitality).
I pitched my tent and joined them for dinner and drinks. I didn’t understand much of what was being said, but all I remember was a happy, loving and fun wairua between everyone there. After dinner the singing went on and on and I didn’t know any of the waiata so I tapped out early and headed to my tent for a moe. I could still hear them singing from my tent, they sounded so joyous and fulfilled. I wondered what it would be like to be part of such a happy, relaxed and tight-knit group.
The next day I was invited to parakuihi (brekkie) so I sat down to enjoy eggs on toast before I hit the road again. “You’re gonna love Te Ataarangi e hoa, just you wait and see.” I was more than a little excited now to be starting my course, and I was impressed by the bonds that these classmates shared, despite their courses finishing years ago.
I started to wonder if I was doing a course, or joining a community, or both.
The woman who picked me up was also a Pākehā but she seemed to speak fairly fluent Māori, which impressed me. I loved watching the way she fit in, and how te reo me ōna tikanga were the glue between everyone, Māori and Pākehā alike. Kotahitanga (unity) was so present.
When I went to leave, the Pākehā woman offered to drop me at a better spot for hitchhiking. She opened up to me in the car, Pākehā to Pākehā. “ You know, what you’re doing is actually really strange to many Māori, travelling on your own.”
“Oh really? I prefer it, I just need to be on my own for a bit.” I replied.
“That’s cool, but you know, most Māori would much rather do things with their whānau than do it alone. They actually feel sorry for you, because you might be lonely. You’ll get it when you join Te Ataarangi.”
I’ve thought about her words a lot since then, as they formed the very beginning of my deep dive into a uniquely Māori worldview, which in turn, led me to a deeper comprehension of my own cultural heritage. Here are a few key life-lessons I gained from learning te reo Māori.
Teamwork makes the dreamwork
Since that conversation, I’ve been struck by the contrast between my culture's deeply rooted individualism, verses the collective strength of Māori society. We have this saying at kura (school) “Kia kotahi te hoe, ka ū te waka ki uta,” which we understand to mean that our waka (canoe) doesn’t go ahead if one person drops off it. Instead we swing around to pick them up, and arrive there together.
And that is what we did, again and again. No-one seemed concerned at the pace of our journey slowing down. What was important was that we only went as fast as the slowest person in our rōpū. Collective accomplishment was far more important than competition. And when one person succeeded, we all won. Empathy, aroha and real practical support for others contributed to our collective wellbeing, and this has definitely changed how I evaluate success.
I sometimes wonder what would happen if certain political parties experienced the transformative effect of te reo Māori in the way that I have. Would they be a little more empathetic? Would they possibly evaluate our nation's successes based on improved outcomes for the worst off in society? One can wonder…
Food makes everything better
We all put on weight that year due to the abundance of kaitahi - shared meals. But you know what? I came to understand that sharing kai served way more than just biological purposes. Having kai together was a way to transition from the sometimes brain melting, cognitive dissonance of immersion language learning, and feel normal and embodied again. It helped us to lift the tapu that we sometimes felt when learning and reciting long karakia, whakapapa, or tauparapara, and bring us back down to earth.
Importantly, it broke down any barriers between us as we laughed and joked with our broken reo over a good feed. It built trust. It relaxed us. We probably digested our kai better and had less digestive issues (related to stress).
And it allowed us to practise manaakitanga (hospitality) as we usually brought more than we needed for ourselves, and often special kai like smoked ika, kina or pāua when someone had been home. We grew into a whānau through kaitahi, and all those hours of relaxed kōrero and getting to know our mates.
I wonder how organisations and workplaces could increasingly become places of connection, belonging, and hauora just through facilitating regular shared lunches...
Whānau doesn’t always mean blood related
I’ve always searched for acceptance and belonging in groups, be it at church, school, activist groups, or Te Ataarangi. At times I’ve felt that membership to certain groups requires strict adherence to rules and norms, which should these rules be broken, belonging to said groups is no longer guaranteed. A kind of conditional love.
Given that I was so different from everyone else in Te Ataarangi, I could have easily been rejected or made to feel inadequate for the colour of my skin, or what my ancestors had done.
But the opposite was true.
I’ll always remember the day that one of the matua in our rōpū came up to me and said “Tally, (I’m short) you’re one of us, you’re our whāngai (adopted child) now.” And he was dead serious. I found out later on that he had been whāngai’d (adopted) himself, so he must have felt for me being so different. Throughout the year, his whānau took special care of me, invited me to everything that was happening, and basically had my back the whole time.
From the outset, we stood to mihi with “Kia ora e te whānau”, and over time this became more and more real. We literally loved each other as whānau do, and did everything as a group. Parties, birthdays, tangi, marae trips, wānanga, most weeks there was something happening and we showed up en-mass. My need for connection, belonging and community was fulfilled as I not only felt supported on a daily basis, but I had a role to play in supporting others.
Vulnerability is the start of healing
All of us tauira (students) that year were going through some massive transitions and were in need of some serious healing. Some of us were dealing with rocky relationships, others were having new babies, and I was going through a divorce. Every morning without fail we had mihimihi, which was basically a non-religious ritual/check in which included karakia, waiata, and a kauwhau (a talk on a topic).
Once the formalities were done, the rākau (stick) came out and was passed around the circle. If it landed on you, you had to stand and speak, even if you really didn’t feel like it that day. There was no escaping the rākau.
I remember standing and pouring my heart out in my broken reo, after particularly hard counselling sessions with my ex. The tears came easily in our rōpū and they were encouraged, but as first I felt so uncomfortable being that vulnerable in public. Up until this point in my life, public vulnerability was definitely not encouraged.
We were all on a healing journey that year, and the only way to heal was through being vulnerable together.
There are so many ways in which learning te reo Māori has changed me for the better, and these are just a few of them. Given the transformative and healing nature of te reo Māori, and considering how few Māori have had an opportunity grow up speaking their mother tongue, I owe an immense amount to te ao Māori (Māori society) in gratitude for being bestowed this precious taonga (treasure), and I aim to continue sharing what I know with others unreservedly.
If you are one of the many people who are considering learning te reo Māori, all I would say is ‘karawhiua’, go for it! You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
"Tōku reo, tōku ohooho, tōku reo, tōku māpihi maurea, tōku reo, tōku whakakai marihi!"
Language is the key to understanding.
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