In the eye of The taniwha
Katarina Williams looks at how the lived experience of past pandemics has shaped Ma¯ori views on Covid-19.
The supernatural concept of taniwha has always held a significant place within Ma¯ ori culture. A mention of the term conjures up stereotypical images of reptilian, fire-breathing dragons who could often be found lurking in watery lairs or caves or deep forests – places where humans dare not tread.
More than a century before Covid-19 turned the world upside down, the unfamiliar, yet merciless taniwha of influenza threatened the future of Te Ore Ore Marae, near Masterton.
Kauma¯ tua Mike Kawana believes his wha¯ nau used ‘taniwha’ to describe things that were out of the ordinary, like the threat to safety posed by introduced diseases.
‘‘My own belief is that stories like that, that our tu¯ puna passed on to us, they were talking about things that they didn’t really understand. Things that were killing their people, and they had no idea why it was happening.’’
The unknown, unseen and unrecognisable opposition in this case was influenza.
Sitting on a marooncoloured cross-bench, framed by an apex of carvings at the entrance to Nga¯ Tau e Waru wharenui, Kawana recounts a harrowing anecdote from his koro (grandfather).
‘‘They were told that when their wha¯ nau members died, they just had to leave them out at the gate. Some were rafted down the river to Ahipanepane Urupa, but on a lot of occasions, there was a horse and cart that came out, and they would just pick the bodies up. There was nothing the wha¯ nau could do.
‘‘[It was] absolutely traumatic, especially when you understand what tangihanga and the mourning process meant for our wha¯ nau. The whole farewell process, poroporoaki, is about helping that tu¯ pa¯ paku, your loved one, . . . on their next journey.’’
While the river connecting the marae to the urupa¯ (cemetery) has since been diverted, the sacred soil there still cradles those remains.
The site of this mass grave is the final resting place for many influenza victims. But exact numbers of those who ended up there will probably never be known, Kawana says.
An indiscriminate attack on Ma¯ ori
The huge disparity in loss of life between Ma¯ ori and non-Ma¯ ori was the most striking feature of the 1918 influenza pandemic, particularly the second wave. The largely rural Ma¯ ori population was seven or eight times more likely to die from the flu than nonMa¯ ori.
The influenza’s eight-week reign of misery infected between a third and a half of New Zealand’s population, and Ma¯ ori accounted for at least 2500 of the about 9000 fatalities.
It’s believed 5 per cent of the Ma¯ ori population was wiped out. University of Canterbury emeritus professor of history Geoffrey Rice – considered the country’s leading historian on the influenza pandemic – claims only two-thirds of Ma¯ ori deaths were officially recorded.
Remote Ma¯ ori communities were hit by the November wave of the pandemic without warning.
Other Ma¯ ori villages in rural areas were struck so suddenly by the scourge of the virus, there was virtually nothing they could do to turn the tide of devastation.
Practising manaakitanga, Kawana’s wha¯ nau opened their marae gates to the sick, including non-Ma¯ ori. With concepts like social distancing more than a century off, they fed, embraced and comforted those struck down by influenza, giving the virus free rein – eventually claiming the lives of many of their Ma¯ ori carers.
‘‘They put themselves in danger, exposing themselves to the virus – to the taniwha – I suppose believing they would be able to defeat the taniwha,’’ he says.
Rice says the health department printed thousands of pamphlets outlining advice on caring for influenza patients in te reo Ma¯ ori, but their distribution was slow and erratic.
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‘‘Pa¯ keha¯ were busy looking after their own in towns and cities, and it was usually only after a week or so, when things had settled down, that they thought, ‘hey what’s happening down at the pa?’ Although they were bringing help and medicines, it was usually a bit too late.’’
Hospital care was also segregated in some parts of the country, including in the South Canterbury town of Temuka. The Presbyterian Church Hall cared for Pa¯ keha¯ influenza sufferers, while the Anglican Church Hall provided care solely to Ma¯ ori, says Rice.
In his book, Black November: The 1918 influenza pandemic in New Zealand, hairdressers in the Coromandel town of Thames refused to cater for Ma¯ ori customers after the pandemic, fearing they had come from an infected settlement.
University of Auckland public health associate professor Collin Tukuitonga says racist practices were at play, and significant inequalities existed, resulting in ‘‘racism and bias in healthcare’’.
‘‘Services [provided to Ma¯ ori] were often deficient. Some patients were not tested properly and some missed out on medicines.
‘‘Overall, healthcare for Ma¯ ori was sub-standard compared to what was offered to non-Ma¯ ori.’’ Even today, reaching Ma¯ ori remains problematic for the Government, still yet to finalise a Covid-19 communications plan targeting Ma¯ ori a year on from the country’s first confirmed case of the virus.
The challenges of checkpoints
Sheridan Waitai, executive director of Far North iwi Nga¯ ti Kuri, was raised by her kuia, Saana Murray, who vividly recalled the devastation her wha¯ nau faced when influenza hit in 1917.
In eerily similar detail spelled out by Kawana’s koro, Murray told Waitai the same horse-and-cart story.
‘‘My Nanny told me about her grandfather, who took a horse and carriage through the community, picked up the dead at the gates of home and helped to bury them.
‘‘Among the dead were more than 23 children, wha¯ nau broke off weatherboards from their homes to build coffins for their tamariki.’’
While more than a century has passed, pain is still keenly felt.
‘‘For us, we’ve seen the mass graves, so we know that it’s real. Their names. You can see them,’’ Waitai says.
But with the hurt comes a lesson. And for Waitai, an opportunity to put that learning into practice came with Covid-19.
Recognising the risk the pandemic posed to the country’s northernmost territory, and with Wha¯ nga¯ rei Hospital either a helicopter ride or four-hour drive away, Waitai helped introduce iwiled checkpoints – not only restricting people going in, but also her wha¯ nau from leaving.
‘‘When we moved to close our borders quite quickly, and when I say ‘quickly’, we moved to close our borders before the rest of the country, ... we did plan and think about it. It wasn’t done lightly,’’ the Nga¯ ti Kuri leader says.
Iwi-run road patrols were operating around the clock in the Far North. The aim was eliminating non-essential travel by placing ‘‘a veil’’ over the area, says Waitai, recognising police did not have the resources to provide a comprehensive level of protection to their isolated community.
Other iwi operated checkpoints in Taranaki, Bay of Plenty and on the East Coast.
‘‘I wasn’t going to apologise for any deaths. I wasn’t going to apologise because we were going to make sure it didn’t happen. And I wouldn’t apologise for what we did either,’’ Waitai says. ‘‘You have to take the community with you one by one. You couldn’t just inflict your decisions on them.’’
Caught in the crosshairs of ‘cheap politics’
Irrespective of their intentions, the iwi-led initiative attracted negative attention.
Northland MP Matt King called for Far North checkpoints, including those led by Hone Harawira’s Tai Tokerau Border Control, to be shut down, labelling them illegal and intimidating.
King’s Tauranga colleague, National MP Simon Bridges, repeated claims the checkpoints had no legal foundation, telling the Epidemic Response Committee the operators were not acting ‘‘anything
but unlawfully’’.
Their comments came despite Police Commissioner Andrew Coster’s eventual support for the checkpoints.
‘‘With minor exceptions, police were satisfied that the action being taken in these communities was strongly aligned to the controls the Government had put in place, and community interactions were positive and enhancing community safety,’’ Coster wrote.
Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon believes the backlash from some elected officials was ‘‘cheap politics’’. He ‘‘fully subscribes to iwi and their rohe looking after their own’’, saying Ma¯ ori were exercising their mana motuhake, which loosely translates to sovereignty.
‘‘We’ve had some mayors around the country grandstanding on this platform and even initially police weren’t supportive of local checkpoints, but the councils, mayors and police did come around very quickly to the notion that iwi can look after their own people.
‘‘ . . . if we, as local leaders, don’t support local initiatives . . .that creates and incites more discrimination and more racism.’’
‘Ma¯ ori are not trusted’
Dr Rawiri McKree Jansen is a coleader of the national Ma¯ ori pandemic response group Te Ro¯ pu¯ Whakakaupapa Uruta¯ .
The group of leading Ma¯ ori medical and health experts offers practical pandemic advice and setup.
Jansen says there is historic evidence that Ma¯ ori have not been trusted to look after their own, with the travel restrictions imposed on Ma¯ ori during the smallpox epidemic in 1913 (see sidebar) a case in point.
The prevailing narrative then was that Ma¯ ori were spreading the
disease – something the Papakura GP says has been disproved by epidemiological research.
‘‘We have a system where Ma¯ ori are not trusted to run their own health services, as evidenced in the Waitangi Tribunal reports.
‘‘So in an epidemic, or pandemic, and all these other crises which have been visited on Ma¯ ori for decades and decades, [we] deserve a better response than that.’’
Jansen wants an independent hauora (health) agency set up, enabling Ma¯ ori medical professionals and ‘‘Pa¯ keha¯ allies’’ to serve the Ma¯ ori population.
‘‘An independent hauora agency is conceivable . . . We can do this. We should do this. We should be allowed to do this. We should be trusted to do this,’’ Jansen says.
And it seems people are listening. In March, the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) and the New Zealand Medical Association (NZMA) backed calls for a Ma¯ ori Health Authority to be established ‘‘to deliver health equity for Ma¯ ori’’.
‘‘We know the health system is not treating Ma¯ ori equally. The Government has shown us it can take decisive action as it did with Covid-19. Now we need courageous decision-making for Ma¯ ori wellbeing as the current model does not work,’’ NZMA chair Dr Kate Baddock says.
For Kawana, the past stories of loss are informing their choices being made in the present.
‘‘It has actually helped us immensely. I think it’s given us a great base to be able to make good, informed decisions, for our people, for our wha¯ nau. Because, at the end of the day, our wha¯ nau are still kind of finding out who they are here.
‘‘In all those stories, there was always an end where someone defeats the taniwha.’’