Brown and sorted

Your view of the world is coloured by your whakapapa and the legacy of all who went before you. They made you what you are, and it’s over to you to finish the job of being you, writes Tainui Stephens.

 

Uncle Graham Roberts loved to smoke. When we visited him in hospital, we’d tape a packet of cigarettes under his table.

One time, however, the old man was at home in his usual bright blue dressing gown. His cigarette was sputtering in his mouth as he told me that one of his mokopuna had the unfortunate habit of throwing dollar notes into the fire. Ones, fives, twenties. He asked her: “Why do you want to burn the money?” She said: “Cos it’s dirty.” My great-uncle struggled to laugh and drag on his fag at the same time.

Back then, I was a hairy teenager, living in Christchurch. I’d hitchhike up north as often as I could and crash at his place in Manurewa. He and his wife, Hera, were generous in their hospitality despite being pensioners, and with a large family coming and going. They were proud of their Pākehā mokopuna, and amused when I’d try and tune into their fluent Māori language. He swallowed every syllable. She spoke at speed.

Every time I left their home, I’d kiss them goodbye, and Aunty Hera would slip a 20-dollar bill into my pocket. It was the same in Ahipara. Aunty Mary Williams would put money in an envelope with a greeting card from the Lord and leave it in my bag. Aunty Hera Waitai, in Houhora, would dive into her purse for me.

This humble kind of love with no strings attached is at the core of the Māori understanding of the world around us. It’s all about connections. It’s in the whakapapa.

Planet Earth is four-and-a-half billion years old. Humanity has been around for 300,000 years. Scientists tell us that 99.9 percent of things that have ever lived are now extinct. Every species has an expiry date. According to an American trillionaire, part of our exit strategy from extinction must be to colonise Mars. It also seems that because of their sheer intelligence and social skills, we should include octopuses in our succession plan.

What’s to stop us from ending up in the trash bin of evolution?

As highly evolved apes, or fully formed vessels of our gods, we’ve gotten this far for two main reasons: We belong, and we gather. Group identity and personal participation create knowledge. We use that knowledge to grow.

Some Māori histories speak of the god Tāne as responsible for delivering knowledge to the world. He’d made his way to the highest heaven known as Te Toi o Ngā Rangi. After a suitable request to the deity in charge, Io Matua Kore, his wish was granted. He landed back on earth with three baskets full of all the data a sovereign people would need to inform the way we should live. One simple breakdown of the contents of each kete reveals three types of knowledge: the seen, the unseen, and the potential.

That body of knowledge, mātauranga Māori, has served us well for a very long time. The kete are overflowing. We need more kete.

For some who study the human species, there’s a whakapapa of our tūpuna called Homo. There was a time, way back, when our water-bound ancestors made it to land. Eventually, we developed a trunk and limbs and learned to use tools. That branch of the family tree is called Homo Habilis (Handy Man). A couple of million years ago, Homo Erectus (Upright Man) stood up, learned to walk, and gapped it out of Africa. About 300,000 years ago, we evolved behaviours that helped us to survive in an unstable world. We got smart and became Homo Sapiens (Wise Man).

Today, there’s a branch of that whakapapa known as Homo Economicus (economic Man). These buggers are taking over the planet.

They believe the most rational decisions are those that maximise the economic payoff for themselves. Any concerns for other people must wait until their own position is secure. Economists call that the “trickle-down theory”, which holds that the rich spend their money so that it spreads throughout the system to reach the poor. The problem is, the rich don’t spend as much as they keep. And they can’t just keep their stash of cash. They always need to grow it.

I’ve never met our prime minister, but I saw him once in an airport queue, when he was an opposition MP. He was smaller than I thought he’d be. Just him in his snappy pinstripe suit. I remember he didn’t carry a single bag. A sure sign of power. Self-contained. A master of the universe. I felt the same last year when he was questioned about some fruitful property investments. His response to the criticism was to front-foot it and say: “Let’s be clear, I’m wealthy and I’m sorted.”

Sorted.

I don’t care if rich people confess or gloat about being sorted. I’ve met enough of them to know that a healthy bank balance is no guarantee of a happy life. Politicians who ooze privilege disappoint. Their elitism lubricates the politics of exclusion, where the powerful screw over the poor.

To be fair to the PM, he acknowledges his humble origins and good fortune and says he now wants to give back to the community. That’s Homo Economicus right there.

Economics can’t heal the moral, relational, and spiritual crises that most of the world now faces. But stories can. Mātauranga Māori is a vast story of transformation that stretches over all time, and weaves its way through every part of society.

In 1984, the leaders of our people gathered together for a Hui Taumata. The plan was to find a way to be the author of our own economic destiny. Māori control of Māori things would be the strategy. Special attention to our language and our cultural identity was the lead tactic.

The hui was timely. A swelling population, growing expectations, and expanding capacities gave heft to the dreams. The kōhanga reo movement had started. By the time of the next Hui Taumata in 2005, an assertive new political voice had burst forth in the Māori Party.

What caused the rapid transformation of our iwi in the 21 years between those two Hui Taumata? It certainly didn’t happen because of the governments of the day. In the future and even now, few will remember them. Even fewer will remember the names of the politicians who inspired, offended, or bored the country.

That generation of time saw the coming of age of the modern Māori. Why?

I’ve tried to tell this Hui Taumata story in a new documentary series, Taumata 3001. It’s one thing to tell the facts of history — it’s another to understand what they mean. I felt it might work to give that recent history the gift of distance.

One of my first intense cinema experiences happened when I was 12. The film was Planet of the Apes. The hero, played by Charlton Heston, is marooned on a planet 300 light years away. It’s a world run by clever monkeys. At the end of the film, he discovers the top of the Statue of Liberty sticking out of a beach. Yup. Not an alien planet at all. Mankind had clearly destroyed itself. I sat stunned in the Regent theatre. Young mind blown.

I stole that clever idea to start my television series. What better way to get serious about the consequences of history than to face extinction? I set my story way in the future, in the year 3001. I wanted to have my warrior narrator, Te Rapunga, running down a beach to come across Auckland’s Sky Tower sticking out of the sand. But, nah, couldn’t afford that. So we turned the sky red and had him enter a cave to experience a wānanga of all Māori knowledge from the very beginning.

Te Rapunga discovers that the Hui Taumata era reveals a Māori world that’s still brave enough to change the social, cultural and political realities imposed on it. And that this era of the “Great Awakening” of the planet would lead to a new era known as the “Great Connection”. The series is a virtual wānanga dressed as a time capsule from the future. It suggests the power of three new earthly baskets of knowledge. Ngā kete o te hononga: unconditional love, an authentic voice, and the courage to act.

Every ancestor that has ever lived is still a part of your family. Their physical absence doesn’t alter their ongoing impact on your life. One of the beauties of living a brown life is to know you’re never alone. Uncle Graham is with me still, as I know I will be with others.

This takes us into spiritual territory. The unknowingness of the spirit world speaks to me of the kete with the knowledge of the unseen. But we’re allowed to believe whatever we want. I have a cousin who declares he’s an atheist. I feel for him. It’s a tough stance. He’ll never be able to say: “I told you so, bro!”

As I journey through life, I check out the rear-view mirror. Those I’ve loved and all that I’ve done seem to vanish down that highway. I see myself looking back at me. Static in the rush of the present as it turns into the past. I’m the same age as Uncle Graham was when he looked after me.

Look into your own eyes, traveller.

Your mind will speak to you, and your heart will tell you what to do.

Your blood will whisper to you. It’s the loudest voice of all.

 

Taumata 3001 is being streamed on Whakaata Māori (Māoriplus) from December 14.

Tainui Stephens, of Te Rarawa, has been fully engaged in the film and television industry since 1984, working with a range of genres and content. He is particularly attracted to compelling Indigenous stories that critique and celebrate the human condition. Tainui lives in Ōtaki with his wife and fellow filmmaker Libby Hakaraia. Together, they and a small whānau team run the Māoriland Film Festival.

E-Tangata, 2025