Te Hokinga mai The Return Home Call it a stroke of luck, or that it was meant to be. ‘The wairua works in mysterious ways’, and in this case, someone just happened to know of someone, who knew somebody. . . And after many decades, a box of old documents that was destined for the recycle depot returned home to where it began – Murupara. Monika Higgins tells the story of how a lifetime’s work was lost, then found, and how she helped guide it on to the printed page.
I
T ALL STARTED WITH A CHAT on the porch with my brother Rab and Des Palmer of the Waewae whānau, Ngāti Manawa. He was researching his whakapapa and had heard many stories from Rab on this porch. One of them was about the rock carvings in Murupara, and it rang a bell with him about some discarded documents he’d seen that had been sent in for proofreading with a view to publishing back in 1976. That proofreader was a Mr Williams, who happened to have a grand daughter married to one of Des’s brothers. We made a phone call to Mr Williams, then 94 years young, at a nursing home in Auckland, and hearing how very important these documents were to the people of Ngāti Manawa, he was delighted for them to be in the right place – back home in Murupara.
The Murupara Rock Carvings lie hidden amidst the pines, their secrets intact. And so, 30 years after they had been sent for proofing, a box of documents and photographs came home. There was a mixture of emotions when we received it. Curious and excited for what we may find of Ngāti Manawa heritage, but also saddened that there was no one alive in the rohe to confirm the stories passed down by our old people. But we took delivery of the box believing it would maybe help fit together some pieces of the puzzle to our stories of yore and how they impact on who we are and where we belong. In particular, because I am Ngāti Manawa and Murupara is my hometown, I had quietly anticipated some extraordinary revelation about our people. P L E N T Y. C O . N Z // F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9
35
