The Wind Beneath My Feet
P.D. Eastman wrote the classic Children’s Book ‘Are You My Mother?’ the story of a baby bird that has hatched while his mother was away. Fallen from his nest, he sets out to look for her and asks everyone he meets — including a dog, a cow, and a plane — “Are you my mother?”
Sometimes exploring my whakapapa (genealogy) has been like this baby bird’s search. The truth is, when you’ve never known, like I did not know (my great grandmother, Moewaka Jane Rapana) you have to ask some questions to help you get a picture, like the baby bird did.
The chances are high too that however many people you ask you can almost guarantee you’ll get as many different versions of a story as there were people that you’d asked. Which one is true? Well, I suspect there are kernels of truth in all accounts but finding the common facts is what may eventually reveal the bigger picture.
So here’s the thing, many collectors of the family stories may end up with the same or similar stories or they may have different diving off points or places where they dovetail or just have completely different information from yours. Puzzlers tell me, large (5000+) puzzles aren’t completed in a day and at times, putting the pieces together may be totally confusing. Nevermind, chillax!
As I mentioned at the outset of this hikoi (long journey) in my blog entry Tripping, to “whakapapa” is to place in layers, to lay one upon another. We may like to think of it as building layer by layer upon the past towards the present, and on into the future.
Whakapapa include not just the genealogies but the many spiritual, mythological and human stories that flesh out its genealogical backbone” so having different versions or accounts of a story relating to family members need not be such a stumbling block if thought of in this way.
In our family the oral tradition of handing down these genealogies has none of the precision of earlier generations but then it is a family history that has many twists and turns. And perhaps this is the true ‘koha’ of my great grandmother Moewaka to my generation. Her guiding hand of the wind at our backs, sending our feet forward beneath us.
“Koha among maori is the traditional act of gifting. In the powhiri (welcoming ceremony) the presentation of koha follows directly after the last speaker has finished their mihi (formal greetings) and waiata (song). Maori regarded the act of giving koha and the manner in which it is given as taking precedence over the actual value of the gift.
In the days when war raged between Maori tribes, koha may have been offered in the form of waiata, in gratitude for refuge. Its value would be placed in the lyrics, composition and delivery. In earlier times at marae gatherings, food was often given as koha. Today the gift is often monetary.” Nama’s koha to us is herstory, she’s teaching still.
