OUR TĪPUNA OUR PEOPLE OUR STORIES OUR HĀ

OCOTOBER 2024 by CARMEN FAIRLIE

Our connections as indigenous tangata whenua with te taiao and ourselves is a phenomena built into our DNA. The unseen facts have been hidden for some time due to colonisation, thought processes and belief systems that are foreign to us. The tipuna project is about trusting those things that are innate, recognising these as our tipuna and using our kare-a- roto to translate and communicate across and between the complexities of tēnei ao.

This series of poems were written with the presence and guidance of our tipuna.  They are an offering of some of the unseen thoughts and feelings experienced of the effects of colonisation on our past and present and how we might move forward into the future as indigenous peoples. They also serve as a reflection, observational and connection piece of our first wānanga together with our roopu tauiwi. 

Whakapapa

Remove the | differences

Tīpuna

He mā tētahi  

He pango tētahi                                                                              

He Māori tētahi       

He Pākehā tētahi                                                                                 

Kōiwi    

Bones                                                                                                                

He orite te ahua o ngā kānohi

My Nans

So different yet so same

Tīpuna

Kōiwi

Bones ancestors

Ko ngā iwi

Bones whakapapa

Mine | ours

Remove the | differences

Skin | flesh

Bones remain

Same?

Same look?

Same underneath?

Difference| Masking | Hiding

Many layers

Added layers

Deeper

Higher

The more the better

Until

we look different | we feel different

Remove the layers |we are the same

My tipuna same

Same but different

In time | In place | In knowing | In being | In living | In surviving

Ngā mōrehu

Only the fittest survive

White man’s world white man survives

He farms on stolen land

Strips rākau native to these hills, valleys

Eradicates beliefs, knowledge, communities

All that scares him

one beating heart

The essence

Shot to pieces

Fragments scattered

How did we survive?

We trusted, we believed, we fought

My tipuna was a white man

My tipuna was not a white man

He pakeha

He tangata

He tangata whenua

A man of this land

A man not of this land

Of our land

Of Aotearoa

A man   Amans   AMEN

But what of my nans?

When I think of my tipuna I only think of my nans

Why is that? Why is that?

White man                      White nan

Not a white man            Not a white nan

Only writings of mans

Only visions of nans

Why is that? Why is that?

Imbalance Instability Inequality

Uri dying

Koiwi remain

Wānanga

He mā, e hara i te mā

He whakamā, e hara i te whakamā

He kōiwi mā

He orite he rerekē

He tino rerekē

We are the same but we are so different

What is it that makes us so different?

What is it that we need to find within ourselves?

That we need to unlayer

What is it that we do as separate as individuals?

Together?

We are the same

But we are so different

I can’t help think about this time

And time again

Some of us have merged

Some of us have layers between layers

Our layers have fused together into some sort of grey area

One is black and one is white

The colours of my tipuna

And yet

There’s all this grey stuff in between

And now we have to figure it out

What is the grey stuff?

How might we interpret that grey stuff?

xrays | mri | blood sample | toto

Are we the grey?

It’s confusing

Navigating through grey | Deciphering the ara| the path amongst those layers

Neural pathway connections

Creating synapses from pain grief

Moving past occupation

Of our unconscious minds

Past unconscious colonising

Of our being

No longer shall we work through

We are the living breathing of that working through

We are the hā

Kua tae te wā

It is time

Time to overcome

Time to reconnect

Time to embody

Time to know

Time for naming

It is something that cannot be named

Time for naming

Time for explaining ourselves

Put names on things

Label

Explain these things

To the other people

To the white man, to the coloniser

To our tiriti partners

It is

Time to undo

Whakamatara

The undoing

Wairua | Kare-ā-roto | silence

Hā the breath

Time to visualise

Tipuna Together

You are same but so different

We are same but so different

Unlayering

Unafraid

to do things apart

to divide the cells

combine dna

Or remain separate

We are the same but so very different

We are the grey

Photo left to right : Nanny Erana Riki (nee Saddlier), Grandad Ray Donald, Nan Myra Donald, Pāpa Duke Riki Waru