She had my attention the minute she opened her mouth to speak, with her eyebrows raised, joy radiating from her smile. She was here to share her family’s story. The story of her ancestors.
With our 12 day National Geographic G Adventure Tour, we explored and embraced New Zealand and her people through multiple cultural experiences earlier this year. Ena, our Māori guide on a beautiful summer day in February, drew me in with each word as she shared the Story that has been passed down generation after generation of her ancestors.
New Zealand was uninhabited by people until around 1000 years ago. There were just birds upon birds and a few species of bats. The first people arrived 300 or 400 years before the Great Migration from Hawaikii (around the 1600s) when Toi Kai ra Kau brought a group of 50 people out to sea, to explore and ultimately share information with their homeland. But he never came back, leaving these people to embrace their new life on the island, that they call Aotearoa.
As Ena passionately shared this story with us, she showed us the rock carvings that visually told their story. These carvings have been dated to 1050 AD and are not art, she says. They tell the story of her ancestors. Carvings of canoes. Long canoes. Their story of grief. Of life.
Fast forward hundreds of years. In the 1900’s, the Maori economy was booming as they had the largest planted forest in the southern hemisphere where pine trees grew twice as fast due to the volcanic soil. However in the 1960’s, the government wrongfully sold their land and trees to overseas control. Then in the 1980’s, mechanized forestry caused huge unemployment and their economy crashed, leaving them to face some pretty hard realities such as gangs, drugs, and high levels of suicide rates and abuse. Murupara was not the place you wanted to be.
“But that is changing. Change is always possible”.
-Ena
Ena stated these words with pride, as she toured us around her hometown.
We pulled up in our bus to the Kohutapu Lodge, where Nadine and her family welcomed us with smiles and open arms to their home. They had been preparing since early morning a traditional Māori lunch called a Hangi, where food is cooked for hours in the ground.
After lunch, Nadine invited us to gather around to hear more of their Story. We learned about Haka and soaked in the Māori Haka as Ena expressively shared that with us. Nadine and her husband gave up everything 9 years ago when they felt called to make a change in their community through tourism. Through the leftover Hangi meals, as buses upon buses came through to their lodge, they were able to feed over 30,000 meals to children in their community. But Covid brought them to their knees. How could they continue to make change in their community, with no tourists?
They needed to adapt. With government financial support, they developed programs to support local youth, which resulted in an 86% success rate. They now provide full academic scholarships to students, for their learning abroad and for students to come to them to learn about Māori people. Nadine shared with tears in her eyes that their family tourism experience won the top tourism award in New Zealand and the award for community engagement. Little by little, change was happening and we as tourists, played a part in making that change.
Our day with Ena came to a close when we went to go on a walk through the bush, their sacred forest. Before we walked in the forest, she said a beautiful Mihi (acknowledgement) in Māori, asking for permission for us to enter Her forest. We promised to not take or hurt anything. We were just there to look and then we would leave, leaving Her forest and inhabitants unharmed.
Walking through the forest was an experience like no other. The Forest, she inhaled and exhaled as we walked through. You could feel Her harmony. Her sacredness. To Her we gave Her our respect.
Ena, Nadine, and their family had shared with us their Story. Their collective Story. Their Story that has been told for over a thousand years.
One of our tour participants reflected how different this is compared to North American white culture. We do not know the stories of our ancestors from 1000 years ago. I barely know the stories of my grandparents. Such a loss in our culture.
Embracing Second Half Wonders 