Mātauranga Māori at Church
Ilam has made an effort to include some waiata in the song selections, pounamu was gifted to Hamid and Mohammed and we are slowly getting less clumsy at the Māori version of the benediction.
Increasing numbers of organisations and companies are rebranding to have a te reo name and incorporate a relevant whakataukī/proverb to be politically correct. Mātauranga Māori is beautiful and should be prominent in our society. But sometimes the effort to include it is only at a surface level – like the icing on a cake that makes it look more palatable.
For example, my friends in the civil engineering department at UC had an assessment where they got 10% for including an element of Māori culture in the bridges they built. This resulted in a lot of appropriated koru designs (with no knowledge of the cultural significance, associated iwi or symbolic meaning of the kōwhaiwhai/patterns). Respectful incorporation, according to my friend Lucas – of Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama descent – would involve permission and collaboration with iwi.
I am also aware that I am not Māori. I am not tāngata whenua. That is not my culture. My lack of interaction and understanding means I don’t know what is culturally inappropriate. I want to know why things are done. I understand Ilam wanting to be welcoming but I fear inauthenticity or tokenism. (Should we include a sign language benediction too?)
I guess it just needs to be intentional. Ilam has made some good first steps, and it was great having Ray talk about the intersection of Christianity and cultural identity. Next, if inclusion is a priority, we could collaborate with Te Hepara Pai – the Māori Anglican church on Ferry road – to learn Māori worship?
I am limited by my own cultural lens. Maybe my thinking of ‘Māori’ and ‘non-Māori’ reflects a settler colonialist ideology and is too binary? It reasserts an ‘us’ and a ‘them’. In reality, our history is full of contact and interaction. On Tuesday I asked Sean about the use of te reo at Ilam. Sean pointed out that his grandchildren are tāngata whenua and that familial links between Pākeha and Māori will naturally continue to grow as time progresses.
In 1989 Sir Edward Taihukurei Durie famously said that the Pākeha are the tāngata Tiriti who belong to the land by right of Te Tiriti ō Waitangi. Maybe my ignorance and discomfort is a sign that it’s time I simply become better acquainted with te ao Māori by taking some te reo classes.