E hoki mai nei ki te ūkaipō—Return to Your Place of Spiritual and Physical Nourishment

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of the Perceptions of Papakāinga project, which explores the connection between place, genealogy, and identity for two Māori (New Zealand’s Indigenous people) communities: one living within an iwi (tribal) context, and one living within an urban context. The research explores how Māori-specific concepts which define home and identity are perceived and enacted across all participants, and how participants define ‘home’ in relation to fluid understandings of genealogy, community, and identity. Across the diverse experiences of participants, the concept of ‘whakapapa’ (genealogy), can be seen to act as a way to understand the connections between identity, people and place.

1. Introduction

Kō Taranaki te maunga

Mt Taranaki is my mountain

Kō Waiongana te awa

Waiongana is my river

Kō Muru Raupatu te marae

Muru Raupatu is my marae

Kō Puketapu te hapū

Puketapu is my sub-tribe

Kō Tāmati te ingoa tūpuna

Tamati is my ancestral family name

Nō reira, kō Pirihira Wano āhau

My name is Pirihira Wano

Ka noho au ki Piha ianāianei, engari nō Taranaki ahau, ko tāku whenua Tūturu.

I currently reside in Piha but I’m from Taranaki, my true place of standing.

Pepeha—Pirihira Wano

The above pepeha, or tribal saying, belongs to Pirihira Wano, one of the participants in the Perceptions of Papakāinga research project. The project aimed to explore how two Māori (New Zealand’s Indigenous people) communities, one tribally based, one urban, define the concept and experience of ‘home’. The significance of starting this article with pepeha lies in the role a recited pepeha plays, which is to position a person through genealogy, community, land, and identity. Pepeha thereby offers a framework for the ‘construction’ of Māori indigeneity through metaphor and symbolism, and in terms of this paper, provides the ‘scaffolding’ for an exploration of Māori perceptions of ‘home’, community, land, and identity.

1.1. I Te Kore, ki te pō, ki te ao mārama—From the Nothingness, to the Dark, to the World of Light: Creation, Land, and Rela-Tionships

For Māori, concepts and experiences of community, identity and ‘home’ are inextricably tied to understandings of the nexus between whenua (land) and whakapapa (genealogy). The term ‘whenua’ possesses dual meaning in that it can mean both ‘land’ and placenta (Hikuroa 2015). According to Māori customary practice the whenua (placenta) and pito (umbilical cord) of new-born babies are buried in a place of significance. Dell (Dell 2016) observes that underpinning this cultural practice is the belief that all life is born from the “earth, from the body [womb] of Papatūānuku (the earth mother)”. This is also the origin of the proverb ‘He taonga nō te whenua, me hoki anō ki te whenua’ (What is given by the land should return to the land) (Te Papa Tongarewa 2006). Moreover, the Māori term ‘tangata whenua’, or people of the land, is used to situate Māori as local and indigenous to a specific area, or as being “born of the whenua” (English to Māori translations from the online Māori Dictionary: https://maoridictionary.co.nz/ (accessed on 29 March 2021). Tangata whenua can also be translated as meaning “to be natural, at home, comfortable”, again reemphasising the centrality of whenua (land) to Māori indigeneity.

Māori epistemological understandings of home, community and identify can be found in Māori oral tradition and cosmology which describes the movement from Io (the supreme being) who fertilises Te Korekore (the void; place of potential) to move through Te Pō (the darkness of the night), to Te Whai-ao (the glimmer of dawn) to the emergence of Te Ao Marama (the world of light), as a precursor to the existence of land and people (Marsden 2003). The creation of the first gods Papatūanuku and Rangi-awatea (the female and male principles from which all life forms originate) are the foundation for the formation of the earth/land and the sky, and the birthplace of humanity. The intricate process of creation is thus conceptualised through the use of whakapapa, which denotes order and relationship between people, land and the cosmos (Hikuroa 2015).

For Māori, being tangata whenua thus means having a whakapapa that connects “the human situation and the natural environment, as well as the human situation and an esoteric realm” (Valentine et al. 2017). Furthermore, this creation whakapapa encompasses the enduring connection to land and the cosmos as living entities.

1.2. Connecting Us Back to the Beginning: Whakapapa, Pepeha, and Identity

Whakapapa provides a shared narrative and history with land and people, and an intrinsic aspect of Māori identity comes from the individual situating themselves within the collectives of whānau (family group), hapū (subtribe) and iwi (tribe), where “the self [is] made meaningful through the web of interpersonal connections between whakapapa ties” (Te Huia 2015). Personal and collective identity is expressed through the oral reciting of pepeha, a structured speech in te Reo (Māori language) that captures ancestors, tribal affiliation, and places of significance. Pepeha thereby “metaphorically breathes life into an individual and connects him or her with their whakapapa” (Connor 2019). The recital of pepeha occurs within the context of whanaungatanga, which is the enactment of relationship and kinship, and which affirms identity.

The relationship between ‘belonging’ and identity in te ao Māori is therefore held within a holistic framework, where identity is part of the ‘larger picture’ of existence. The Māori word for identity is Tuakiri, which can also mean ‘wall of a house’; in this sense the function of identity is part of the larger framework that holds up the ‘whole house’ of our being.

1.3. The Many Faces of Home

‘Our house’, in a metaphorical and in a physical sense, is the place where we seek shelter, nourishment and safety (Murcia 2019). The larger conceptualisation of home, within mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge), occurs within multiple spaces, where home is more than a physical dwelling (Boulton et al. 2020). ‘Home’ is thereby “better understood through a participation/relationship continuum, grounded in the principles of whakapapa” (Carter 2015).

The grounding of whakapapa in whenua and relationships (whanaungatanga) is a way to sustain identity and provide a spatial and relational context to movement from one home site to another (Carter 2015). Movement and mobility of Māori have been a historical reality, where geographical borders have been transcended ever since the “great migration” of Māori to the shores of Aotearoa (the Māori name for New Zealand) from the early 1300s CE (Walter et al. 2017). While British colonisation of Aotearoa resulted in severe demographic changes to Māori whānau, hapū, and iwi (Pool 2013), the practice of Māori travelling, living ‘away from home’, and re-establishing a ‘new home’ occurred long before colonisation (Mahuika 2009). Movements away from home, as well as staying at home, has meant that “people live in both spatialities and contextually deploy metaphors of both groundedness and mobility, settlement and detachment to articulate their being in the world” (Jolly 2001).

Along with colonisation, Māori urban migration also contributed to a shared and evolving understanding of concepts that encapsulate ‘home’ for Māori, which are part of the ongoing process whereby “iwi, hapū, and Māori negotiate simultaneously their past, present and future identities” (Mahuika 2009). Within these concepts there are recurring aspects of relationality, and the intrinsic connection to creation, earth, and sky (Papatūānuku and Rangi-awatea), as well as “oceans, stars and natural elements” (Mahuika 2009). In the 50 years between 1936 and 1986, the Māori population changed from 83% rural to 83% urban, one of the fastest rates of urbanisation in the world. The dominant colonial model aimed to build an assimilated nation, which shaped how mana whenua (those with indigenous rights over the land) and those Māori newly residing on ‘someone else’s land’ in urban areas were forced to live together, yet without the ability to enact customary obligations. This had the observable effect of producing an urban Māori diaspora whose identity was based less on tribal identity and more on shared histories and geographical proximities. In helping Māori to deal with the effects of cultural shock and alienation, a number of voluntary Māori clubs were set up to provide a ‘culturally’ friendly and familiar face for those Māori living in the cities (Walker 1990). Overtime, these urban groups would also come to represent potent symbols of urban Māori identity, values, culture and pride.

The connections between sustenance and nurturing, and people and land are inherent within Māori concepts used to talk about ‘home’. The cultural markers of identity within these descriptions of home are not static, in that understandings and usage of the terms are evolving in a contextual continuum of being ‘at home’ on the land and ‘away from home’ in both a geographic and experiential sense. Allowing for multiple experiences of these terms, and the way in which they are expressed, or held as relevant, creates this continuum, which “relies on the home (referring to land) being conceptualised as a permanent reference point for all aspects of identity and culture, regardless of occupied space” (Carter 2015).

2. Materials and Methods

This study utilised a qualitative approach to data collection and analysis. Data collection methods included a literature review, key informant interviews and video interviews with selected participants. This paper focuses specifically on the results from the key informant interviews.

Using local knowledge and networks, fifteen participants were purposively recruited for the study by the two research teams. Each research team is based in, and works for, the communities from which people were recruited. Participants hailed from two locations: nine from the Rangitikei and six from Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland. All participants identified as Māori, and included four kaumātua (older people), six pakeke (middle-aged adults) and five rangatahi (young people). Eight participants were female and seven were male. Interviews were conducted by two research team members: one from each of the communities. The means of recruiting people to the study differed in each site. In the Rangitikei site, the interviewer drew on his experience of having been a participant in a tribally led youth leadership programme. The key informants from this community were all either previous participants in that leadership programme or had themselves led aspects of the programme. The second interviewer identified her key informants through her employment and place of residence. Several of the urban informants therefore hailed from one particular suburb in Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted using open ended questions and informal conversation. The interview schedule of 25 questions was divided into three sections; the first was focused on participant demographics including where the participant grew up and where they considered home; the second explored their notion of home and introduced the concepts of tūrangawaewae and papakāinga. The last section examined what services the participant considered were required to support the health and wellbeing of whānau wherever they considered ‘home’ was for them. The interviews ranged from 30 min to two hours and were audio recorded and transcribed. Two cycles of coding were completed to identify key issues and themes (Braun and Clarke 2006). In the first cycle, individual members of the research team reviewed each transcript, applied codes, and noted themes emerging from the data. In the second cycle, all the researchers came together in a kanohi ki te kanohi (face-to-face) session to share their analysis and interrogate each of the themes. The face-to-face analysis session allowed researchers to share their topic knowledge and participate in a group discussion where all ideas were considered valid and worthy. During this session researchers agreed on which individually selected codes were the most significant and whether these required aggregation or disaggregation. This collective approach to analysis, termed mahi ā rōpū was developed by members of the research team (Boulton et al. 2011) and has been used by the team in earlier work together (Boulton et al. 2018).

It should be noted that the project was small and exploratory in nature, serving a as a pilot for a larger study for which we have recently sought funding. Despite this, the data captured was both rich and nuanced, extending our understandings of how Māori conceptualise the notion of ‘home’ and shedding new light on the significance of place for Māori and how specific places can support and nourish our wellbeing.

3. Results

Te ao Māori offers a myriad of ways in which to speak of ‘home’, all of which reflect both relationality and connection to the land. While there are a vast range of terms to convey the meaning of ‘home’ our research team asked participants to consider ‘home’ in relation to a few specific words; namely tūrangawaewae and papakāinga. However, participants themselves also referred to other key concepts to define home, adding greater insight into the importance of place and identity for the members of these communities. In presenting the results, participants’ voices are prefaced by definitions of each of the terms, gleaned from the literature.

3.1. Tūrangawaewae

According to Royal, tūrangawaewae is one of the most well-known and powerful Māori concepts and is translated as a “place where one has the right to stand” and a “place where one has rights of residence and belonging through kinship and whakapapa” (Royal 2007).

A person’s marae (tribal forum for social life) is often seen as their tūrangawaewae. For each person, the marae is the place where their ancestors are present, where they spend their formative years and learn important lessons, practice cultural traditions, have responsibilities and obligations, and where a person gains the right “to stand upon their marae and proclaim their views about the world and life” (Royal 2007).

Tūrangawaewae can also be places of empowerment and connection beyond the marae including mountains, waterways, and other places of historical or cultural significance to a tribe. In this conceptualisation of tūrangawaewae, the external world reflects an inner sense of security and foundation. The mountains, rivers, and waterways to which one can claim a relationship also express this internal sense of foundation (Royal 2007).

Understandings of Tūrangawaewae—Research Participants

When asked to explain their understanding of the term tūrangawaewae, participants offered a range of views, but most focused on the notion that tūrangawaewae was a specific place, or area, where you could stand with confidence, knowing that you belong to that place (and are of that land) and are accepted by those who also inhabit that place and space. In this manner the concept of tūrangawaewae was intimately tied to one’s identity as Māori and one’s ability to “be” Māori in a way that was not questioned.

… there’s a well-known English definition of tūrangawaewae, you know, the place where you stand, the place where you can stand the tallest. He wahi e tu ai te tangata i runga i tōna ake whenua (a place where a person is standing on their own land). That’s my basic understanding of tūrangawaewae. I guess it’s just the one place in the world where you can, you know, stand most confidently because you know that you have the reassurance of not only your whānau, hapū or iwi but your tīpuna because you’re standing in the, in the footsteps or the place where your tīpuna once stood and I guess that’s your direct connection to your lineage, to your whakapapa.

KI08:5, Young, tribally based participant

… that’s basically to do with the land, yeah. And anywhere in that [specific] area I feel is tūrangawaewae.

KI07:9, Older, tribally based participant

Tūrangawaewae means just the place where you put your feet and that’s where your roots belong, I suppose. Or your sense of belonging. But yeah, whenever I move around, I always think of the next place as kind of the tūrangawaewae. So, this is definitely our tūrangawaewae at the moment.

KI11:5, Middle-aged, urban participant

Tūrangawaewae also evoked notions of safety, of security and of self-confidence as this young participant explains:

So my tūrangawaewae, the place where I stand, proud and tall, mostly, is about a couple of hundred metres down the road from my marae, where I live, which is, I’m blessed, I’m blessed to be able to live so close. [Its] somewhere I can, be myself, somewhere I know I can call, you know, I was gonna say “home”’ but then I’m like, this is where, yeah, somewhere I’m most confident, you know? I can stand there and say where I’m from.

KI03:1,6, Young, tribally based participant

For some participants claiming a place as your tūrangawaewae was also about the rights and obligations you had for and to that place, and how the people of that place perceived you. So, while you may have a genealogical link to a particular place, that genealogy alone was insufficient to claim that place as your tūrangawaewae. If you claimed tūrangawaewae, it was expected that you would fulfil a range of duties. As one participant noted:

In terms of tūrangawaewae the concept is slightly different. Do I feel I’ve got a place to stand in Shetlands? I think I could claim one. The point is would the other side accept it? Because there’s two sides, in my mind of tūrangawaewae and this is why I sort of see the tūrangawaewae at [specific location] being the preeminent one because it’s something that, the whole kāinga (community), they would see me as, as having the right to be here and I feel I should be here and I’m not an imposter and I’ve got a place to be here and I’ve got a right in my own mind.

KI10:15, Young, urban participant

For one older, tribally based participant the two concepts, tūrangawaewae and ūkaipō were inextricably linked, as both concepts refer to the ideas of being sustained and nourished and a deep connection to the land.

It [ūkaipō and tūrangawaewae] can’t be separated. Home is a place where I was born and nurtured, sustained from te ūkaipō but te tūrangawaewae to me is when you’re born and you’re a little baby and you stand and you try to walk? And your feet keep crossing? To me, that is the tūrangawaewae. So you’re growing on that whenua, your little legs are, until you grow. And become who you are.

KI06:10, Older, tribally based participant

3.2. Papakāinga

The word ‘papakāinga’, meaning village, home, or community, is often described as a ‘kin-community settlement’. Papakāinga were an important part of historical Māori settlement, representing the physical home or village with a marae at its centre. The separation of the word into its two root words aids in understanding the meaning of the term, i.e., where kāinga refers to dwellings that occupied terraces (papa) on pā (fortified village) (Tane 2018). The configuration and use of papakāinga by Māori were significantly impacted following colonisation with the introduction of laws (such as the Native Land Acts of 1862 and 1865) and the actions of the Native Land Court, which alienated and de-fragmented customary land holdings. Subsequent initiatives around the revival of papakāinga have focused on the aspect of building on Māori-owned land to establish homes and communities.

Understandings of Papakāinga—Research Participants

Understandings, or definitions of papakāinga varied amongst participants depending on where they themselves lived. Most of those interviewed associated the term papakāinga with physical dwellings and built communities rather than with land or their identity as Māori, as with the concept of tūrangawaewae. While some participants referred to the term papakāinga as being closely related to the concept of tūrangawaewae, one person observed that the term papakāinga is very much a modern idea, rather than a traditional concept. For this participant, the notion of papakāinga was linked to the idea of returning to ‘home’ to re-establish links, specifically by placing a house on the land.

…it’s a modern concept, I think. Yeah, so, no, all the things I was talking about, that’s my kāinga, my papakāinga, my tūrangawaewae, whatever. But I guess for people that live in town, to come back and re-establish a papakāinga, that’s the only thing, is to put up houses and return to their land. It’s, yeah, to me it’s a funny concept, I don’t know what it means cos this is my kāinga and this is my everything, this is the world…But it must, in some ways, like people from urban areas I guess, if they come home and they have a piece of land that was left to them and they put a house there. But for me, the kāinga is having all those things in there. Like I know that this place will be where my bones are buried, my kōiwi (bones) will be buried. I also connect my children to this land through burying their whenua and their iwi after their birth so we have special trees and gardens growing where everyone knows that’s my tree, my afterbirth is buried there. Strong connection connecting them back so… to me it’s a deeper concept than just a papakāinga.

KI06:10–11, Older, tribally based participant

Another, young, participant also attributed the notion of Papakāinga as having to do with a place where houses and physical structures are built, noting,

…its your traditional Māori neighbourhood, it’s a place where, uri (descendant) of an eponymous ancestor reside. It’s a community. Yeah, like if you translate it literally, you know, “te papa kāinga”, it’s the place or the area or the land where your home resides or is situated … those who live in the papakāinga have whakapapa that bind them together which I guess enhances the significance of the area or of the place.

KI08:2, Young, tribally based participant

For one older participant papakāinga unequivocally meant the place where the wider family or community resided and thus he spoke about having two papakāinga, each relating to the location of his two genealogical lines, and to where he spent time growing up.

I still think of [name of a town 1] as a papakāinga ‘cos you know, that’s where I spent most of my younger years, my early years. I think of [town 2] as the papakāinga cos that’s where I spent a lot of my young days before I started school. And so [town 2] was papakāinga to me cos that was where, that was where the marae was. But, you know, after going to school and knowing that half of the, the village was made up of our whānau, were our whānau, that was still, to me that was papakāinga as well. So I related to two papakāinga, one pre-school and one after school.

KI07:9-10, Older, tribally based participant

A number of participants spoke about papakāinga by contrasting it with the closely related term tūrangawaewae. Participants found it easier to speak about what papakāinga was and was not, when comparing the two concepts, as this participant observed. They identify a spiritual element to the notion of tūrangawaewae, which is lacking in the term papakāinga.

I think the tūrangawaewae is more of a spiritual connection. Where papakāinga is more of, you know, you got a whare (house), you’ve got a bit of whenua (land), you got …

Interviewer: It’s more tangible?

Yeah. That’s it. It’s more tangible. You know, you see it and with tūrangawaewae I get a feeling. You know, when you go say to [village] or your marae, you get a like, “I’m here. My tūpuna are here”.

KI12:10, Older, urban participant

An urban, adult participant meanwhile, understood the concepts of tūrangawaewae and papakāinga to be interchangeable. How Māori understand these concepts and view them as all part of one larger whole speaks to our understanding of where home is, and our relationship to it. For some, home is tied to concepts of traditional tribal lands, which your ancestors occupied, and which sustained those ancestors for generations. For others, who have perhaps moved away from those traditional lands, a degree of fluidity is evident in how these terms are used in relation to personal identity.

Yeah, I guess I don’t know how to distinguish between papakāinga and tūrangawaewae to be honest. I use them interchangeably when I’m talking and stuff. So, I guess my answer would be I don’t have a good understanding of that concept other than its interchangeable with ‘your place’ or what you call where you’re from or home. Even though I think there’s a dual sense of home. Well, that’s the way I think of it. One where you are and one where you think you’re from and where you would like to be maybe.

KI13:5, Older urban participant

3.3. Ahi Kā and Ūkaipō

Ahi Kā refers to the burning fires of occupation, continuous occupation, title, and entitlement to, land through occupation by a group, generally over a long period of time. Unsurprisingly, the visibility of fires in te ao Māori came to symbolise continuous occupation, leading to the phrase ahi kā (lit fire) or ahi kā roa (long burning fires) (Meredith n.d.). Kumar (2010) writes that the focus on use and occupation of land expresses ahi kā as a practical tool, but more importantly, as a catalyst of Māori tribal identity and cultural permanency. Ahi kā is thereby used as a holistic tool, symbolic of identity, permanency, and well-being. A richer understanding of ahi kā shows that its practical functions exceed mere occupation and use by contributing to the socio-political, cultural, spiritual, and intellectual landscape of Māori tribal people’s holistic relationships to their surrounding landscape, and even more broadly, self-determination, self-identification, and sovereignty over autonomy over people and place, destinies, and realities. Related terms include ahi tere (a flickering or unstable fire) which is used to refer to when members of a whānau have not returned to their tribal lands to ‘keep the fires burning’ for three or four generations and their rights have almost been extinguished. The state of ahi mātao or ahi mātaotao is observed to have occurred when the fire of occupation is completely extinguished.

Ūkaipō is most commonly used to mean ‘source of sustenance’, ‘origin’ or ‘real home’. However, the literal meaning of ūkaipō is ‘to be fed from the breast at night’ and is a symbolic representation of the sacred bond between mother and baby and the “evolutionary forces that nature has put in place to ensure the survival of humanity” (Dell 2016).

Without the love and affection of the mother, the baby will die. So there are emotional, spiritual and physical forces at play that bring mother and baby together. When things are going right, the mother is in tune to every sensitivity the baby gives out. However, when those bonds and connections are disrupted, especially across whole cultures and mass populations, the effects are devastating, because a powerful universal force has been disordered.

(Dell 2016)

As previously stated, the term ‘whenua’ also possesses dual meaning in that it can mean both land and placenta. The placenta or whenua was also buried in a place of significance, and that the burial of the placenta would add to the revitalisation of flora, fauna and rejuvenation of land. This sequence of events contributes to the cycle of life where reciprocity enables the dedicated whenua to provide sustenance to the whenua, on which people are fostered and the new infant nurtured—and hence the dual meaning of the word whenua. Thus, the land has the same significance as the placenta or afterbirth that nurtures the embryo in the womb, but the wider definition encompasses not only the spiritual and emotional relationship between whaea (mother) and pēpē (baby), but also the nourishing connection to our homelands or ūkaipō that feeds our whakapapa, wairua (spirit) and whānau. This ritual is thus a continuous reminder, and symbolic, of the intrinsic connection to Papatūānuku (the earth mother) providing both a source of sustenance and a sense of belonging for whānau, hapū and iwi.

Understandings of Ahi Kā and Ūkaipō—Research Participants

Participants in the study were not directly asked about the notions of either ahi kā or ūkaipō. Therefore, only two people referred to the importance of ahi kā, and three (including one of those who spoke about ahi kā) mentioned ūkaipō. Of those who referred to ahi kā, they observed that:

Ahi kā is those who live on the whenua and who sustain the whenua as kaitiaki (guardians) there. You have your ahi mātao, your cold ahi and it only … it only ignites when you return because you’re gone for so long. So ahi kā, ahi, fire and kā, to be ignited, it’s to be a full flame. But an ahi mātao is a cold, is a cold flame, it’s still ignited but it isn’t strong or powerful and in reality that’s me at the moment. And the only reason why it’s still ignited is for the fact that I know that that’s where I belong, that’s where I affiliate the most to, but because of my reality of being a student and living in Auckland so far away, that’s just the reality of it.

KI08:12 Young, tribally based participant

Ahi kā to me is aroha (love), whānau, whanaungatanga, also connecting with nature, the source of life. Aroha for my tīpuna. My whānau and myself. Aroha for myself. Encompassing, nourishing, and restoring my hinengaro (mind), tinana (body) and wairua (spirit) … It gives me a great sense of pride to come home to my Dad and my Aunty for they have done and sacrificed to look after our home. I view the ahi kā as a taonga (treasured resource) given so much to many generations of our whānau. Simply put, when I come home, I feel loved and connected to those that surround me and those that have passed. I feel my soul restored and my heart is home.

KI06:14 Older, tribally based participant

Of those who spoke about ūkaipō, they defined it thus:

…all those things are part of what makes this land important to me. It’s our ūkaipō, the land that fed us. And it still feeds us today in, somewhat. It feeds me spiritually; it feeds me physically.

KI06:6, Older tribally based participant

Ūkaipō, you know, your connection to the whenua that you are on. Tūrangawaewae is, can be an adopted place, I guess, well for me, you know, you can adopt a place, but your ūkaipō is a bit more connected whakapapa-wise to the whenua I think.

KI03:6, Young, tribally based participant

So ūkaipō. The word ūkaipō, up the [name of a specific place] is home, mother; well, this is my understanding … they call their women, they call their aunties, mums, ūkaipō. I’ve been called it a few times.

KI02:16, Middle-aged, tribally based participant

In discussing these terms participants referred once again to the importance of the land, which in this context refers to ancestral land, land that has been handed down through the generations and which has, over the course of time sustained generations of family. The land is prized and treasured for the physical nourishment it provides, a place in which to grow or gather food, to build a home and to congregate, but also because of the contribution it makes spiritually, as a place which supports, nourishes, and upholds spiritual wellbeing. The concept of ahi kā as participant KI08 observed, requires occupation of the land, a conscious decision and ability to “keep the fires of occupation burning”. It is not enough to simply be from a place, the notion of ahi kā also compels Māori towards a duty of care for those places that are home. Māori who understand the continuum of ahi kā, ahi tere and ahi mātao, yet live away from their ūkaipō, or tūrangawaewae for the purposes of study or employment, may struggle with how they can give effect to the responsibility of caring for the land, which they consider to be ‘home’.

4. Discussion

“Māori identity therefore emerges in institutional, cultural and familial contexts; it is neither static nor one-dimensional; and its meanings, as expressed in schools, neighbourhoods, peer groups and whānau, vary across time, space and place”.

(Kukutai and Webber 2017)

Aotearoa’s social, political, and economic environments have long contributed to the polarisation of Māori based on where they live, and whether they are ‘urban’ or ‘tribal’. Processes such as Treaty of Waitangi settlements and territorialisation of boundaries triggered by land-loss have resulted in a “home versus away” dichotomy in contemporary Māori society as “iwi members try to defend a position of authenticity in a colonial-defined space” (Carter 2015). Debates about where people live, and what makes that place ‘home’ should be seen within a much larger context; one where the question is not whether Māori are living in an urban context or not, but whether being Māori living away from tribal boundaries have access to and applicability for cultural concepts that inform their identity (Durie 2005).

The question of whether the rapid 20th century geographical and social shifts of Māori fundamentally altered understandings of and relationships to cultural concepts such as tūrangawaewae and papakāinga was the starting point for the inquiry that resulted in the Perceptions of Papakāinga research project. What emerged from the research requires us to think beyond the typical urban-tribal binary to understand the nuances that exist when discussing home and the way it shapes and moulds Māori identity. Rather than substantiating the urban versus tribal dichotomy, these results suggest instead that within the perceptions of home for both urban and tribal Māori, there was a shared anchoring and culturally based understanding of how whenua, whakapapa and whanaungatanga represent not just where we belong, or where our home is, but moreover who we are.

Participants’ explanations of the relevance of tūrangawaewae highlighted how this concept expressed a strong sense of belonging. Belonging for those living within their tribal boundaries or who were immersed in tribal affairs, meant belonging to the whenua and the people of that whenua. For participants who lived in an urban context, and those who had a less active connection to tribal affairs, the concept of tūrangawaewae was similarly understood as something that connects to a lineage, a place that was representative of an ancestral identity. It was not always the place that they associated with ‘home’, but rather a concept that let them explain their ‘Māoriness’.

Papakāinga was a concept that was understood to be more about community, in the sense of it being a socially constructed place (building, people and land), that revolved around living with extended whānau, or others that whakapapa back to a shared lineage.

The idea of ahi kā, for those that mentioned it, represented the connection to the land and the obligation to keep the land ‘warm’ for those that could not be there. Ahi kā was also seen as a holistic concept, in that it brought together people, both living and departed, and the land.

For those that spoke of ūkaipō, it embodied the culmination of tūrangawaewae, papakāinga, and ahi kā in the sense that it was seen as the place of ultimate nourishment. This is the place that literally and spiritually feeds body, mind and soul, which is an embodiment of the ‘true home’. While the concept of ūkaipō was not specifically named by all the participants, it is interesting to note that the sum of what is needed to feel truly ‘at home’, whether in the urban or in a tribal environment, was yet linked to everything that ūkaipō represents. When participants spoke of what they needed, they spoke of needing belonging, connection, and authenticity. The usage of the cultural understandings of tūrangawaewae, papakāinga, ahi kā and ūkaipō allowed a fluid, yet similarly understood framework for the expression of these needs. As people situated themselves within this framework of cultural understanding, they were able to claim their identity, and to communicate that identity to others.

Therefore, we return to the beginning of this article and the pepeha of Pirihira Wano, in which the elements of whenua (e.g., mountains, rivers) are cited alongside the elements of relationality (e.g., marae, sub-tribe, family name). Pirihira’s pepeha illustrates how the act of claiming and pro-claiming Māori identity weaves together the old and the new. The pepeha outlines these essential markers of belonging and ancestry, and it also claims the dual notions of ‘home’ in the sense of living in an urban context, yet fully acknowledging the ‘true place of standing’ in a tribal sense.

The body of literature emerging around the impact on Māori identity for those living away from a tribal context continues to grow as Māori scholars explore contemporary notions of identity and the implications for identity of aligning to a pan-tribal or urban base as opposed to a traditional iwi or tribal base (Allport et al. 2017). The diversity of Māori experience is unquestionable; Māori, no matter where they reside, are not a homogenous group (Durie 2005), and there is no one-single way to ‘be Māori’ (Rameka 2018). However, the idea of common foundations, and how they are expressed within Māori identity is a subject of ongoing inquiry. Durie speaks of the shifting foundations of identity as Māori are “no longer exclusively dependent on hapū, iwi, customary lands, or marae” (Durie 2005). Kukutai and Webber comment that “Māori identity in the twenty-first century is a slippery concept. Like other collective or social identities, Māori identity is an overarching category that subsumes others within it. As diverse Māori identities have emerged, a new range of identity expressions—or at least more elastic meanings for old identity expressions—have been required” (Kukutai and Webber 2017). While thinking has thus moved away from defining Māori identity as based on static concepts and expressions or seeing Māori identity outside of tribal living or involvement as ‘lacking’ or deficient, the debate around contemporary frames of Māori identity “stress increasingly diverse and complex positionings that require negotiation of radically different terrains of assumptions, behaviours, values and beliefs” (Rameka 2018).

The idea of fluidity, change and evolution is highlighted within the narratives and conceptualisation of ‘home’ by the participants of the Perceptions of Papakāinga research. Across the differing generations, experiences and geographical locations, there were some marked distinctions. As discussed in the methods section, all the tribal key informants had either been participants in a tribal leadership programme, designed to educate young people about the history, whakapapa and tikanga of that specific tribe; or they had facilitated aspects of that programme. Thus, for the tribal participants in this study the experience of inculturation and involvement in tribal life, and the level of knowledge of te reo, the Māori language, reflected a deepened understanding and usage of tūrangawaewae, papakāinga, āhi kā and ūkaipō. For many of those interviewed living in the city and operating outside of their tribal life, the understandings varied, were sometimes interchangeable, and were applied in a way to mould to their circumstances. In this sense, participants evolved the usage of the words to define their actual experience of where they live. This meant that tūrangawaewae could be referred to a concept that was not necessarily bound to a static, geographic location, but something that could be adapted to ‘take with you’ to where you live, in order to feel ‘at home’. Likewise, papakāinga became something to describe the sense of (urban) community that had been created by the participants where they lived, and once again, to ‘feel at home’.

What is important in these small variances of usages of the terms is that it confirms the continued relevance of these terms to identity. Being Māori, although adaptable and changing, is thereby also “very much about the continued existence of distinctive world-views, patterns of communications, subtleties of human relationships” (Durie 2005). The elemental and continuing significance of whakapapa, whenua and whanaungatanga are reflected in the way in which participants defined and used key Māori terms to express belonging. In this sense, participants used these understandings to ‘put a stake in the ground’ in terms of their identity; an act that was shared for the participants living within their tribal community, and those outside of it.

5. Conclusions

The voices of the research participants of the Perceptions of Papakāinga project ranged across differing geographical locations, communities, and levels of connection to a genealogical homeplace. Within those diverse voices the definitions of ‘home’ nevertheless point to a shared and enduring practice of using whakapapa to explain home through the connection of identity and community. This shows the continued use of whakapapa as an organising principle, as well as highlights a continued relevance of the Māori terms and concepts around home and belonging. The title for this article draws upon an oft quoted saying, exhorting Māori to return to those traditional lands that sustained their people since time immemorial, and to which they have a whakapapa connection. The saying is used to encourage the Māori diaspora in particular, descendants of those who consciously choose to move to the cities for employment purposes, to re-connect with those very families keeping the fires of occupation burning. Returning to the place of spiritual and physical nourishment however means more than simply returning to the land; it also signifies returning to the very concepts that uphold Māori whakapapa, concepts that stretch back all the way from the very beginning of creation to the rich and diverse experience of contemporary Māori. While Māori negotiate radically new terrains of what it means to be Māori, and to live as Māori in places that are not designed for Māori, it remains important to remember that in the face of the multiple challenges posed by colonisation, Māori continue to resist assimilation and dissipation. Whakapapa, and “its innumerable networks to people past and present and to physical places like papakāinga have provided Māori with a life-line”:(Te Rito 2007) a lifeline to the self, to community and the land that holds everything.