A real pōwhiri (as opposed to a “fauxwhiri”) at Te Tii Waitangi marae, Waitangi Treaty grounds. (Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)
How are Māori supposed to respond to the misuse and appropriation of tikanga? Kim Mcbreen on “fauxwhiri” and other cultural insults.
Before 9am on the first day, 20 or so of us arrive in ones and twos and gather in the carpark at the house. We’re here for a 10-day course at a Pākehā organisation. We mill around, self-consciously introducing ourselves, hands outstretched. “Kia ora, I’m Kim.” More than half of us are from overseas, only a few from New Zealand, and only two of us are Māori.
Nine o’clock comes and goes. I don’t know the tikanga — should we go in? A guy comes out of the house, smiling. “Hello! Hi!” Doing the rounds. We still stand outside, and no invitation in.
More minutes pass, then Smiling Guy shoos us off back down the driveway and out to the road. He walks with us, and then we all stand self-consciously there. Are we going to be called on, I wonder. No one I’ve seen so far looks Māori, not that that means anything.
A pregnant woman comes out of the house to the top of the driveway and calls: “Haere mai, haere mai.”
Smiling Guy calls back on our behalf. “We’re coming! We’re coming up!” He waves at us to follow him up the driveway to the house.
An older man and woman wait for us outside the house. In English, the man says welcome. He tells us where he’s from (he is Pākehā). He tells us about the land, the sacred mountain, the sacred river. Gestures with his walking stick. Walks back and forth. Clears his throat after every sentence.
Is this for real? I wonder if I can cut my losses and sneak back down the driveway. When he finishes, the one tāne Māori in our group is kind enough to respond to this strange mihi. He is a better person than me.
I don’t know what the point of this “pōwhiri” (fauxwhiri?) was. If it was an attempt to acknowledge and honour tangata whenua, it failed. Imitating people (badly) isn’t usually the best way to honour them. Two of us there are Māori. The tāne who spoke for us visitors (who is actually from that whenua) was comfortable enough to respond to our hosts with generosity.
I was not comfortable. I was embarrassed to be there, trapped between the humiliation of leaving and the insult of staying.
There’s a fine line between appropriation and respect. This was nowhere near that line.
I’m sure our hosts were telling themselves they were honouring tangata whenua. But I suspect they want to be tangata whenua. It’s uncomfortable being a coloniser. So instead of thinking through the best way to acknowledge that they are manuhiri and there are other tangata who belong to this whenua, they scratched their colonising wannabe-Indigenous itch.
I see milder versions of this way too often. Meetings and courses hosted by government and NGOs, facilitated by Pākehā, using karakia as bookends to the business. Usually it’s the only tikanga (of course, we don’t have time for mihimihi, again). Tikanga Māori is a pick-and-mix, and karakia is the favourite flavour.
But without mihimihi, how do we know who is in the room? Who actually is tangata whenua? How do we acknowledge that this tikanga has a whakapapa, and that there may be people here who are more entwined with that whakapapa than the facilitator.
If the tikanga is severed from its mātauranga, it has been appropriated. What is the purpose of the karakia in those meetings?
I am uncomfortable in those meetings. I feel alienated and invisible as we say karakia that I’ve been saying for decades. And, to be honest, I don’t feel much better when we do have time for mihimihi because it so often lurches between perfunctory (“Nate, Auckland,” “Shirley, Wellington”) and performative (long, rambling stories about how people got to these whenua and why they care about all things Māori, and finally the pepeha they’ve been learning and dying for a chance to share).
I know I’m being unkind. But come on. Why is it that when we’re using tikanga or “centring Māori”, it still feels like either an inconvenience to be rushed through or a chance to celebrate Pākehā journeys?
At a recent course by a government-funded organisation, I learned all about board meeting etiquette — Pākehā etiquette, of course, but that went without saying. We started and finished with a karakia led by the Pākehā facilitator. Was I the only person who felt smothered by the irony of it?
It was a perfect example of how cross-cultural communication and diversity training can completely miss the point. To be clear, Māori aren’t marginalised and under-represented on boards by the lack of karakia in meetings. We’re marginalised by colonisation.
How are the Māori in the room supposed to respond? Obviously, with grace and generosity like my mate at the “pōwhiri”. But I’m not built for that.
I can’t be the only one feeling ungrateful and silenced by the misuse of our tikanga.
Instead of taking our tikanga, reo and mātauranga like it’s theirs, I reckon tauiwi need to earn use-rights — through relationships and action to support tino rangatiratanga. Then when people break out a karakia or waiata at their hui, I’ll know that they know the kaupapa.
It will mean that I’ll have a lot of meetings without any acknowledgment of Māori, but maybe that will make the Pākehā in the room uncomfortable. And at least I’ll know where I stand.
Kim Mcbreen is Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe, Ngāi Tahu and Pākehā. She lives with her partner and two children in a small coastal town. She is a kaimahi with the New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse, and occasionally teaches at Te Wānanga o Raukawa.
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Thanks for writing this.
Ko Merika engari te whakapaparanga mai Merika, Te Rarawai, Tiamana, me Pākehā.
I never learned to speak te reo until recently. It was banned in the house of my great-grandmother while my grandfather was a teenager, mostly to hide our lineage and give us a greater chance at success in life as a family.
While many of us have been able to get to know our roots thanks to a growing acknowledgement that Eurocentric colonisation has taken the humpty-dumpty of indigeneity and pushed it off its proverbial wall, the attempt to rebuild it has come at a cost: not only can all the kings horses and all the kings men not put what’s been damaged back together properly, but in their attempt to do so they insert their own vision and claims into the new creation.
What you’re seeing with the Pākehā fauxwhiri is a symptom of that.
The other symptom is what I’ve seen.
As an American of Māori descent, I have been repeatedly (and sometimes emphatically) told I cannot claim Māori heritage. Always, this is done by Pākehā. One Irish fellow with dreadlocks was eager to throw down with me, telling my wife and I we needed to burn our passports and go back where we came from. This gatekeeping of Māori culture by non-Māori to me has exposed a problem, that problem is one of permission. We are allowed to acknowledge ourselves because another culture permits it. But we must do so by their rules or risk confrontation.
I’m unsure what can be done here, if anything. At present, I let the offender know that they are dim, and that I don’t really care for their misguided rhetoric.
Thank you, Kim, for writing this piece. You are so right, imitation does not foster relationships like tikanga does. I’m doing my best to learn the reasons behind tikanga, so I can honour Māori without trying to be Māori (I’m Pākehā). Appreciated your article and your directness.
Aue Aroha mai please delete first version typed on my phone and replace within corrected one typed on my auto correcting phone Grrr
John McCaffery on February 27, 2023 at 12:11 pm
Tēnā koutou e te iwi, e te tuakana; he tono tēnei kia āwhina mai koutou i a mātou….Of course we agree ( who work in this area)that Pākehā as tēina in all matters tikanga should not over step Māori in any setting or occasion- meaning Māori need to be consulted and views respected. If anything is noticed or heard about that offends people it is perfectly ok for Māori who feel able to or are present in the same group company org to offer tuākana advice and guidance to us (your tēina) in the spirit of aroha, manāki and whakawhanaungatanga to do so ?
Our Pākehā and /or world indigenous peoples responsibility is to assist our own peoples to develop greater understanding, respect and knowledge of tikanga so interactions are more respectful. However given that the Aotearoa education system has refused for so many generations to provide all of Aotearoa with such knowledge and understandings, its a big job that has taken us over 50 years of solid work to get traction and action. To continue to achieve this we need both Māori support for direct assistance and some degree of acceptance by everyone that there will be slip ups and mistakes made; by which we will all commit to do things better next time. We do understand that Māori assisting Pākehā may/will take some away from assistance to Māori …… That decision lies with Māori to accept or decline. Where Māori are not available it is often necessary for Pākehā to teach Pākehā with Māori consent which we have been doing since 1970 when Te Reo Māori Society was formed at VUW and then spread to Otara , Rotorua, Tamaki Makaurau, Omahu, Kahungungu ….and the places TRM grads went to.
However some Māori are willing and able to provide this assistance and accept that if we are to become a bicultural /bilingual multicultural bilingual nation this dual kauppapa is necessary and legitimate. In fact for a long time Māori criticism of all Pākehā for learning Māori was widespread and for years discouraged and frightened many Pākehā from doing so. We do need Māori approval and support to keep up the struggle. Te Taura Whiri in partnership for example has upset some with its more recent expanded commitment to Māori for all in Aotearoa.. In finishing; the dream and vision of my own Irish ancestors who were murdered for speaking Irish in Ireland and for wanting to be free Irish people was to seek out a very different place where peoples beliefs, religions, cultures and languages could flourish.( not all Irish of course who came here) Mine set me that task when I asked why they had come to NZ. I hope that my/ our efforts to do so are fulfilling their dreams Aotearoa whanui now without these days offending tangata whenua…
What would not be very helpful is to say never never never never should any Pākehā/ or Tauiwi use any te reo or Māōri tikanga at all, even they have sought guidance and approval from tuakana to do so. He aha o koutou whakaro ?
Naku nei kei roto i te tikanga o te aroha, te manaaki , te atawhai , te manaakitanga , te tautoko o aku tuakana o TRM . ( aku taku Tairawhiti use) Arohanui Kia kaha tatou, Kia maia..
John
John McCaffery- Te Puna Wanaaga School of Māori and Indigenous Studies Faculty of Education, Epsom Campus University of Auckland.
Hearing your perspective, Kim has again awoken me. I was gratefully introduced to Tikanga Māori from a young age at school in Northland. As an adult learner in the counselling field I hear what you are saying about cultural appropriation and how Pākehā can often blindly use Tikanga to attempt cultural inclusiveness. I have experienced this and often at times will scan the room to see if others are affected. Thank you for your tautoko on this topic and for starting the conversation.
Tēnā koutou e te iwi, e te tuākana; he tono tēnei kia awhina mai koutou i a mātou….Of course we agree that Pākehā as teina in all matters tikanga should not over step Māori in any setting or occasion- meaning Māori need to be consulted and views respected. If this is noticed or heard about it is perfectly ok for Māori who fear able to present or in the same group company org to offer tuakaka advice and guidance to us your teina in the spirit of aroha manāki and whakawhanaungatanga to do so. ?
Our Pākehā and /or world indigenous peoples responsibility is to assist our own peoples to develop greater understanding respect and knowledge of tikanga so interactions are more respectful. However given that the education system has refused for so many generations to provide all of Aotearoa with such knowledge and understandings its a big job that has taken us over 50 years of solid work to get traction and action. To achieve this we need both Māori support for direct assistance and some degree of acceptance by everyone that there will be slip ups and mistakes made, by which we will all learn to do things better next time .We did understand that Māori assisting Pākehā may / will take some away from assistance to Māori …… Where Māori are not available it is often necessary for Pākehā to teach Pākehā by Māori consent which we have been doing since 1970 when Te Reo Māori Society was formed at VUWand then spread to Otara , Rotorua Tamaki Makaurau,,. Omahu, Kahungungu ….and the places TRM grads went to.
However some Māori are willing and able to provide this assistance and accept that if we are to become a bicultural /bilingual multicultural bilingual nation this kauppapa is necessary and legitimate. In fact for a long time Māori criticism of all Pākehā for learning Māori was widespread and for years discouraged and frightened many Pākehā from doing so.
What is not very helpful is to say never never never should any person Pākehā use any te reo or Māōri tikanga at all even they have sought guidance and approval from tuakana to do so. he aha o koutou whakaro ?
Naku nei kei roto i te tikanka o te aroha, te manaaki , te atawhai , te tautoko o oku tuakanao TRM .