He Whiringa Wainuku: A Weaving of Māori Genealogies in Land, Water, and Memory

Abstract

Māori conceptualisations of ancestral environs and its connections to memory often reside in the realm of whakapapa (genealogy) having originated from Papatūānuku and Ranginui (primordial ancestors and gods), their loving embrace, and their eventual separation that carved the space for nourishing lands and waters. These stories of whakapapa were passed down intergenerationally through many Māori creative expressions, including waiata (songs), haka (posture dance), pūrākau (stories), whakataukī (proverbial sayings), ruruku (sequence of incantations), and karakia (prayers). This has resulted in a genealogically and environmentally derived Māori music theory. The disruption of settler-colonialism aimed to sever whakapapa from the memory as being reflected in our ancestral environs and within the hearts of Māori. ‘He Whiringa Wainuku’ refers to the weaving of water elements on earth and sets the imagery for decolonising the interconnections of whakapapa, land, water, and memory through Kaupapa Māori methodologies and Māori creative expressions.

1. He Whiringa Taurawhiri: Introduction

This paper is positioned from a Kaupapa Māori theory and practice (Pihama 2015; Smith 1999, 2017) that illustrates my view as a wahine Māori (indigenous Māori woman) decolonising the interconnections of whakapapa (genealogy), land, water, and memory through Māori creative expressions. Māori creative expression includes Māori oral forms such as waiata (songs), haka (posture dance), pūrākau (stories), whakataukī (proverbial sayings), ruruku (sequence of incantations), karakia (prayers), and many more (Haami 2022; Ka’ai-Mahuta 2010; McRae 2017). This article explores potential ways ngā atua (primordial ancestors and beings), the environment, and our non-human relations have exemplified, taught, and enabled Māori creative expressions to retain mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) for future generations.

The title, ‘He Whiringa Wainuku’, refers to the weaving of water elements on earth emerging from the sacred wai (waters) that flowed from the separation of Papatūānuku and Ranginui (primordial ancestors and gods) (Smith 2019). Smith (2019) discusses how wai is viewed as life giving, and from this separation, is interconnected with child-birth. This title also derives from my whakapapa as being a mokopuna (grandchild) of the Whanganui River. The Whanganui River is located on the West Coast and central areas of Te Ika-a-Māui (the North Island) in Aotearoa and was given legal personhood in 2017, which reflects its life-giving properties as viewed by Whanganui Iwi (tribal nation of Whanganui) (Waitangi Tribunal 1999). The title pays tribute to the Whanganui whakataukī: ‘nga muka-a-taurawhiri-a-Hinengākau’ translating to ‘the fibre of the plaited rope of Hinengākau’. Hinengākau is one of the three custodians that maintain balance over the Whanganui River, specifically in the upper reaches. Her mother was Ruaka, the namesake of the hapū (subtribe) that I descend from (Waitangi Tribunal 1999). Wherever I have a voice, I always refer to the idea of weaving, plaiting or the act of rebinding as an honouring of tūpuna (ancestors) but also as a decolonial process in remembering and reclaiming a pathway for Māori to live more fully under continual colonial disruptions. Shilliam (2015, p. 172) provides the global colonial counterpoint to this idea of weaving or rebinding back together as a form of decolonial Indigenous healing, stating:

Colonial science has never been concerned with deep relations. It is only concerned with cutting the ties that bind for the sake of endless accumulation. Dispossession of indigenous peoples to make way for the enslavement of other peoples; extraction of life force itself (mauri ora) from out of the soil, evaporating the blood.

(Shilliam 2015, p. 172)

‘He Whiringa Wainuku’ refers to the intent of the article, which posits that our lands and waters mirror our bodies as being constituted by and from our ancestral environs as genealogical legacies. Therefore, in reverberating Kaupapa Māori actions of overcoming highly persistent trauma that affects Māori today, that if colonisation aims to sever, then healing must necessitate the act of weaving, rebinding, and ultimately healing ourselves from within (Pihama and Smith 2023; Smith 2023).

2. He Whiringa Wairangi: Kaupapa Māori Methodologies and Whakapapa

Kaupapa Māori methodologies, approaches, and frameworks are a philosophical doctrine, incorporating the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values of Māori society. Kaupapa Māori methodologies draw on mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) with a metaphysical base that is distinctly by Māori for Māori (Durie 2017; Eketone 2008; Pihama 2015; Smith 1999, 2017). Pihama (2015, p. 8) asserts that:

Mātauranga Māori is created by the use of whakapapa. Whakapapa is regarded as an analytical tool that has been employed by our people as a means to understand our world and relationships. In such a framework it appears that whakapapa is both vehicle and expression of mātauranga Māori. The assertion through whakapapa of the origins of mātauranga Māori returns us to Papatūānuku and Ranginui.

The links between whakapapa and mātauranga Māori provides a distinct Māori epistemology, which is a part of the tool kit utilised by Kaupapa Māori methodologies and practices in research (Pihama 2015). These ideas are reinforced by Roberts (2013) in discussing Māori cosmology as viewing whakapapa as philosophical and ontological where all things trace their descent from Papatūānuku and Ranginui where all things are related.

Roberts (2013) continues to discuss how whakapapa can act as an ontological and epistemological construct that is relationship based, tying humans with species, non-human phenomena, and the environment.

Both Burgess and Koroi (2024) draw on the conceptual framework, Onamata, anamata: A whakapapa perspective of Māori futurisms (Burgess and Painting 2020) to examine kai (food) practices within the context of health. Burgess and Koroi (2024) uncover learnings collated from Jackson (2015) and Mikaere (2017) surrounding whakapapa being the fabric of Māori existence that informs Māori ways of being, knowing, and doing intergenerationally. Furthermore, Burgess and Koroi (2024) reiterate how through whakapapa, everything is whanaunga, non-linear, and that Māori coexist with past, present, and future generations.

Burgess and Koroi (2024) refer to wisdom imparted by Mikaere (2011, p. 318), which emphasises the coexistence of the physical and spiritual realms when using a whakapapa lens to view the world in that Papatūānuku is atua, tupuna, and land all at once, and the same as Ranginui, emphasising that “It is not possible to regard these aspects of Ranginui as separate in time or space”.

Pihama (2015), Burgess and Koroi (2024), Mikaere (2011) as well as Jackson (2015) reveal insights into varying whakapapa conceptualisations and its foundation for Kaupapa Māori methodologies and practices that provides a link to mātauranga Māori through ngā atua and our non-human relations. Hoskins and Jones (2017, p. 49) investigated non-humanness in Kaupapa Māori research through a case study of the mataora (facial tattoo; sacred marking) belonging to Hongi Hika by contextualising this case study in posthumanist theories, asserting that “Kaupapa Māori researchers and methodologies are relatively silent on the place of the material world and human-non-human relations in the framing of research”. However, within a global frame Hoskins and Jones (2017, pp. 56–57) recognise that:

… Indigenous (Māori) ontologies assume a profound sameness and therefore have a potential sense of recognition between the abilities and sensibilities of objects and those of humans. For indigenous scholars, the struggle is to find a way to enable these ontologies to be recognised and reproduced in their academic work, and in the politics of their countries.

Kaupapa Māori methodologies have enabled specific iwi (tribal nation) and hapū reproductions of knowledge transmission to emerge, which has re-established pathways for localised knowledge (Haami 2022; Johnson 2024). This was witnessed through collaborative work with iwi and hapū, which adapted Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims) Settlement Act 2017. This research process revealed a particular form of knowledge transmission unique in its application called, kaiponu. Kaiponu refers to the idea of withholding knowledge to protect the sanctity of knowledge (Haami 2017, 2022, 2024; Johnson 2024). Johnson (2024) details how kaiponu, and specifically how Whanganui Kaiponu takes on regional forms but at its core is centred around ethically protecting localised knowledge where certain specialists within hapū maintain the knowledge. This core aspect informs the process of collaboratively devising the next steps in the transmission and accessibility of that knowledge among hapū and beyond (Johnson 2024). Tinirau et al. (2020) discusses that the challenges to kaiponu will be the shifting times, attitudes, and online technologies that increase accessibility to iwi, hapū, and whānau (family) knowledge. However, kaiponu does not have to conflict with knowledge accessibility platforms and can be adapted to provide an ethic of care around the protection of individual and collective Māori knowledge.

Based on a localised ethic of kaiponu and conceptualisations of whakapapa, these approaches can unearth potential reasons as to why non-human relationships are not explicitly explored within Kaupapa Māori research. The academic landscape may not be fit to fully understand the sanctity of non-human knowledge yet, and Kaupapa Māori researchers can deliberately exclude this knowledge as it may be meant for Māori minds and hearts only, which aligns with a kaiponu ethical frame (Haami 2017). These potential reasons pose levels of discernment for the Kaupapa Māori researcher working with mātauranga-ā-iwi (tribal knowledge) or mātauranga-ā-hapū (subtribal knowledge) within the context of harmful systems that aim to surveil or extract from Māori communities through the transference of knowledge into commodifiable data (West 2023).

Hoskins and Jones (2017) highlighted the importance of language for these ontologies and Kaupapa Māori research looks to whakapapa as a foundational interface in providing the vernacular to commune and express interactions with our non-human relations. Conceptualisations of whakapapa illustrate how everything is interconnected and all-directional, akin to a koru (coil) that expands ever outwards and is embedded in everything tangible and intangible within the world, rather than residing in strict lines of descent that can be static, separate, and colonial (Burgess and Koroi 2024; Mikaere 2017; Smith 2021). Māori creative expressions—as a practice of whakapapa—can help to navigate the discernment of knowledge transmission by forming deeper understandings between land and memory as being vital to the language required for articulating the dynamics of human and non-human relationships (Haami 2022; Waitangi Tribunal 1999).

3. He Whiringa Ngākau: Māori Conceptualisations of Memory and Music Theory

Māori conceptualisations of memory reside in the realm of whakapapa and ancestral environs having originated from Papatūānuku and Ranginui, their loving embrace, and their eventual separation that carved the space for nourishing lands and waters (Burgess and Painting 2020; Smith 2019). Smith (2019, p. 8) explains this further, stating:

Memory can be located within the human body, within the environment, within objects, within the realm of ancestors, within a mountain, within a river. Mountains and rivers can be regarded as living beings with memory. As humans we have memory but this is connected to collective memories in the present, past and to our environments. For Māori, memory recall is triggered as a human response within the ngākau… An individual carries their whakapapa with them, and is therefore always connected to the external environment, as whakapapa began with the Sky Parent, the Earth Parent and the creation of all things, human and non-human within the environment.

Smith (2019, p. 4) describes the ngākau as the “internal system, which includes the gut, stomach, central regions and organs of the human body”. While the ngākau is mostly denoted as the ‘heart’, which it still is, the ngākau also encompasses the wider central organs of the human body where rational thought is perceived as occurring, which is considered the repository of where memories and knowledge are protected (Smith 2008).

Ngākau’ is significant for conceptualising individual memory while also translating to collective memory, being referred to as ‘te ngākau o te iwi’ or ‘te ngākau o te hapū’ retained within the ‘heart of the tribe or subtribe’. (Smith 2019) Collective memories are integral for the transmission of intergenerational tribal knowledge and inform the narratives devised surrounding tribal identity and social welfare. Alongside whakapapa, tribal identity and social welfare is also dictated by whanaungatanga (familial connections and relationships between and across whānau) (Smith 2019).

Smith (2019) acknowledges the origins for the bodily designation of memory as being layered and informed by ancestors across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa. These notions are reinforced by Kānaka Maoli (indigenous and native Hawaiian) scholar, Nālani-Wilson (2010, p. 48) when discussing creation chants and songs stating:

The Kumulipo explains the genealogies of both commoners and ali‘i, our chiefs. From this creation chant the evolution of all life is explained. Life does not begin when we are born; instead, our lives are an extension of all life forms that have come before, including the plants, animals, elements of earth, sky, wind, and rain.

Matsuda (2023, p. 41) reinforces these views stating how “genealogical Pacific ties are deeply embedded not only through blood and kin, but also natural world expressions”. Smith (2019) reiterates these interconnections in Māori conceptualisations of memory, stating how karakia are used as devices to settle knowledge within the ngākau to then transform it into modes of grounded knowledge called mātau.

In helping to ground mātau, Māori creative expressions such as waiata are employed to retain vital tribal and subtribal whakapapa knowledge that is passed down intergenerationally. This has resulted in oral, poetic, and musical art forms that embody tonal, rhythmic, and mnemonic qualities, which aids in easy memorisation of important information (Haami 2022; Ka’ai-Mahuta 2010). Whakapapa is considered a significant Māori oral form all on its own (McRae 2017). However, among the breadth of all Māori oral forms, whakapapa serves as critical lyrical content that provides a foundational interface to view and engage with the world as being constituted by and from both Papatūānuku and Ranginui as they are mirrored within our bodies and ancestral lands (Haami 2022; Smith 2019). Therefore, the music theory of Māori creative expressions, particularly around oral forms such as waiata, is predicated on genealogical, intergenerational, environmental, tribal, and historiographical elements that heavily draw on mnemonic qualities (Haami 2024) to poetically ground knowledge into the ngākau, the embodied mode of memory (Ka’ai-Mahuta 2010; McRae 2017; Smith 2019).

The process for Māori creative expressions to become embodied and settled within the ngākau draws on a range of pedagogical methods (Haami 2022, 2024; Ka’ai-Mahuta 2010; McRae 2017; Smith 2019). These pedagogies can be specific to iwi and hapū customs but can also be informed by ancestral environments that shape its oral form. One example is through tuki waka, which are paddlers’ songs that enable everyone to maintain a uniform rhythm and pace while going towards their destination in a canoe. Tuki waka are typically sung while paddling:

Kei tō te ihu takoto ake	Those at the bow of the canoe dig in
Kei tō waenganui tirohia	Those amidships keep an eye on those in front
Tēnei ākina	On this beat
Rite kia rite, rite kia rite!	Stay in time, stay in time!
(Arapata cited in Wilson 2010, p. 31).

The above tuki waka was composed by Te Paea Arapata of Whanganui and singing while paddling was a normal component that contributed to the soundscape filling Māori lifeways as described by Wakefield (1845, p. 242) in Pūtiki, Whanganui stating:

A light breeze favoured the sailing one way; so that half of the canoes were under sail, and the others pulling in the opposite direction. They continued thus to alternate for two or three hours, singing as they paddled, and yelling with delight whenever an unusually large fish was hauled in.

Tuki waka—along with numerous Māori creative expressions—were both formal and informal, casual within everyday life as well as ceremonial and intentional. Māori creative expressions through waiata are multifunctional and multilayered in meaning being environmentally derived from its climate and terrain as inspiration for the composer in tone, harmony, and lyrical content (Haami 2024; Ka’ai-Mahuta 2010; McRae 2017; Waitangi Tribunal 1999). Waiata documented whakapapa; historic events; deeds of tūpuna; the mapping of environments; prenatal care; food sources; love; loss; political alliances; and was a healing tool through the transgression of tapu (sacredness) or to pull away from deep sadness (Haami 2022; Ka’ai-Mahuta 2010; McRae 2017; Smith 2019).

Whanganui elder, Māreikura (cited from Waitangi Tribunal 1999, p. 57) illustrates the significance of whakapapa as both an intergenerational and environmentally derived dimension within all Māori creative expressions by stating:

Tribal karakia and rituals, poi (song performed with ball and string) and haka all go back to the river, and to the mountains, and to the sea. We have been given the task to hold and preserve these things for our mokopuna—not for us, but for the generations yet to come.

These views are further exemplified through the learning pedagogies of the Tira Hoe Waka, which is a two weeklong wānanga (customary learning space) for descendants of Whanganui Iwi who traverse the Whanganui River by waka (canoe) and stay along Whanganui marae (ancestral meeting places in Whanganui) throughout their journey (Haami 2022). Wilson (cited in Haami 2022, pp. 166–67) reflected on how the Whanganui River forces a Māori way of learning and where the environment is both the teacher and learning space that enables Māori conceptualisations of memory to shine through, stating:

The beauty of the Tira Hoe Waka is that it’s not theoretical. Told and practice. You’re doing everything, and you’re learning by doing. Whereas too many wānanga, write notes and so, it doesn’t connect to your puku (stomach)… Cause most of it, you’re learning while you’re paddling… there’s nothing wrong with writing notes. But for a Māori mind, it’s trained to be used based on memory.

These notions from the Tira Hoe Waka around the physicality of learning while doing within the environment interconnect to parts of our whakapapa stories as Māori through our ancestors across Te Moana-nui-a-kiwa, specifically Kānaka Maoli spaces and times in the sea:

Oceanic literacy becomes a political and ethical act of taking back Kanaka history and identity through a rhythmic interaction with place: the swing of tides shuffling sand, the sharp tune of swells stacking upon each other at coastal point, the smooth sweep of clouds pulled down by the wind. Rhythms don’t just represent the ocean; they constitute it as figurative layers. Merging the body with this rhythmic sea enables a reading of the seascape’s complex habits, as well as all the memories created and knowledges learned within this oceanic time and space but have been effaced by rigid colonial constructions of identity and place.

(Ingersoll 2016, p. 129)

The learnings imparted by our ancestors across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa shape our understandings of environs and spaces as being a part of the knowledge embodiment process and help us as Māori to rebind connections to our non-human relations by drawing from their power to heal ourselves.

4. He Whiringa Hurihuri: Colonial Disruptions

Hei pounga wai hoe mai nā ō mātua	The waters displaced by the paddles of your ancestors.
(Hinerua cited in Wilson 2010, p. 27)

The above line comes from a waiata tangi (song of grief and loss) called ‘Taku Tūranga Ake’ composed by Hinerua of Ngāti Kurawhatia kī Pīpīriki. The context for the waiata tangi stems from tohu (signs) observed around the Battle of Tātaraimaka in 1820 and a call to her whanaunga (relations) of Ngā Mahanga-a-Tāiri from Taranaki (Wilson 2010). Wilson (2010) discusses how from the perspective of Hinerua and the waiata tangi, that this battle was viewed as wasteful (Wilson 2010) but it exemplified how colonisation, specifically, settler-colonialism had entered the minds and hearts of Māori at that time, thus violently disrupting Māori lifeways, whakapapa, and whanaungatanga. Smith (2017, p. 81) describes these instances as hegemony, stating:

In becoming more critically aware, Māori have been conscientised to the fact that colonisation is not just an external force. Colonisation is also perpetrated by ourselves, against ourselves… Hegemony occurs when marginalised groups take on dominant ideas as common sense, even though these ideas may, in fact, contribute to their own oppression and exploitation. Hegemonic thinking acts as a very effective way to colonise when subordinated communities colonise themselves.

In cultivating counter-hegemonic pathways, Smith (2023, p. xiii) discusses how the challenge is to begin healing ourselves through transforming our mindsets. However, Smith (2023) also a recognises that the act of healing ourselves is not just predicated on the individual attitude of oneself, but that healing the collectively detrimental social, cultural, political, and economic conditions that impacts one’s well-being is coincidingly paramount too.

This messaging sets a powerful realisation that can be activated through numerous individual and collective methods as well as actions for Māori (Smith 2023).

Burgess and Koroi (2024) proposed that one must understand settler-colonialism in all its hierarchical, stigmatising, and classification systems of both lands and bodies to be able to create alternative futurisms that extend beyond the confines of a strictly imposed white, capitalist, cis-heteropatriarchal and able-bodied society. Through the prism of kai, Burgess and Koroi (2024) drew on a range of Kaupapa Māori knowledge from interdisciplinary spaces to inform ways of healing themselves and their communities. In absorbing this view from Burgess and Koroi (2024), I looked to the ways Māori creative expressions have been eroded due to settler-colonialism in both land and body as sites of intergenerational colonial trauma. Through pūrākau, Smith (2019, p. 26) discusses how the depictions of ngā atua laid Māori understandings for navigating trauma, which was termed as ‘patu ngākau’ to refer to a deep wound that:

… is related to an event that causes shock. Pōuritanga and mamae (physical and/or emotional pain) might also describe trauma but refer more to a state of being that follows a traumatic event or shock… A trauma event can be classified as a patu ngākau, which might be translated as a strike or an assault to the heart or the source of the emotions. While the term indicates and describes a psychological event occurring within a victim, the event is generally attributed to some form of abuse toward the victim. The abuse, either physical, psychological or both, has an impact which is perceived as an assault to the ngākau, the emotional core of a person and the location for memories. Other forms of patu ngākau which might leave a victim with a feeling of internal powerlessness include natural disasters or calamities, such as earthquakes or floods. Patu ngākau was also a term often used by correspondents to the colonial government relating to land loss that accompanied colonisation.

Patu ngākau has also been recontextualised in forging Māori cultural frameworks for violence prevention and intervention by comprehensively examining colonial impacts of violence and engaging with the term as a descriptor for specifically Māori trauma on Māori bodies, lands, and waters (Pihama et al. 2023). For Māori creative expressions, specifically through waiata, patu ngākau occurred through a range of ways that damaged all foundational aspects that inform its embodiment and transmission. The settler-colonial dominance of what counts as legitimate knowledge and how this knowledge is taught are sites of struggle for Kaupapa Māori research (Smith 1999) and this is reflected in waiata analysis and pedagogies (Haami 2024). Smith et al. (2021) expanded on the connections between indigenous lands and waters as well as the legitimacy surrounding indigenous knowledge, which followed a colonial process of creating a lesser ‘other’ in order to justify disinheriting indigenous lands and cultures. Smith et al. (2021, p. 4) discussed how the racialisation and inferiority bestowed to Māori people and Māori knowledge systems, such as waiata, are challenges everyday but that Māori well-being is linked to the struggle for “for survival of Māori lands, mountains, rivers”.

Smith et al. (2021) indicated the two-fold battle of reclaiming ancestral environments and the right for Māori humanity. These two-fold racist systems are embedded within waiata study, which has historically drawn from deficit theory or victim blame analysis within ethnomusicological research of waiata. These theories have emerged conclusions that blame Māori for waiata loss occurring rather than examining the wider colonial structure instating unequal power dynamics around land confiscation and knowledge retainment (Haami 2024; McLean 1977, 1996, 2013). Furthermore, waiata study reflects the embedded systems of racism on Māori, in that “Māori will always be challenged by external discourse that seeks to render Māori inferior” (Smith et al. 2021, p. 4).

From a Whanganui Iwi perspective, Haami (2024, p. 42) drew on a range of sources to detail how colonisation has disrupted the strands that weaved waiata within all Māori lifeways and stifled the legitimacy of Māori music theories and practices as a body of knowledge stating:

… culturally appropriate approaches are not prioritised due to entrenched systems of colonial knowledge transmission. Ongoing effects of colonisation interweave with waiata in overlapping and complex ways. Urbanisation, a by-product of colonisation, forced Māori into cities for employment. English-language dominance through schooling and assimilative legislation created cultural dislocation as well as intergenerational trauma, creating barriers for Māori wishing to return to their marae (gathering place) for customary waiata learning

Kaupapa Māori literature from across diverse iwi, hapū, and marae reinforce the specific ways in which these stands of that weaved waiata within Māori lifeways became disrupted (Haami 2024; Ka’ai-Mahuta 2010; Mikaere 2011, 2019; Smith et al. 2021; Smith 1999, 2017; Tinirau et al. 2021; Walker 1990). In addition to the examples highlighted by Haami (2024), ancestral environments regarded as tūpuna were confiscated, polluted, commodified, demolished, or changed with their names rewritten into history effecting waiata compositions of customary place names (Haami 2024; Pihama 2001; Smith et al. 2021; Waitangi Tribunal 1999). From a genealogical, tribal, and historiographical view, cis-heteropatriarchal systems denied and rendered invisible the mana (prestige) of wāhine Māori (Māori women) and takatāpui (Māori non-gender confirming and LGBTQIA+ peoples) in Māori society as well as their waiata compositions and transmissions (Ka’ai-Mahuta 2010; Mikaere 2011, 2019).

In returning to the idea of patu ngākau to conceptualise Māori trauma (Pihama et al. 2023; Smith 2019), potential healing of this deep wound can arise through reconnecting to Māori creative expressions through waiata as a conscious act of reclamation. Internationally, studies show that indigenous music theories, practices, and frameworks provide a pathway for healing (Agawu 2016; Case 2021; Feld 2012; Sunderland et al. 2023; Roseman 1991) and nationally that kapa haka (Māori performing arts group) can be viewed as life-saving and enhancing (Nikora et al. 2022). However, there is limited investigation into the place of Māori creative expressions through waiata in healing trauma (Haami 2022; Gifford 2021; Smith 2019). Gifford (2021) investigated how kapa haka reconnects Māori to their identity, cultivates a sense of belongingness, and can help to highlight important political issues for rangatahi (young Māori). Haami (2024, p. 42) discussed how “waiata has transformed from its original form as a broadly accessible, joyful, leisurely activity as well as a socially integrated pedagogical aspect of all life” and this emphasises the need for alternative educational processes in normalising waiata similarly to te reo Māori (Smith 1999, 2017) while retaining respectful and ethically considered understandings of whakapapa as the basis for its existence. Internationally, Ewell (2023) dismantled entrenched colonial, racial, and cis-heteronormative aspects of what constitutes as ‘music theory’ on his influential work, On Music Theory and making music more welcoming for everyone. While Ewell (2023) focused on the American music education system at a university level, this book provides theoretical and practical learning that can be adapted for the Aotearoa context. These openings offer global perspectives as well as local emerging pathways where diverse iwi, hapū, and whānau can reimagine ways of reconnecting to Māori creative expressions that align best to their realities in both formal education spaces as well as their informal everyday lives.

5. He Whiringa Wainuku: Conclusions

He tirohanga kanohi i te awatea	The landscape is seen during the day
He kitenga wairua i te pō	Its essence is seen at night
Ehara i te mea hanga noa	Neither should be treated as separate
(Hoana Akapita cited in Wilson 2010, p. 28)

The above kōrero (discussion; sayings) derives from Hoana Akapita of Whanganui given during the Tira Hoe Waka to acknowledge the ever-present kaitiaki (supernatural guardians), which are one of the many names for Māori non-human relations that care for different environmental domains key to whakapapa (Wilson 2010). While colonisation and settler-colonialism endeavour to separate and reconfigure knowledge about our lands and our bodies as Māori, there are instances within our whakapapa that can rebind our interconnections. These examples have been handed down through various Māori creative expressions, with one being the pūrākau surrounding Papatūānuku and Ranginui in that despite their separation, their connectivity is reflected through our non-human relations and Māori today as we all are their descendants and mokopuna. In dreaming of futures that lie beyond, Hoana Akapita reminds us that our non-human relations provide pathways to think critically about the world and can inform how we conceptualise whakapapa as ties to our identities, lands, and waters.

The offerings within this paper weave back Māori conceptualisations of whakapapa and memory as embodied modes of knowledge residing within the land and the body as it relates to ngā atua and our non-human relations while paying tribute to our links across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa. These feed into ways to commune with our lands and bodies through Māori creative expressions, specifically through waiata and tuki waka. The paper addressed the intricacies of colonisation and settler-colonialism that continually disrupts our ability as Māori to reconnect and commune with our customary knowledge forms including our distinct Māori musical theories illustrated through Māori creative expressions. Through these discussions, the pasts of our ancestors, the present moment, and alternative futures are explored to remind Māori that they can heal themselves through different pathways of reconnection.