Blog

I’m sitting in my office in Taranaki listening to Radio Ngati Porou on the net, pondering all those funny questions in life in no particular order or rationale.  Glenn Miller is playing and memories of Papa Len Jeep, Uncle Harold Puha and the rest of the Mongrel Gang come to mind.  Uncle Ronnie Ngata and his sax, plenty of guitars and a ukulele, and that unmistakable sound of Ngati Porou waiata in full swing, bring back memories of Te Araroa and Maraehara.  K.D. waking up thinking he was blind because someone put his patch over his good eye. Peeling spuds in the kauta and that unmistakable rattle that a crate makes, and pretending you can handle square gin. 

Kia ora ano tatau Te Wiwi Nati. Anei e whai ake nei ko etahi korero e pa ana ki te mahi pamu, i aua e tipu ake ana i te wa kainga.

At best we were a “subsistence whānau” with a small dairy farm. Initially the small herd of 14 were milked by hand and then later, when the Chambers whānau took over, by machine and hence the increase in numbers to their peak of 37. This was at Mākaraka where we also raised pigs but mainly poaka kunekune – wonderful for mīti tahu and hinu and easy to keep, as well as fowls, ducks and geese - all essential elements for our sustenance and free range existence.

A Nati whanaunga of ours owns a hen which, every morning, rain or shine, lays him an egg in his front garden.
This is all very well and good until one day the hen lays the egg in the next door neighbour's garden.
Before our cuzzy can go and get it, the neighbour runs out the door and grabs the egg.
Cuzzy yells to the neighbour, 'Bay, that's my egg.'
'How do you figure that?' asks the neighbour.
'It's my hen' says the Nati.

If you're Nati and single, watch out!  Your relations will literally drive you nuts with their well-meaning 'matchmaking' (more like pimping) efforts.  Rather than asking you what you're looking for/would like, they compile lists of 'candidates' that usually fall into three categories: Nati men (of course!); men from neighboring iwi; or men from wealthy iwi (invariably far away from the Coast).  Non-Maori men (unless they are royalty or multi-millionaires) do not even get a look in. Oh, and then there's Willie Apiata - he's on everyone's list (thank God for that Whanau a Apanui whakapapa!).

When Pāpā died, uncle Tipua came over from Waitekaha. He dispatched Maru to bring in a selection of the dairy cows – I sat on the yard and watched.

When the cows were yarded into the cowshed, uncle Tipua sent me home to get Pāpā’s single shot, shot gun. Yeah we were crack shots and only needed one bullet – no it was all we had and I guess all Pāpā could afford. It was always kept behind the back door and as I got a hold of it and the bullet belt and headed back to the cowshed, I was thinking what was going to happen when uncle Tipua found out that there was some tar up the barrel. I could remember putting it there after coming back from Ruatorea one time. The sun was so hot and Reweti and I collected some tar off the footpath and took it home.