Ko Wai tōu Ingoa
Image credit: Kahukura
I am that person in the whānau who cares a lot about whakapapa. I search and collect whatever I can; I piece together the stories of our tīpuna. It isn't an official role those 'in charge' have given me; it's one my tīpuna gave me. I feel them, and they send tohu and clues on what I call a 'whakapapa treasure hunt'. It takes me to cemeteries, to other members of my whānau, to chancing upon something in a pānui or on the internet. They are the ones driving me while I merely adhere to their guidance. Like all Māori, our whakapapa is full of trauma.
While some may deny this trauma and continue playing out pain and conflict, my role has been and continues to be, mending and healing.
To be colonised is to be traumatised. While some may deny this trauma and continue playing out pain and conflict, my role has been and continues to be mending and healing. It is through this work that Monty Soutar's recent book acknowledged my Great Grandfather as a WWI soldier of Māori descent and how my niblings began to explore their Māori identity.
It's how I realised the admin of a genealogy group was whānau, and while visiting her on the Kāpiti Coast, I read the court document where her Great Great Grandfather stated that my Great Great Great Grandmother had been held captive on the island. I know this is what I am supposed to do, and tīpuna continue to awhi me with their kaitiakitanga.
My birth name has never felt like mine.
But what does that have to do with my name? My birth name has never felt like mine. When I hear it and look in the mirror and see it written down, it is more a feeling of association than identification. That's not to discount the intention behind giving me my birth name. It's just that it doesn't match my mauri. A collection of 3 syllables and sounds that don't feel like 'me'. Perhaps this feeling was there because I hadn't yet received something from tīpuna—my Māori name.
Image credit: Kahukura
Kahukura. This is the name my tīpuna give me. Multilayered and with multiple meanings, that resonate and make sense both as two separate kupu and combined as one whole. An expression of my whakapapa, my tūrangawaewae, my role and my purpose. But there is a second gift that comes with this name; addressing and healing the shame and entrenched assimilation associated with being Māori.
To claim your identity while wrapped in fair skin and a Pākehā accent is to be 'crazy'.
In my whānau, to claim your identity while wrapped in fair skin and a Pākehā accent is to be 'crazy'. Something someone out of touch with reality would do, because our fraction is far too small to warrant our cultural identity outside of Pākehā. Cloaked in shame and embarrassment, standing tall in my Māoritanga is to step out of the family norm. Fortunately 'different' is my default.
Ko Kahukura tōku ingoa. I will not accept this shame. I will not allow embarrassment. I will not take all that sent to me. When I hear this name, when I look in the mirror and when I see it written down, I know this is who I am. Those who stand in their Māoritanga wrapped in fair skin and a Pākehā accent are not 'crazy', and they are not out of touch with reality but are in touch with their whakapapa. I will continue to follow the guidance of my tīpuna and be the person I am meant to be.