Tainui Stephens on why we should all sleep in a marae

From the thunderous chorus of communal snoring to the unmistakable pong of humanity, Tainui Stephens explains why a night on a marae is one of the most precious ways to reconnect with what it means to be Māori.

My first stay on a North Island marae was at Takapūwāhia in Porirua. It was a Māori Artists and Writers Society hui in the late '70s. The wonderful kuia and poet Aunty Charlotte Solomon had taken a shine to me and insisted that I sleep next to her that night. She was a large woman, and very embracing. I was so happy to doss beside her, but was soon alarmed because I had no idea that anyone could snore that loudly. I marvelled that despite the three mattresses between Aunty Charlotte and the floor, the foundations of the whare seemed to wobble when she reached the lower frequencies of what is humanly possible. Before long I was sleeping like a baby.

I recall a few years later waking up on a northern marae and the first thing that greeted my bleary eyes was the dangling testicles of a famous Māori Battalion veteran. They had slipped out to say hello as the esteemed gentleman was pulling on his pants. It was Anzac Day and I had been granted a vision of the balls that had liberated Europe.

On a marae the act of dressing or undressing can be as public or private as you wish. Nudity is never acceptable, but to shed your clothing and expose bits of yourself to others is a humbling experience. Comforting too, because over time you become very familiar with the diversity and age ranges of body types. You realise you're not so different after all.

The thing about staying on a marae is that there is a point when the tupuna whare morphs from being a kind of spiritual boardroom into a big bedroom. In our bedrooms we let our guard down. We lax, we chill. We clean up, we get changed.

A marae stay is a collective experience. As a species, we are by nature a smelly bunch. We pong, we burp, we fart. We emit all sorts of odours that we mitigate with soap and perfumed products designed to make us sweeter than we are. Thankfully the ablutions blocks of marae these days are way less grubby than some used to be. The toilets are usually clean and work well. At worst there may be a few spiderwebs about, and perhaps not as much toilet paper as you may require. There are often one or two good showers available. If there's no soap just check the top of the cubicle and you'll generally find a few old bars that will do the business. Always return them.

Sometimes a sewerage system can come under stress when it receives the frequent attention of a hungry people who like their carbs. Rural marae can be prone to blockages or burst pipes. I recall a large tangi at a small Tūhoe marae where the toilet-block pipes had burst. The sanitation people from Whakatāne duly came out to fix things. I have a fond memory of local activist and artist Tāme Iti cackling with glee as he found a simple pleasure in watching Pākehā wade about in shit. He'd mutter under his breath, "Wiiiii! Ka pai Pākehā. Mahia tō mahi tūtae nei!"

I've noticed over the years that some of us get a bit bougie on it when we go to a hui somewhere. We might decide to stay at a motel rather than at the marae.

Sometimes there's a good reason for that, especially at large tangihanga. Although everyone gets fed, a marae may not have the space or the mattresses to sleep everyone. Sometimes people go to a hui because it's part of their job, and the department or company budget extends to hotel accommodation. Sometimes a need for sleep after a long day's travel warrants some peace and quiet in a room you don't have to clean up.

Sometimes it's just easier.

Easier isn't good enough, though, if we want to protect one of the best reasons for being Māori: to know each other, and to experience people as we truly are. Well, for a short time anyway! In a busy modern world, the chance to sleep overnight on the marae is a precious opportunity to reconnect with each other, and to sample the unique fragrance of our shared humanity.

There's no doubt that for many people the biggest challenge to staying on a marae is the noise at night. It depends on the size of the crowd, the acoustics of the whare, and whatever time the lights go out. But it mostly depends on the hui kaupapa. If it's a tangi and you're sleeping with the recently deceased and their family, you can expect speeches, songs and wailing at any time of the night; especially when relations travel a long way and arrive late, or it's the last night before the burial.

These are occasions where you shouldn't really expect to sleep. But with earplugs and a determination to pretend to be asleep, you will at least be left alone. Unless you're in the way of the hongi line, or the route to the loo.

The soundscape of a meeting house at sleep can be a thundering thing and fresh hell for the newbie. A dawning realisation of how many ways it is possible for human beings to snore. There is no difference whatsoever between men and women and what is possible with their night-time beatboxes. Some nights it is all gentle waves lapping on a sandy shore. Other nights can be a perfect storm of gale-force proportions – usually in the wee hours when the party people finally stumble through, and then cark it.

To really enjoy your stay overnight you must score the best possible place to sleep. One way to do this is to make sure you're parked close to the marae. When the speeches of welcome and the hongi are over, there's usually a gap of around about ten minutes before the call comes for a cup of tea. That's the best time to shoot out to the car, get a blanket and your bag, and then race back to the whare to claim your mattress.

But if kai is ready and you can't be seen to keep the kitchen waiting, go and have a quick cuppa tea before heading to the toilet. On the way out, make your detour to the car. Being slow and casual is very important. Any sign of haste might alert anyone else who is waiting for the moment to score their own mattresses. They will drop their scone if they need to — or they'll unleash the kids. If you're bigger than the kids (and there's no guarantee of that) you'll be able to claim some seniority if it comes to a battle for position. You could claim, for instance, that you have to sleep next to some particular carving because you whakapapa to it. That often works.

My own antidote to marae insomnia involves a conscious decision to regard snoring as a kind of lullaby. That lullaby is comprised of the breath of life of my fellow human beings. The cadence and dynamics of people snoring is a part of the rhythm of life. If I can tune in to that thought, the noise becomes something that lulls me to sleep. The only thing that buggers up my theory are people with sleep apnoea. It's the kind of snore that rises to a pitch and then suddenly stops as the breath gets taken away. The silence hangs in the air and you're not sure if they're ever going to breathe again. Several seconds later, it starts up, seems longer and each silence gets louder.

Other nocturnal sounds can include lovers being lovers – in a good way or a bad way. If it's in a good way and they can keep it discreet and quiet, only those who know, know. If it's in a bad way, however, and it becomes a lover's tiff, well, then you might have an issue, especially when you hear the F-bomb being muttered. That can keep you awake and alert.

To me there is nothing better than a good night's sleep – or even a shitty night's sleep – in a tupuna whare. It's not hard to close off your ears and let your eyes wander upwards to consider the carvings, artwork and structure of the whare. The ghosts of ancestry emanate from the walls, the vibrations of their words are etched by dust.

As your eyes begin to droop, and the sound fades away, your sense of smell may be the last sense to close off – but not before getting a whiff of the fragrance of human beings sleeping as one. It may be sweet or sour, but it's certainly real. The old people talk of "te haunga o te tangata". On a literal level that refers to the stink of our physical being. On a deeper level it describes the frail but fabulous humanity of each of us. Every hui is a lesson in life.

Smell thy neighbour. Love thy neighbour.

Nāku,
Ōtaki Beach, 17 January 2021