In search of turangawaewae

Tu Tangata, Issue 5, 1 April 1982, Page 12

In search of turangawaewae

While angry young Maoris confronted trustees, elders and police at Waitangi earlier this year, a much more optimistic land issue was being worked out at Papawai marae in Greytown. Shareholders in the Mangakino Township Incorporation were trying to find out about 700 elusive fellow owners who sank into oblivion during the confused history of the $11.5 million block of land. The missing partners descendants of the Kahungunu Ki Wairarapa tribal group were needed urgently to vote on whether to take full control of their inheritance, part of which is managed by Maori Affairs. After the weekend it appeared there were enough owners to vote at the annual general meeting later this year. But for the 300 Maoris who went to Papawai, possible financial rewards were far less important than finding out about family and tribal ties and getting to know newly discovered relatives. ly discovered relatives. J

Juliet Ashton reports.

Inside the meeting house at Papawai marae research worker Joe Williams flicks through his filing cabinets, back against the dark traditional outlines on the wall.

“This is the only one we’ve got,” he says, showing a card with a long Maori name typed neatly on it.

“That’s him, that’s my grandfather,” gleefully says the carefully dressed young mother, noting the number on the card.

She moves on to the next bench where kaumatua (elders] and Maori Affairs staff are on hand with more information.

Similar scenes are repeated all day as visitors from as far away as Auckland and Blenheim queue to find out who they are related to and if they are entitled to shares.

Joe, jeaned and bearded, is a third year Maori studies and law student whose own tribal affiliations are far away in Hauraki.

He and Andrew McNicol, a fifth year law and commerce student, have spent their summer break masterminding a system for tracing successors to the Pouakani Block.

Listing all

Working through Maori Land Court records since the 1870 s they have been listing all those who succeeded or should have succeeded, to shares from the original 139 owners about 3000 in all. The next problem was finding out who is still alive and where. “We find a lot of people on paper but we need addresses so we’re doing a sort of census at the same time.” Their biggest headache was the total disorder and mis-spelling of the old land court records. “Each clerk lasted only about five years and each had a different system and different spelling,” Joe says. Additional problems were caused by

a profusion of both wives and aliases as well as a variety of other traps. “We have people succeeding under their maiden name but dying under their married name.”

But, spurred on by the feeling that they were assisting in a positive step for Maori land they finally pieced together the mammoth jigsaw puzzle. Hold the key Joe believes strongly that incorporations could hold the key to the future survival of Maori land.

Since Maori land titles were individualised in the 1860 s he says, the Maori Land Court, Maori Affairs Department and all land legislation has been designed to alienate the land right up to the 1970 s when it was far too late to reverse the trend. Maori land these days lacks cohesion land or had it taken,” he says. The remnants left are too fragmented for constructive management. “Incorporations are almost a Maori concept. They do away with the individualisation of land,” Joe says. “Incorporations give people their own turangawaewae. They bring people together keep alive the whakapapa, the bloodlines, the stories about people, the language.”

Searching Queues shift slowly round the crowded room dark skinned and darkhaired or auburn with freckles, a smattering of pale European features. The wooden walls echo with shrieks of pleasure as new relationships are unearthed and despairing sighs at the monumental intricacy of old family records. An old woman cackles and shakes her head, heavy earrings weighing down a face straight from a Goldie frame. “My father he had six wives, I can’t find which one it was. He was descended from five canoes,” she tells anyone who wants to listen. Round the edge of the room the elders sit, quietly observing, already well versed in their past.

Questioning priorities Outside on a bench Chris Otene is talking, questioning, analysing. A purchasing officer and now a Maori warden in Wellington he heard about the marae meeting at the last moment and cancelled his weekend sports to come. ‘‘lt’s a matter of priorities,” he says. Chris’ youth was marked by a series of devastating changes of circumstance. The eldest child in a traditional family, he was sent to live with his grandparents in Taranaki where he grew up “in a pa-like system with the old families” speaking mostly Maori. When he was 12 he was sent to a Catholic boys school in Auckland. In the big city, he says, he made the traumatic

discovery that colour did make a difference. His English was poor. “I was a typical Maori kid,” he says, giving a quick imitation of his mumbling, headbent younger self. Pighunting Wanting to succeed, though knowing

he really preferred “pighunting, eeling and all that” he took elocution lessons, gaining articulate fluency in English but almost losing his Maori in the process.

Later he joined the Stormtroopers and got tattoos, which to this day he refuses to remove or hide. “They’re nothing to be ashamed of.”

Chris survived, met and married an English girl, went overseas, came back and went on the Maori land march, became a Maori warden.

He got interested in anthropology among other things. “I always enjoyed reading about how people interrelate, and about their authority bases.”

Natural simplicity

He was struck by the “natural simplicity” of many attitudes of Maoris and other races and by Western lack of comprehension of these. Western society isn’t geared to these ideas but they’re pure commonsense.”

Chris believes that knowing one’s ancestry is vitally important and he has had his complete genealogy drawn up.

He nods toward the dark interior of the meeting house. “I couldn’t get up in there and recite my whakapapa but I’ve got it all here.” He slaps a sheaf of papers in his hand.

Typed lists and filing cabinets may be more governmental than traditional, he says, but anything is better than letting the knowledge die.

‘‘l haven’t got kids, but my brother in Auckland has. If one of his kids comes knocking at my door I’d be a bloody fool if all I could say was “I’m your uncle.”