What taking a te reo Mā ori class taught me about myself

On Zoom in lockdown, I struggled to push aside the stinging of tears and a rising prickling feeling in my nose, talking to a woman I’d never met in person.

I’d hung back after an online Te Ara Reo Mā ori Level 1 class, held by Te Wā nanga o Aotearoa, to talk with my kaiako (teacher) about an assignment to research and say aloud our pepeha.

Anyone can have a pepeha (a way of introducing yourself, which tells people who you are by sharing your connections with the people and places important to you), but the wording is a little different for Mā ori than it is for Pā kehā / tauiwi.

I was torn about which camp I fell in, and asked for her advice. I have Mā ori heritage, I told her, but I didn’t know much about my whā nau or where we came from.

I’d never stepped foot on Mā tihetihe marae; couldn’t point to the maunga my grandfather’s ancestors grew up under on a map; had only splashed in the Hokianga on infrequent holidays up north as a child. What right did I have to any of it? ‘‘What do I do?’’, I asked her.

Growing up in Tā maki Makaurau (Auckland) in the 1990s, my exposure to te ao and te reo Mā ori was fairly basic.

Through kindergarten and primary school we learned to rattle off colours, numbers and days of the week. We sang Oma Rā peti, and played the E Papā Waiari rā kau (stick) game with rolled up, rubber-banded copies of the Women’s Weekly at afterschool care.

I always knew my father’s family were Mā ori, but it felt incongruous with how I looked: with my mother’s near-white blonde hair, blue eyes and skin constantly slathered in SPF50, or with my last name.

It felt somehow both part of me, and not part of me.

I never met my grandfather, Albert William Montgomery Martin (Monty, as he was known), but know he hailed from Mitimiti on the west coast of the Far North, from Te Rarawa iwi.

For reasons not entirely known – maybe due to rifts in his family, or struggles he endured getting a home in late 1950s West Auckland due to being Mā ori – Monty lost touch with his Mā oritanga: a sentiment passed down to his five children, including my dad, Steven, who never totally felt part of his father’s heritage.

Even so, for as long as I can remember I have ticked two boxes when enroling at the doctor, registering to vote, or filling out the Census: New Zealand European and Mā ori. I’ve always thought of myself as

Mā ori, and wanted to be counted as such.

But I also rebuffed suggestions that I put my hat in the ring for Mā ori scholarships when applying for university, and did not join the Mā ori electoral roll: not wanting to take space from another, never feeling Mā ori enough. It wasn’t until faced with doing my pepeha that this conflict I’d been carrying truly hit me.

I’d never hid having Mā ori

Taking the first small step to learning te reo was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster: fraught with pride, shame, happiness and sadness. whakapapa – it was always something I was proud of, even through the inevitable awkward laughter I’d stutter out hearing ‘‘You don’t look Mā ori’’, or in response to questions about ‘‘what percent’’ I was.

Hannah Martin never got to meet her grandfather Monty, pictured above top right, but when he lost touch with his Mā ori culture, he passed that on to Martin’s father, pictured above lower right, and on to Martin, who thought her roots felt out of step with how she looked and navigated the world, below. Now learning te reo Mā ori has helped her reconnect with her culture.

So there I was: asking my kaiako, in essence, to tell me if I was ‘‘Mā ori enough’’ to do my pepeha in the ‘‘Mā ori way’’. Surprised by the emotion I felt as she said: ‘‘If you whakapapa Mā ori, you are Mā ori.’’

Taking the first small step to learning te reo was a bit of an emotional roller-coaster: fraught with pride, shame, happiness and sadness.

I was aware of the immense privilege of being able to access lessons, and having an employer willing to pay for me to learn, when so many had their language forcibly taken from them.

It felt empowering, humbling, and at times a bit embarrassing that it had taken me so long.

It made me determined to learn more about my family – I have since pestered my dad and uncle with questions about their upbringing and our tā puna – and to visit Mitimiti and see their marae before I turn 30 next year.

And while my te reo learning has been paused temporarily as the level 2 class was oversubscribed when I applied (which can only be a good sign of the growing popularity of learning one of our country’s official languages), I hope it is a life-long journey.

Te reo Mā ori is a taonga, and we should all try to speak it, even if just in small ways – not just during the 50th anniversary of Te Wiki o Te Reo Mā ori (Mā ori Language Week) starting tomorrow – but as often as we can.

Ko ia kā hore nei i rapu, te¯ kitea (He who does not seek will not find). Karawhiua!