With
incredible bad timing during the worst of the lab troubles, I was off on a two
day cultural training at a marae. A marae is a gathering house of the Maori,
the native people of New Zealand. I learned that the marae is not the
actual meeting house, but the name for
the whole complex of buildings and outdoor areas, of which most importantly the
wharenui, the big meeting house, and the whare kai, the house to eat. Another
thing I already knew but that was strongly reinforced is that food, or kai, is
very important in Maori-culture.
The
training was organized by work, by an HR person that I am not particularly fond
of. Because staying overnight at a marae is an essential part of the experience,
is was a 2-day event. We had 2 sessions on do’s and don’t’s in the marae, the
whole process and introducing ourselves in te reo Maori, the Maori language.
Because I have done an introduction to Maori language, and Thomas is “full-time”
student of Maori at the moment, I could put together a nice introduction to
myself, the mihimihi. In a traditional mihimihi you introduce yourself by
describing where you are from: My mountain is xxx, my river is yyy, your tribe,
subtribe, sub-subtribe, ancestors, father, mother, and finally your own name
and where you live.
Being from
the Netherlands, the mountain-thing is always tricky. Katarina kindly offered I
could use her mountain (the Swiss Alps), and our instructor, Maori himself and
apparently incapable of imagining a landscape without mountains, said “or just
take the highest landmark from where you grew up” which had some of my American
colleagues joking “anything above sea-level will do Nina!”. I finally came up
with the elegant solution of dunes.
Kia ora Hello
Ko pukeone
taku maunga The
sandhill is my mountain
Ko Amstel
taku awa The
Amstel is my river
I whanau au
ki Amsterdam I was
born in Amsterdam
Ko ngati
Horana taku iwi The
Dutch (Hollanders) are my tribe
Ko Pieter
taku matua Pieter
is my father
Ko Addy
taku whaea Addy
is my mother
Ko Idse
taku tungane Idse
is my brother
Ko Thomas
taku whaiaipo Thomas
is my sweetheart
Ko Nina
ahau I
am Nina
Ko Otautahi
taku kainga Christchurch
is my home
Kia ora Thank
you
So Wednesday
we all boarded the minivan and drove over to Akaroa where we were going to
visit Onuku Marae. We had 2 Maori-trainers from the North Island with us, Tania
and Rob, who were to lead the workshop and help out with the intricate process
of entering and leaving the marae.
 |
| The wharenui. It's not permitted to take photos inside unfortunately |
Before you
get into the marae, you have to form a group arranged with women in the front
and men on the flanks. One of the elder women from the host-marae calls out,
and one of our women calls back. They basically ask who you are and why you are
visiting, acknowledge all who have gone and praise the spirits, or something
along those lines. It is important to lift the “tapu” state off the visitors,
which is kind of a sacred state that needs to be transformed into everyday
neutral being. I liked the image that we visitors arrive with all the spirits
of our ancestors surrounding us, and they need to be acknowledged before they
can take off and leave us in the here and now. Somehow the image of my
grandparents/ancestors floating around me at this faraway place seemed odd and
nice at the same time.
If any
dispute needs to be settled, this is the time to do that and men will do their
haka’s and fights. This was not the case with us.
We went
into the marae and some back and forth welcoming and thanking went on, we sang
a waiata (song) and then we were ready to settle in.
We first
all did our mihimihi. I must say that it was quite a good way of getting to
know your colleagues. You know they are German/American/Kiwi/British, you know
perhaps where they did their PhD, but now you know they actually grew up in
Franken-Germany, or in the shadow of Mount Baker, US, or in Ahitereiria
(Australia).
 |
| The little church next to the marae - the first non-denominational church in NZ |
The rest of
the 2 days we discussed the Treaty of Waitangi. This is a very controversial
document – or set of documents – in NZ. It was drafted in 1840 between a lot of
Maori tribes and the British crown, in order to control the behaviour of the
British in NZ and to regulate the selling-buying of land. It was set up in
English, translated into Maori, the original English draft has never been seen
again, instead they made another English version a day later. The Maori version
and the English one are slightly different. Not surprisingly, the slight
difference works very much in favour of the British. And even though the Maori
version is the only one signed by a representative of the crown, and by most of
the Maori tribes, it has never really been followed very strictly at all. As
everywhere else in the world this resulted in that the British got all the land
and the Maori were not allowed to speak their language or practice their
culture.
 |
| the uber-ancestor of the marae. He was captured by another tribe&Brits and they cut out his eyes so he would never find back home. So as a nice touch, his tribe put little lights in his greenstone eyes on top of the marae |
Luckily in
1975 it was recognized that this was all no good and they set up a tribunal to
look at all land claims and determine if they were fair or not. This didn’t
have a lot of power until 1985, and over the past decades a lot of tribes have
been compensated for illegal land-selling actions. Nevertheless, we also looked
at current legislation and documents, and really, the government is still doing
everything it can to not give back land. Although this is nothing new in terms
of how the world and the human greedy mind works, and Maori have a much better
position than other native peoples elsewhere (only look at the Aboriginals in
Aussie) it remains sad.
So it was
an intense 2 days. We were sitting on mattresses on the ground in the wharenui
the whole time, and had numerous meals per day, all very good, but some more
movement would have been nice too. We also slept in the wharenui, which is a
nice experience, all the ancestors carved in wood surrounding you and your
asthmatic colleague snoring a hole in the roof. We got to know each other
better and from Tania and Rob learned a lot about current Maori-affairs and
issues too. They were nicely young (my age) and modern and we also addressed
some feminist issues and how traditional roles need to change.
After the
two days I had a splitting headache that was unreactive to massive doses of
aspirin. I was also trying to digest the whole idea of the importance of your
home-land and your family. On the one hand: for Maori it is of tremendous importance
where you are from and who your family is. You are always tied back to that
place and those people. So I, naturally, wondered, what if you want to get away
from it? It seemed like that was just totally not an option. Or for a short
time, but you would always come back. So, on the other hand, what am I doing
here in NZ? I really love this place, but I have absolutely no connection to
it, in Maori-terms. Would I always remain disconnected and floating here? The
more I thought about the place I was born and grew up and my family and
ancestors, it seemed like a moral duty to go back. But, really? Am I not free
to wander?
So,
complicated stuff. There is no answer and I’m not really looking for one
either. I’ll just keep floating where the wind blows me. Soon that will be “home”.
At some point it may be out of New Zealand again. We’ll see.
