Maha ngā tāngata ki runga i te māra, maha ngā kai ki runga i te tēpu
When there are more people in the garden, there will be more food on the table
PAPATŪĀNUKU KŌKIRI MARAE trustee Hineamaru Ropati (Ngāti Hine) and kaiwhakahaere Lionel Hotene (Ngāti Awa) work tirelessly to continue the vision of their founding matriarch, Mere Knight, one of the Aunties who formed the Pu Hao Rangi Trust (guardians of the early kūmara) almost 30 years ago.
These Aunties were part of the WAI 262 movement and helped establish an urban marae in Māngere to grow food to sustain the community and to reconnect tāngata to whenua, soil and kai-growing practices. The reclamation of kūmara species inspired these Aunties, and today the marae plants as many as 30,000 tipu of kūmara each year. They gift half the harvest to Tāmaki Makaurau-based families and organisations and use the rest for market or seed stock. The marae also grows a range of Hua Parakore produce, some of which is sold at the Grey Lynn farmers’ market. They supply seasonal produce to whānau in need and to Homeland, renowned chef Peter Gordon’s ‘food embassy’ for promoting Aotearoa and Pasifika foods.
Papatūānuku Kōkiri Marae is also part of the Kai Ika project, which collects and redistributes fish heads, frames and offal to feed those communities who value these as kai fit for rangatira. Fish emulsion made from the offal helps to feed the soils at Papatūānuku Marae.
Wrapped around all of this mahi are the six kaupapa that make up Hua Parakore, the Indigenous verification system for Kai Atua developed by Te Waka Kai Ora under the leadership of Percy Tipene (Ngāpuhi). As Hineamaru and Lionel share their kōrero, it is clear that matua Percy had a significant impact on their mahi at Papatūānuku. Hineamaru tells us: ‘I think kei roto i tō tātou ao ināianei, in our lives that exist today, the Māori food system has really evolved . . . Although we have kai, and although we have food, what is missing on the ground is hands in the soil, the mātauranga, the pūrākau — the stories of our tūpuna. Only a few carry that, because only a few were exposed to that realm. Only a few of us have been dosed with stories and pūrākau, and the wisdom of Uncle Percy is an example. We are the carriers of those stories, beliefs and values.
‘When we talk about a food system, first of all it is about the type of kai and the type of goodness that we can actually extract from storytelling and from the messages within the nutrients of that spectrum.
‘Second, when you know that you are getting a really good nutritional kai from the story, you have more value when you know it comes from the right place. In our case, from Uncle Percy. I am trying to picture him as a big fat kūmara, not a little skinny carrot. Uncle Percy carried that mātauranga of our tūpuna as a visual embodiment of kai.
‘Lionel is also a carrier of mātauranga, pūrākau and stories from his tūpuna, stories of his upbringing. That is the beginning of — I don’t know whether the word is food sovereignty, but we reap the rewards of goodness from that space because of those that are feeding us mātauranga around kai.’
Just as kai fuels our bodies, stories fire our imagination and inspire new actions, making pūrākau an integral part of a Māori food system. Much of the work done at Papatūānuku is educational and includes hosting te reo classes every week for the multicultural community and delivering the Kai Oranga programme on behalf of Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi. Communicating the importance of Hua Parakore is part of this educational outreach, as Hineamaru explains: ‘First of all, we should acknowledge te kai o te mātauranga, ko tērā te mea nui, me whāngai tērā kaupapa ki roto i ngā taringa o ngā tāngata . . . Who do you share the story with? Who do you share the experience with? What sort of blueprint do you leave in the minds of whānau to enable them to carry the practices of Hua Parakore into their homes, onto their tables, into all their business plans? When stakeholders visit, they know that we eat and breathe ngā kaupapa o Hua Parakore. If you want us to sign up for anything, these are the principles that have to be on the table before we even talk. That is our tino rangatiratanga when we talk about food sovereignty.’
The initial development of Hua Parakore included the mātauranga of rongoā practitioners as well as food growers. Lionel reflects on how Uncle Percy’s rongoā background helped shape subsequent practices at the marae: ‘We have been advocates for Hua Parakore for as long as I can remember. Uncle Percy came down and imparted some beautiful knowledge to us. He would often talk about tika, ture, tangata, Tiriti: man- made laws, and the laws that encompass the values of tika and manaaki, reciprocity, koha. The idea that came from that was te rongoā o te kai, food is your medicine. I think that is when Papatūānuku became advocates; we saw what is in this kaupapa, what is the medicine.
‘I often reflect on Uncle Percy and the Hua Parakore kaupapa, which means to go back to our ancestral practices. At the moment when we look at our food system, it is clear. When we think about food as a medicine, current food practices are actually our poison. We want to educate our people about pathways for removing the contaminants.’
The need for food parcels, revealed clearly during the Covid-19 pandemic, demonstrates that our current food systems do not work and that many Māori have lost connection to kai as rongoā. For Lionel, the challenge for Papatūānuku Kōkiri Marae is to get the community on board ‘the waka of understanding’ through the practice of manaakitanga: ‘It is going to be a long journey for us, and we are happy to be on the marae because we are practising the pōwhiri processes, too. A lot of the tikanga around kai is about the pōwhiri process, the first voice, the koha, the kai, and then the whakawhanaungatanga. Our Māori food system is Hua Parakore . . . The marae for us is the kūmara space, it is the peaceful space, we are called Papatūānuku for a reason. It is the idea of the feminine, the nurturer of nature — Papatūānuku is there for us. In that food system it is the whakapapa of “ko wai koe?” But the current food system at the moment is killing us economically, socially, spiritually . . . We need more people to come to the understanding of what Hua Parakore is. We are happy to be that vessel.’
Hua Parakore is a framework for understanding a Māori food system where the question of whakapapa (‘ko wai koe?’) is privileged. Whakapapa is only one of the six interconnecting kaupapa that inform Hua Parakore, however. Below, Lionel and Hineamaru share their whakaaro concerning these principles.
Ngā kaupapa o Hua Parakore
Lionel begins by reminding us that the six kaupapa of Hua Parakore — whakapapa, māramatanga, mana, mauri, te ao tūroa and wairua — cannot be thought of alone: they are connected. He explains whakapapa in the following way: ‘That is how we introduce our whānau around the whakapapa of their kai, the whakapapa of knowing not only where your food comes from, not only where your seeds come from, but where each other comes from. It is the imprint, it is the genealogy, not only to us as the physical beings but also to ourselves as Hineahuone. We see ourselves as the “star people”. We talk about the kūmara as coming from ngā whetū, so whakapapa is bigger than just us as physical people. We are also spiritual people connected to the atua; we are part of the atua.’
To see ourselves as nature, as star people as well as human, and to understand the threads that bind us to the atua realms of nature, suggests that a practice of familial care towards our environment and what we eat should be a norm of everyday life. To turn these ideas into practice, we require the experience of a second kaupapa, māramatanga: comprehension, insight and the development of observational skills. Lionel refers to a popular saying when he explains māramatanga: ‘We talk about māramatanga — the understanding. We talk about that saying, “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day.” One of the main points for our kaupapa at the marae is education. It is about giving the people the tools to make a change and raising awareness.’
By teaching someone to fish for themselves, or to grow kai that can feed themselves and others, you increase their capacity to care and to feel capable of building pathways to greater flourishing. Education and the fostering of māramatanga leads directly to the elevation of mana, the third kaupapa. According to Lionel: ‘Mana is the big one for us. Kai is the empowerment — treating other people with the same respect, understanding that another person’s mana is equal, with more importance as expressed through generosity and hospitality. That is the power we give to our whānau.’
Here the connection between food’s capacity to elevate the mana of others through the enactment of manaakitanga is made clear.
When discussing a fourth kaupapa, mauri, Lionel recalls a conversation about the relationship between mauri and solar energy: ‘Mauri, the energy, the life force, our connection to Papatūānuku. Te pū, te weu, te rea, te aka exists in Papatūānuku. I talked to Brendan Corbett at Ihumātao about solar receptors, the stone, the kōhatu that would warm the whenua — a little connector and a sponge for the sun. That was a beautiful relationship with Tamanuiterā, the kōhatu into the whenua. We had some wonderful conversations around enhancing and capturing the mana of the mauri through our solar panels on the marae.’
The fifth kaupapa refers to the natural order of the living realm and our role as kaitiaki in these places. Understanding and caring for this natural world involves understanding ourselves as organic matter that will eventually break down and return to Papatūānuku. When discussing the fifth kaupapa, te ao tūroa, Lionel refers to the composting practices of the marae and Hineamaru’s deft hand at making soil: ‘Whaea Hine is good at composting. Understanding the values of the natural systems in te taiao — you know: we die, we become worm feed, but then all carbon beings become worm feed like our fish heads. Our people have these practices that bring back the idea of waste that is not waste but another part of the natural cycle. We talk about parakore, te ao tūroa and that wairua, the divine experience.’
When te ao tūroa is in alignment, visible indicators stir our hearts and senses and the wairua dimensions of our being, the sixth Hua Parakore kaupapa. Visitors to the marae, or those who simply pass by, can sense the wairua cultivated at Papatūānuku: ‘We notice that that happens over the hedge at the moment, people see this intrinsic connection to the greenery. They see the mānuka, they see the bees, they feel, “Oh, that is another sensory experience in Māngere.” It is the kūmara, it is the food, it is the kai.’
These sensory experiences are also pathways to māramatanga and the awakening of our divine senses, as Hineamaru says later in this kōrero.
These sensory experiences also bring us back to the grounding question ‘ko wai koe?’ in relation to te ao tūroa.
In Lionel’s kōrero we come to understand how the vibrant energies of te ao tūroa, when in alignment, can radiate new forms of wisdom and experience for those who are attuned to understanding creative and enabling human–nature relationships. Lionel explains the deeper levels of wairua and the organising principles of tapu and noa by referring to popular narratives about food that comes directly from the farm gate to the table or from pā to plate. He reminds us that the process of tapu and noa is at play when we think of the relationship between te ao tūroa and our more domesticated settings: ‘We talk about this process of kai to table: this is the tapu and the noa relationship that is so vitally important for us. It represents the wairua. What is missing in the current food system is the spiritual connection to the kai we consume. It is just about making your puku full. It is just about feeding the mechanical.’
Rather than an instrumentalist and extractive approach to kai, Lionel describes a multidimensional understanding of kai as connected to atua and mauri domains, our senses and whakapapa. This approach includes a commitment to a broader understanding of our role as actors in relation to the environment and to one another.
Complementing Lionel’s whakaaro about the entwined nature of the kaupapa, Hineamaru describes Hua Parakore as a feathered cloak made of single parts that together create a whole: ‘When we look at the strands of Hua Parakore, they are really like a korowai. They have got so many rich vibrant colours that their combination activates the first sense of sight. The lens around Hua Parakore can be described in so many ways from so many lives and so many experiences.’ Hineamaru’s comments suggest that the meaning of these kaupapa and their relationship to one another is always diverse and multi-layered. She emphasises the visual impact of a korowai and the idea of Hua Parakore as a lens through which we see the world. This diversity of vision and perspective is demonstrated when we hear how Hineamaru builds on Lionel’s insights.
In relation to the kaupapa of whakapapa, Hineamaru shares this whakaaro: ‘When we talk about whakapapa and about our marae, we talk about the whakapapa o te tangata because our marae is so multi-tribal, so multicultural. We are lucky to be exposed to so many views about whakapapa. Te whakapapa o te tangata, ko tērā te mea tuatahi, in regard to where they come from. Those of Tongan descent have Tongan stories to share, Tongan ways of seeing whakapapa and how they actually work their māra.
‘When we talk about the whakapapa of our oneone, our soils, until you have a strong appreciation for Hua Parakore you don’t have that lens. Not knowing where the soil comes from, whakapapa gives it that shift when you use a Hua Parakore lens. The whakapapa o te kākano, te ngako o te kākano, knowing where your seeds come from. The depth of its place on this earth and where it came from is a depth of whakapapa in that space, so that becomes one whakaaro.’
As well as being a lens through which we might see the world, Hua Parakore sheds light on other senses and sensations, as Hineamaru explains in relation to the kaupapa of wairua: ‘When we talk about wairua, it involves the divine senses. Between your head and your jaw is your nose. If you lose your sense of smell, you lose other senses as well. You can lose your eyes but still smell. When you can’t smell, you can lose your sense of taste. So when you have got this fella in the middle, and we talk about te ao tūroa, the balance of how we see the tohu in regard to the pōhutukawa and ngā manu me ngā ngāngara, and also the maramataka brings so much around te ao tūroa when we talk about the moon shifts, or the cycle. The planting cycles of Tangaroa in the ocean, compared to Papatūānuku on land.’
The kaupapa of māramatanga is one of Hineamaru’s favourites, and her discussion of this links to the importance of learning to see through the lens of Hua Parakore: ‘Māramatanga means enlightenment. I love the “wow” factor of this kaupapa. Almost every day we have to learn something new. If we don’t, and we don’t acknowledge that we’ve learnt something new, then we move through time missing signs along the way. We are always learning. We are always learning new things to make things different, to make things yield more, to be able to share more.’
Hineamaru explains that when all of the kaupapa are activated, the mauri will shine through: ‘Mauri, when all the kaupapa are combined, gives a “wow” factor. If one of those elements is missing, then the mauri isn’t so white, it isn’t so pure.’
Hineamaru suggests that being able to change the habits of whānau and our dependence on processed food and government-funded food vouchers could lead to generating a bright white mauri (a reference to the Hua Parakore colour system). The act of feeding ourselves and others with fresh, nutritious kai also leads to the enhancement of mana: ‘Mana, she is a beauty. Mana: just being able to know that we have got choices of food on our table — that is mana. Just knowing that there are more people around your table, that is a mana.’
Hineamaru goes on to tell us a new whakataukī that shines light on the values underpinning the mahi at Papatūānuku Marae: ‘This is my new whakatauākī: “Maha ngā tāngata ki runga i te māra, maha ngā kai ki runga I te tēpu.” When you look at the whānau in self-isolation, and then you look at our whānau that are at the marae at the moment 24/7 delivering kai, packing it, getting it off the pallets, wrapping it, loading it onto the vehicles and then delivering it, kāore e maha ngā tāngata: if there weren’t a lot of whānau down there to do that, then there would be less kai on whānau tables. When there are fewer people around the table brainstorming any kaupapa that is really dear to us as a people, then there will be less diversity to share out. It is not only the number of people in the garden, it is also the number of people who think together collectively.’
Work at the marae encourages whānau to think and work collectively to grow kai for people beyond those in an individual household. Inspiring whānau to get beyond their dependency on supermarkets and the government is also one of Hineamaru’s aspirations. The key to greater food sovereignty involves stimulating a shift in the minds of whānau: ‘When we talk about food sovereignty, we talk about what that food cycle looks like. In this way we actually feed the mind with good stuff so that the body will follow suit.’
