TALKING WITH OUR WAI

The brewing brouhaha and blame shifting going on between various governing agencies over the shortage of water available to whānau living in Kaitāia, and elsewhere around the motu, has got me wondering: if the water could talk, what would it say to us? and if it could hear, what would we say to it?

So, I went down to the water closest to me here in Kaitāia and here is what it told me.

On my surface lie otaota (weeds) that do not have hakapapa (genealogical links) to this whenua (land).  As they flourish, die and rot they entangle he para (other rubbish and litter) thrown into me – plastic, paper, food and a shopping trolley that used to glitter but is now flaking rust. 

My view of Ranginui (the Sky Parent) is clouded by all these and other parakino (pollutants) coming from upstream.  Over the years I have received avalanches of slipped whenua, been coated by sewage spills, and have had farm and factory runoff, truck washes and stormwater emptied into me; I have even held the dead and the discarded.

I have had karakia and waerea intoned over me, pipes and drains inserted into my banks and rāhui laid on me.  I have seen my tangata whenua (people of this land) marginalised by foreign powers and prevented from exercising their kaitiakitanga (care) of me and their whaunangatanga (relationship) with me.

Each winter, every drop of water that drains from Maungataniwha, Raetea and all the awa between, passes through me.  But, with each passing summer, I have become more and more dirty and diminished.  Aue!  I am tired.  When shall I rest and be cleaned? 

In response, this is what we have to say to our wai.  Ko wai mātou?  (Who are we?)  Ko wai mātou.  (We are water.)  We are here still and, although we have yet to fully recover from our own long marginalisation, we are increasingly carrying out our kaitiakitanga and whanaungatanga with you. So, hold on, help is at hand.

It is true that hapū and iwi Māori are still doing the mahi of kaitiakitanga of their wai.  In the case of Kaitāia, the kaitiaki of Ngāi Tohianga at Ōturu Marae are working hard with everyone, including those foreign authorities that still like to think they have some power and authority over our wai.  

They are wrong about that, but they will have a role to play under the correct power and authority of the mana whenua.

In the meantime, we will continue to talk with our wai.