The truth about Ma¯ ori dads
For hundreds of years, Ma¯ori men have been gentle, kind and involved fathers. So how and why have these stories been lost? Michelle Duff reports. Photos by Warwick Smith.
As a boy, he never heard his father raise his voice in anger. Sometimes, his parents would ask him and his siblings to leave the room. When Te Moananui-a¯ -Kiwa Goddard grew older he realised it was because they were having a disagreement. But the sound of their voices never carried. That desire to protect has stuck with him.
‘‘I don’t really want to dictate to my kids what they should be, but if there’s anything I could encourage in them it’s just to be a good, loving person,’’ he says. ‘‘Yeah, just love. That’s the most important thing to me.’’
Reweti Arapere’s dad worked long hours. When Kipa Arapere got home to his five children, he must have been exhausted. Yet Arapere’s childhood memories are of a man who had all the time in the world.
‘‘It felt like we were brought up rich with lots of culture and heritage,’’ he says. ‘‘Dad had his head down working hard, and even when he got home he was real tired. But he always had a lot of energy for us.’’
Corey Woon’s daughter Malia, 16, thinks it’s kind of funny that Dad always has a yarn to spin. He’s inspired by seemingly anything.
‘‘He pulls them out of nowhere,’’ she says. Woon makes no apologies. ‘‘Every day is another adventure for me,’’ he says. ‘‘I’m not the perfect dad, but I try and create memories, tell stories, and answer questions as best I can.’’ Are any of these stories familiar?
How about this one. The man picks up a barstool, teeth bared in rage. He beats another man almost to death, laughs, and sinks another crate bottle. He rolls home to his family where he demands his wife cook him some f...ing eggs, and then punches her in the face. His children cower in their rooms.
You know that guy, right? His name’s Jake. He never existed, yet he haunts our nightmares.
This is the spectre of Ma¯ ori fatherhood, ground into New Zealand’s cultural fabric like a long stain of Double Brown on a pub carpet.
‘‘Once Were Warriors was the first time that a major movie centred on Ma¯ ori, and it was very positive in the sense that it bought domestic violence and the urban Ma¯ ori story to the forefront,’’ says Brendan Hokowhitu, father of four and Waikato University professor of Ma¯ ori and Indigenous studies.
‘‘But, no doubt, for many, it reinforced stereotypes of Ma¯ ori. Still, now, the main way we see Ma¯ ori men – and Ma¯ ori fathers – presented in the media is as violent, criminals, sexual predators, and child abusers. These images become normalised, and internalised.’’
The saddest part? Ma¯ ori start to believe it, too.
The Sunday Star-Times has sought out the untold stories of Ma¯ ori fatherhood. We didn’t have to look hard. The everyday dads like Lyall Te Ohu, the tradie whose favourite time is walking his daughter, Ra¯ hera, and her friends up Auckland’s
Maungawhau. Or actor Jamie McCaskill, who plays his six-year-old Willow to sleep on the guitar and is so proud of her artwork, a stick-figure, he’s getting it made into a T-shirt to promote his showband, The Ma¯ ori Sidesteps.
These fathers are everywhere. So why haven’t we been paying attention?
The Star-Times investigated how the Ma¯ ori father myth was created, and sustained. How stereotypes shifted to fit the narrative of those in power, especially those who fear displacement. And how those chains can be broken.
In Ma¯ ori culture, hair, like the head, is tapu. When demi-god Ma¯ ui was born, his mother revived him by casting him into the sea wrapped in a twisted knot of her hair.
Reweti Arapere’s son, Taupounamu, 7, has long hair. These days, it is fairly unconventional. During lockdown last year, Taupounamu cut some off. His mother was upset. Arapere, who is of Nga¯ ti Raukawa, Nga¯ ti Tu¯ wharetoa and Nga¯ ti Porou descent, took his son out into the garden, where they buried a lock of his hair in the backyard, and said a karakia.
‘‘Ma¯ ui was known for being a mischief, and I wanted Taupounamu to understand he shouldn’t feel bad about being inquisitive. I imagine he was just trying things out,’’ Arapere says.
The first paternal figure in Ma¯ ori cosmology is Ranginui, the sky father. He was entwined in an eternal embrace with the earth mother, Papatu¯ a¯ nuku, until their children forced them apart. Yet even in separation, love and commitment are the main narratives.
Pre-colonisation, Ma¯ ori lived by this celestial example. Men and women had complementary roles. Domestic violence was uncommon, and anyone who caused harm to a woman or child would be dealt with swiftly by the tribe. As Professor Kuni Jenkins and Helen Harte write in their Children’s Commissioner report, ‘‘The most observed practice was shared and loving parenting.’’
Records about 18th and 19th century Ma¯ ori family life reveal men who wrapped babies in blankets, sang them oriori or lullabies, and taught them with games and waiata.
‘‘One of the finest traits I have noticed in the New Zealanders is that of parental love; the men appear chiefly to nurse their children, and are generally to be seen with one on their back covered up under their mats, the little things appear likewise sensible of their fathers’ love for they seem principally to cling to them,’’ missionary Richard Taylor wrote in 1839.
Author Joel Polack wrote a year later: ‘‘The New Zealand father is devotedly fond of his children, they are his pride, his boast, and peculiar delight; he generally bears the burden of carrying them continually within his mat.’’
Pa¯ keha¯ men were surprised, even annoyed, to see how Ma¯ ori treated their children, at times considering them too indulgent. Theirs was not a seen-but-not-heard culture.
Ma¯ ori kids were taken everywhere, including to councils of war, and even expected to ask questions. Here’s Polack again: ‘‘The children are seldom or never punished; which, consequently, causes them to commit so many annoying tricks, that continually renders them deserving of a sound, wholesome castigation.’’
Reverend Samuel Marsden, observed in 1820: ‘‘I saw no quarrelling while I was there. They are kind to their women and children. I never observed either with a mark of violence upon them, nor did I ever see a child struck.’’
Generally, from the 1800s onwards, Ma¯ ori life began to be torn apart through tribal conflicts, land wars and colonisation. Communal living was replaced with the nuclear family and new, Western models of gender roles encouraged male dominance.
The uprooting of wha¯ nau, hapu¯ and iwi through dubious land sales and confiscations, urbanisation, assimilation policies and removal of Ma¯ ori children by the state led to generations becoming dislocated from the nurturing traditions of the past.
Hokowhitu says Ma¯ ori men were considered the main obstacles to colonisation.
‘‘The idea of Ma¯ ori as violent or physical goes back to ideas that Europeans brought over, where Europeans were thought of as more intelligent. In order to justify colonisation, Ma¯ ori were criminalised and thought of as inherently violent, and not having good ethics.’’
The Native School system, started in 1867, was begun to educate Ma¯ ori, who had a strong desire to learn. It was led by a stream of superintendents who baulked at teaching the ‘‘dark races,’’ anything academic.
At every economic downturn, Ma¯ ori men were the first to lose their jobs, throwing many who had moved to the city for employment into poverty, Hokowhitu says. Under-educated young Ma¯ ori men were disenfranchised, penniless, and some turned to gangs or crime.
Ma¯ ori men today make up more than half of all prisoners, despite being 16.5 per cent of the population. Ma¯ ori women and children are twice as likely as Pa¯ keha¯ to be victims of domestic violence. Ma¯ ori babies are taken more frequently by the state, young men are more likely to be homeless, drop out of school or take their own lives , and adults die earlier and in poorer health.
Yet many still see these statistics as deficiencies of race, Hokowhitu says.
‘‘Ma¯ ori do not have the latitude the rest of the population enjoys. When a Pa¯ keha¯ dad does an offence, you just write him off as an individual. When it’s Ma¯ ori or Pacific, we tend to describe the culture as the cause of that.’’
Arapere, 36, runs parenting courses for young Ma¯ ori men. There, he tells them true warriors are in touch with all emotions.
In the Ma¯ ori world, there is always duality. Light, and dark. Strong, and vulnerable. If there is conflict, there needs to be resolution
‘‘There’s all this ‘real boys don’t cry’ bulls ....
Who can drink more beer at the pub, disrespect women, sleep with as many as you can. I tell them the strongest warrior is the one that loves his mum, because they will fight for her until the end.
‘‘Ma¯ ori boys should be able to show their vulnerability, as well as their strength.’’
The joys of parenthood are hard to explain, says Lyall Te Ohu, 46, of Nga¯ ti Kahu descent. He has a 10-month-old baby, Tu¯ moana, and a daughter, Rahera, 6.. ‘‘The rewards for doing it are very hard to quantify. It’s definitely something inside that you feel, that you can’t feel anywhere else.’’
His father was given as a wha¯ ngai (traditional open adoption) to his grandmother, and grew up in poverty in Mango¯ nui in the far North. ‘‘For him to be a father to me without an example, I don’t know how he did it. I certainly look to him for what he has done for me.’’
He gets frustrated with negative portrayals of Ma¯ ori.
‘‘If people’s views are that Ma¯ ori dads are violent and absent and would rather spend their money on bourbon and cigarettes, of course you can find examples of that. But if you go to any sports event you can find loads of Ma¯ ori and Pacific Island parents and fathers who are pushing hard to be great examples for their children, and to lead their children into a positive way of life.’’
He considers the responsibility of fatherhood to be intergenerational.
‘‘I’m there to provide an example to them that they can take to their children and the generations to come that I may not even meet,’’ Te Ohu says. ‘‘That’s the biggest part for me.’’
Corey Woon, 45, also feels this challenge as a father-of-six in a blended family. His father was given as a wha¯ ngai, and joined the army at 18. Woon knew him as a stoic, quiet figure, who didn’t show emotion and was closed-off about his past.
‘‘So I’m left with all these questions, like, what sort of upbringing did he have? What did he go through?’’’
In his darkest moments when younger, Woon would turn to the bottle. Now, as a social worker at Palmerston North’s Highbury Wha¯ nau Centre, he tries to instill self-belief and teach disaffected youth the importance of relationships and healthy coping mechanisms.
‘‘It’s just about breaking that stereotype of men getting together to get on the piss – it’s about bringing brothers together, to make sure they’re OK.’’
Woon, who is stocky and has ta¯ moko, experiences everyday racism.
He makes sure he doesn’t wear blue or red clothing in case he’s mistaken for a gang member. This includes monitoring the clothes he buys for his five-year-old son, Cuba.
Still, driving his white Chrysler, he often gets asked if he’s a drug dealer.
In 2006, a New Zealand geneticist attended a conference in Brisbane, Australia. The material announcing his presentation was designed to appeal to attending scientists and media. ‘‘Tracking the Evolutionary History of the Warrior Gene in the South Pacific,’’ it announced.
The term ‘‘warrior gene’’ was used three more times, alongside enough adjectives to sink a waka. ‘‘Historically, the NZ Maoris [sic] were extremely adventurous risk-takers and fearsome warriors,’’ it read, before a line proclaiming: ‘‘The Warrior Gene is prevalent in Ma¯ ori men.’’
The ensuing Sydney Morning Herald headline, ‘‘Warrior Gene blamed for Ma¯ ori violence’’, helped take the story global. In New Zealand, versions of it – which featured quotes from Dr Rod Lea claiming Ma¯ ori had high levels of a gene said to be linked to aggression – ran across all media. ‘‘Obviously, this means they are going to be more aggressive and violent and more likely to get involved in risktaking behaviour like gambling,’’ he told the SMH. This was not true.
Soon after, holes in the Crown agency-funded research became clear. It was criticised as unethical: only 17 men had been involved in the study. They had been told it was about alcohol and smoking.
The claims were baseless: the existence of a ‘‘warrior gene’’, itself a made-up term, never proven.
To use poor science to attempt to explain existing social issues around domestic violence, gambling, alcoholism and incarceration was not only wrong and irresponsible, politicians like Tariana Turia, Hone Harawira and other scientists such as Gary Raumati Hook and Peter Crampton wrote, it was racist.
In a 2007 New Zealand Medical Journal article Lea and colleague Geoffrey Chambers blamed the media for negatively twisting their findings, and said the research was sound. Lea has not worked in New Zealand since, Chambers has retired and the PhD student involved changed his name.
When contacted by the Star-Times, Chambers said it was conventional research with indicative findings.
‘‘I think it’s an exemplary study of its time, welldesigned, well constructed.’’
However, he said some things written in the promotional material – and comments made by Lea – were ‘‘unfortunate’’.
‘‘In retrospect, I regret all of it. It was unfortunate that Rod said what he said at the time, and since then I’ve done my best to correct that. I don’t want Ma¯ ori and Pacific to be branded unfairly, and I was the last person to want to do that.’’
Media reports about the research ‘‘could well have been fodder to racists’’.
‘‘We didn’t study family violence, we didn’t know about family violence, and we had no idea that it would have any bearing on family violence.’’
The study has been refuted multiple times, with researchers like Otago University’s Professor Tony Merriman using it as an example for his undergrad students of how not to carry out and communicate genetics research. He says it set research with Ma¯ ori back years.
In January 2021, 14 years later, in a wideranging, racist rant, a talkback listener told former Magic Talk host John Banks that Ma¯ ori were victims of their own genetic background. The Ma¯ ori were a stone-age culture, he said. ‘‘They’re genetically predisposed to crime, alcohol, and underperformance educationally.’’ Banks was eventually sacked for both allowing and encouraging the caller.
Once the flames have been lit under an idea, it’s hard to put it out. Evidence becomes less important than what sounds like the truth.
‘‘Ialways wanted to be a good father, I wanted to be there for my child.’’ says Jamie McCaskill, 41, Ngati Tamatera¯ and Te A¯ ti Haunui-a-Pa¯ pa¯ rangi. But the first time around, it was not that simple. He had his first daughter Phoenix, 21, when he was at acting school in Palmerston North. He and Phoenix’s mother had already split, and she moved to Whakata¯ ne to raise their baby.
While he visited as much as he could, he struggled to form a close bond until she was older. As a young dad, the pain of missing Phoenix was interchangeable with that of feeling like a failure.
‘‘It was hard not living with Phoenix... As a father who didn’t bring her up, I always carry guilt that I wasn’t there for her fulltime. I think the guilt I carry is that stereotype, not just an absent father but an absent Ma¯ ori father,’’ McCaskill says.
His second daughter Willow, 6, is his best friend. He taught her to ride a bike and play the ukulele, and she wants to be a performer, too. Now, he feels whole.
‘‘Being a father is everything. It puts my career and my ambitions in perspective and gives me a focus which isn’t about me anymore, it’s about my family.’’
In the Manawatu¯ , bordering the Rangitı¯kei River, the rolling hills of Te Reureu valley are a sleepy oasis. It’s where Te Moananui-a¯ -Kiwa Goddard’s tı¯puna settled centuries ago, after a long journey south from Taupo¯ .
Most of the lands they were caretakers of were taken and are now the subject of a Nga¯ ti Raukawa treaty claim. His hapu¯ Nga¯ ti Pikiahu Waewae and Nga¯ ti Rangitahi Matakore remain, as the stewards of Te Hiiri and Te Tikanga marae, pillars of the area’s strong Ma¯ ori community.
As part of the 1980s revitalisation of te reo
Ma¯ ori, his family helped to set up the O¯ taki school, Te Kura Kaupapa Ma¯ ori o Te Rito.
He is now a Ma¯ ori teacher at nearby Hato Paora College, and lives next to the marae in his childhood home with his wife and four children. They don’t have specific roles as parents. ‘‘We share the load, we share the responsibility. We share the love and the nurturing. It’s not really about motherhood or fatherhood, it’s about parenthood.’’
This tradition is part of what was disrupted by colonisation, he says.
‘‘We’re never going to go back to the way things were. Is that a sad thing? Is that a good or a bad thing? I don’t know actually, because that was taken away from us. That’s why we have to fight now, we’ve been fighting for the last – how many years? Just to regain some speckles of what’s Ma¯ ori.’’
As the sun goes down on Te Tikanga Marae, Goddard says the only pathway he can see forward is through love.
‘‘I want my kids to know it doesn’t really matter where you go or what you do, as long as you’re conscious of people, and you treat them with respect. Have your mana intact. And when I say mana, I mean pride. I mean, resilience, I mean, always being who you are.
‘‘There’s nothing more important than knowing who you are in this world. Whether you’re Ma¯ ori, Chinese, Pa¯ keha¯ . What matters is that people know who they are.’’
The stories we tell are important, Goddard says. So are the ones we hear. ‘‘You know, in our diversity, we could probably see each other’s beauty, if we only just paid attention. There’s beauty everywhere. As long as you’re looking.’’