Written by Richard Cotman, New Zealand Trade & Enterprise
I came to Retreat Two (Te Tiriti o Waitangi & Te Ao Māori) of The NZ Leadership Programme at Kohewhata Marae knowing that I needed to be ready for challenge. I came ready to listen. I thought I was going to spend more time listening than speaking. I was conscious of arriving as a white, New Zealand-born Pākeha male on a marae where we were going to hear about the disconnection of tangata whenua from their rēo, dispossession from whenua, and of painful histories needing to be shared and learned. I wasn’t sure of my place in those histories, but I hope I was prepared to listen and learn.
Mātua Ngāhau spoke to us on our first evening at Kohewhata about the wharenui as a pool in the desert – “a place to rumble” – to grapple with each other and with painful questions. I felt the pain of discomfort early in the retreat. A challenge to all of us to find our way towards more use of rēo while we were in the “safe space” of the wharenui. Were we being disrespectful by not sharing our pepeha? Were we not connecting with each other as we should? What was the protocol? Were we too afraid to trample on others’ sensitivity or scared of making mistakes? I don’t think we got to the end of our discussion about “safe spaces” as a group, but we experienced a little of the pain of conflict on that first night. We found a way forward by the end of the evening, but the ghost of that discomfort remained with the group for the rest of the retreat. We had rumbled for the first time.
It struck me during this Retreat that the marae is probably the best model of a safe place for dialogue that we have in Aotearoa New Zealand. Leadership often involves standing and speaking in uncomfortable situations. Acknowledging or addressing hurt. Looking for ways to move ahead. It is not easy, and it is uncomfortable for many of us. Luckily, the protocol of the marae offers all of us a framework and values to have these difficult conversations.
Tika – pono – aroha – are key ingredients of this deeper “rumble”. The emphasis on tikanga on the marae provides a framework, a basket of meaning and method that helps ensure the mana of all can be acknowledged, preserved and upheld. Coming into an ancestral space that surpasses our current time and place enables deeper and more pono (honest) conversations to take place. And through the welcome of manuhiri into the marae space, conversations can be held – with speakers and listeners – conversing from a place of aroha.
Conversations that explore “how have we got to here?”, and then work on how we heal and move forward require a safe space. Mātua Ted and his whānau at Kohewhata showed us what such a safe place can feel like. It’s a place where we can rumble, we can tremble, provoke each other, connect, and sometimes, even have fun. Perhaps the marae is the best place we have to start and continue the conversations we need to have as a nation.
The Pūtātara and the Trumpet
At the entrance to the Treaty Museum at Waitangi, the visitors pass between two musical instruments: a pūtātara (conch shell) of the tangata whenua, and a naval bugle from the Dutch Navy. The museum inscription points out that these trumpets would have been the first man-made sounds that pākehā and tangata whenua likely heard from each other’s societies. As the Heemskerk approached the coast of Tasman Bay, conch shells were sounded from the land to welcome and challenge these strange new visitors. And the sailors on the ship responded with bugle calls. These sounds were followed by haka and karakia, cannon fire or musket shots, misunderstanding and death.
I’m a trumpet player – Wynton Marsalis rather grandly calls us the children of Gabriel. The trumpet is an instrument of war and conflict. For millennia, trumpet players have been heard above the noise of battle, to direct the troops, to sound an advance, or announce a retreat. It’s an instrument of triumph, and the voice of mourning when we sound the last post. It’s often the first instrument soldiers would hear at dawn and the last that one would hear before nightfall.
I brought my trumpet to Kohewhata – not quite knowing whether I’d actually play it, or what use it would provide. It’s been years since I’ve played trumpet seriously. Life has got in the way. But when I pulled out my trumpet on the marae, a new role for the instrument emerged… as a connector, an instrument to bring fun, to create shared moments.
Music can send a warning, sound a welcome, sing a protest or build a bridge between people. Whether we are musicians or not, we all have our own instruments, and we have choices on how to use them.
Kō Ngāti Pākehā te iwi
I can’t pin down the moment, but it happened at Kohewhata. I changed how I talked about myself. I hadn’t voiced it until that day – kō Ngāti Pākehā te iwi – my people are Pākehā.
This is my way to claim my heritage, and to acknowledge the role that me and my family, my ancestors have played in the history of Aotearoa, and in shaping who I am. For good and for ill.
While preparing for this Retreat, I asked my Mum about our earliest ancestors to arrive in New Zealand. They came here in 1864. William and Frances Crisp arrived from the East of England and arrived in Auckland during a time of war. After disembarking from the ship, they spent the first night on the soil of Aotearoa in a tent in a military stockade at Albert Park – under protection from feared attacks from Waikato Māori. They soon moved south to Hauraki and settled on the Thames coast. I knew something of the story of their settlement in Thames, but I’d never heard how they spent their first night under military guard because. They arrived in a nation in armed conflict, where military invasion of Waikato by British troops and armed resistance by tangata whenua was in full swing. I still don’t know what this means, but it helps me to better imagine how my ancestors may have felt about Māori, and how they regarded this strange and new land.
Aotearoa was so different from the flat fields, clustered villages and broad estuaries of their native Norfolk. But they stayed and raised a family. Their first child born in Thames – my first New Zealand born ancestor – was named Rose. And Rose is our daughter’s middle name. She’s Pākehā too, and I hope that as she grows up, my wife and I can help her understand what that means.
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