Look at Her Whakapapa In All Its Glory
AUT graduate and Debate’s new Culture and Lifestyle Writer Briar Pomana shares the intracices of whakapapa and what it means to be urbanised tauira Māori at university.
I grew up in a reasonably small, rural town. Saturday mornings watching rugby down at the clubrooms and Sunday roast dinners at the local pub were never my cup of tea. Like many, university in a big city like Auckland was my one way ticket out. It was my Broadway play, my storyline, my narrative, that I would leave the countryside, make something better for myself, and never return. And although this is the dream sold to many of us, through the lens of whānau Māori, this shift in environment can be extremely isolating and damaging further down the road. It is an unfortunate reality that to be Māori and be brought up on your ancestral lands, within a reo Māori community, is a privilege that many are not afforded. One of my best friends, who is a staunch descendant of the north eastern iwi Ngāi Tūhoe was nurtured in our language. We went to boarding school together and she would spend hours spinning yarns about these great historical tales of brave women and beautiful men, tall maunga (mountains) and dense ngāhere (bush). Her belief in our people was beyond mine. Sure, I always knew I was Māori, and was raised by a fiercely independent and proud Māori woman, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I spent some nights wishing I was something else.
