“Once in your life, you need to go to Waitangi on actual Waitangi Day,” I said as we planned the long hīkoi north. Like most, I have seen decades of Waitangi Day coverage on TV, politicians arriving and giving the same old speeches, sometimes having mud slung at them. A microphone was taken away this year and backs turned on the most egregious. That was “tame”, said Pita Tipene, chair of the Waitangi National Trust, who has no doubt sat in many hui trying to strategise the most gracious responses to offensive policies.
There was that, and the most incredible start to the pōwhiri, a very prolonged triple wero laid down, not an inch of that sacred whenua being given up for some time while some politicians looked like they had a taiaha swinging just a short of their eyeballs. It was a tense but ceremonial display of possibly utter rage.
There was that, and the dawn service outside Te Whare Rūnanga, where a procession of Christian voices spoke, including a right reverend bishop who clearly didn’t have a speech writer because he said something about us all being equal. Please, not the equal word. Get with the programme, your grace.
But then there was the Māori wahine toa, president of the Methodist Church of Aotearoa, Te Aroha Rountree, who quoted te Tiriti as a marriage. Every marriage has its ups and downs, but renegotiating requires both spouses to be at the tēpu.
You could have seen any of that on the TV, but what you wouldn’t have seen was the rest of it. What would I call it? A festival? A Māori take on an A&P show? A summer music festival with less music and more older people?
It was amazing: music, kapa haka, toddlers in beach carts, teens jumping off the bridge, kuia transported in golf carts, impromptu comps for the best waiata, which pitted two small kids against a guy who sounded like a professional opera singer. The kids won the rongoā pack and petrol voucher. Mum was happy.
There were kai stalls with fry bread, creamed pāua, kina, whitebait patties, hāngī packs, mussel fritters, more fry bread. (If that’s not your choice of childhood nostalgia food on a roasting-hot day, maybe bring a lunch box.)
It was hot. We carried our togs and had a dip. We sat on the beach and watched an incredible display of two dozen traditional waka, merging strangely with the silent pale yachts anchored in the bay.
There was merch for miles: flags, earrings, hoodies, T-shirts, key rings, bumper stickers, pōtae, kete, fashion statements with poutama, the best blankets ever. And everyone was wearing it. As one speaker said, “Our clothing has changed in the last 10 years; then, we wore Nike and Adidas. Now, it’s all Māori messaging and symbols.”
I spend many hours in the forum tent listening to panels of under-35- year-olds kōrero about different kaupapa. They were so impressive. The oldest of the kohanga reo and kura kaupapa generation, they were educated, articulate and confident. But all presented through a tikanga that looks, to my Pākehā eyes, like grace and humility and respect. These things are now often absent in a world of capitalism, individualism and competition.
Well, they weren’t always respectful (they are under 35!), but the worst was calling some of the iwi leaders “moneytira” rather than rangatira. They will learn. Money matters, too, in an inequitable world.
But mostly, they inspired. Unsurprisingly, the forum tent was organised by Eru Kapa-Kingi and other Toitū te Tiriti movement members who led the hīkoi to Parliament; we saw the same grace, humility and respect as we saw there.
This was not young people in angry, aggressive protest. This was young people saying, “We are Māori, proud to be Māori. This is what it means to us, and this is what we have to offer to help make Aotearoa a better place.”
The kaupapa had a central theme of “Hawaiki hou”, a sort of aspirational future place, asking, “What do we want Aotearoa to look like, and how can we get there socially, politically, environmentally, culturally, spiritually and economically?”
Gems to remember, such as:
“We cannot cut down a full-grown rimu tree for a waka unless we are also planting a waka forest for those to come in 500 years.” (We seldom get that long-term thinking in a three-year parliamentary term.)
Kai sovereignty: “Could I survive if I had no access to a supermarket for six weeks?”
“We belong to the land, not the other way around. The land never belonged to us, so it sure doesn’t belong to them.”
“If you are not sitting at the table, you will be on the menu.”
“We are descendants but also ancestors.”
Between the kids wrapped in tino rangatiratanga flags, the pāua patties, the suited moneytira and the kōrero of the young I was left with the same sense I had at the hīkoi; te ao Māori is not going anywhere because a personal and national identity tied up in a tikanga that looks to me like grace, humility and respect is very appealing. It felt like I was watching a groundswell of history, taking Aotearoa in a good direction.
It is a huge movement. At least 50,000 were at the hīkoi; two speakers in the forum had social media accounts covering the hīkoi that reached 8 million people. “Social media has democratised information.”
After two centuries of misrepresentation, they are taking control of the narrative of what it is to be Māori.
I was grateful to Tamatha Paul, MP for Wellington Central, who reminded us that 80 per cent of Māori live in cities and many don’t have access to their whakapapa, marae, or reo. They are Māori, too. I have met many of them in my clinic.
It was all incredibly hopeful, except for how few Pākehā were there. Most were older or tourists. There are not many situations where a Pākehā can be immersed in a Māori world without needing some sort of invitation – maybe try Te Matatini or the Waka Ama Nationals – but Waitangi was next level.
It was only as I left that I realised there was another big marquee on the other side of the bridge at Te Tii Marae, where the kaumātua, kuia and rangatira were having their own panels.
I’ll have to listen to them next year – because I’m going back.
You need to go to Waitangi on actual Waitangi Day, much more than once in your life.
Lucy O’Hagan is a medical educator and specialist GP working in the Wellington region
