She once thought she wanted a waewae firmly planted in both worlds, but dedicating a year of her life to study te reo full-time has finally given Meriana Johnsen a safe space to exist in te ao Māori.
A large black and white photo hangs on the back wall of our wharenui at Mangamaunu marae. The shaded image shows our tīpuna in their Sunday best. They’re sitting on the mahau, the front of the meeting house, all dressed in white. On one side, they are flanked by settlers of the Anglican faith, the other, Catholics. Some of the latter are most likely my Irish Catholic ancestors.
It is the influx of settlers to the area in the mid 1800s immortalised. My tīpuna hemmed in at their own home. Squeezed in so tightly it feels like they have no room to breathe. Of course, it’s an experience not unique to my people. At the time of the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Māori made up 95% of the population. In just 60 years, we were down to 5%. Overrun by settler immigrants who built their communities and institutions on top of us. No wonder so many of us have asthma.
The aspiration, I’ve so often been told, usually by well-meaning Pākehā, is to walk in both worlds. It is positioned like a special gift, the beauty of our experience as Māori, one where we can traverse te ao Māori and te ao Pākehā seamlessly. This, I’m coming to believe, is a bicultural fantasy. Conjured up to give a false sense of cultural harmony. A whanaunga of mine once called me out for saying I wanted to have my waewae firmly planted in each world. His response: that I’d get a sore nono from sitting on the fence.
He was just being cheeky but that kōrero has stuck with me. I’ve mulled it for a long time; did I need to choose which world I walked in? And where was te ao Māori, this world that appeared to only exist back beyond my reach in a bygone time?
During my first year of kura pō, the physical erasure of Māori presence became very apparent. The more I learnt, the extent of what had been lost revealed itself. I would walk along Lambton Quay on my lunch breaks, trying to strip away the concrete, the firm-faced suits pressing in around me, to imagine what Te Whanganui-a-Tara looked like only a century and a half ago. I bought a piece of broken pounamu from one of those cheap Kiwiana-type souvenir stores. The store owner couldn’t tell me where it came from. It, too, had its origins erased. I’d rub the blunt edges to soothe me.
We are squeezed into this new world, te ao hurihuri. We fumble around, using the tools we know. In my case, in those early days of my reclamation haerenga, Google. It might be great for searching how long to cook the perfect boiled egg, but I don’t recommend it as a whakapapa search engine. Here, I was introduced to my ancestors by a disgruntled Australian school teacher through letters he wrote during his time at the local “native” school. “Henry Lawson Amongst Maoris”. The dude was clearly having a midlife crisis, he just couldn’t work out why the Maoris wouldn’t let him just help them, these poor helpless natives, if only they could see the light! Poor self-indulgent writing with zero cultural awareness and a heavy dose of white man saviour complex. No marks awarded. Capital F on that assignment.
Long after Henry had gapped these shores, a daughter was born to a Pākehā father of Norwegian, English and Irish ancestry and a Kāi Tahu, Rangitāne o Wairau mother. She was hospitalised at age six. Asthma that, over time, contracted her limbs and organs. She journeyed through life, having her identity ascribed to her in fractions, and backhanded compliments about her racially ambiguous looks.
That girl became this woman, pushing through a loud and confusing world. Without tikanga and kawa to ground, I’ve often felt untethered, caught up in the rush of the gusts blowing from every direction. I inhale this foreign air and somehow still feel like there’s not enough in my lungs.
So with my tight chest, and growing concern of getting a sore nono, I’ve decided to step into te ao Māori. Rumaki reo offers an āhuru mōwai, a safe space, to exist as a Māori. With my reo and tikanga holding me, and, at times, challenging me. At least for six hours a day, four days a week, there is no contest, questioning, or challenging of my identity. Externally that is – internally is a different story.
And hopefully one day, I’ll be a kuia (fingers crossed I make it that far), sitting on the mahau as my tīpuna did. This time it will be my tamariki and mokopuna holding me on either side. My mokopuna will give me a hongī, hā ki roto, hā ki waho. An exchange of breath. But unlike those before them, it’ll be with ease.