Whanaungatanga – Relationship, Kinship
Trying to Define the Enormity
Within & Without It
Wha nau nga ta nga
(Far Know nga Tar nga)
Kea: a colorful native parrot of Aotearoa, New Zealand. In our language Kea can be used in either context, singular or plural.
Dear Ones, it has been hard to bring the images I required from out of the Ether for this writing. For it has been taught that in the formal protocol process of the old teachings, one cannot just go out and randomly, without asking permission, pull the most colorful feather from the tail of the Kea (Key-ar, rhymes with the word “dear”), our beloved mountain parrot. Further, the students of the teachings learn that, if they were allowed, they would not be able to claim that the feather they had taken was the most beautiful prize they had ever laid eyes on.
For, to whom in the end would be the gain or the loss? Would it be the thief who took it upon himself to carry around an incredible image of the rainbow on his breast as a badge of honor?
And what about the gorgeous parrot? Through no fault of its own, other than the beauty Nature has adorned it with, the bird has had one part of its critical steering rudder stolen, while gaining a sad never-to-be-forgotten teaching that in his natural inquisitiveness, he has to be more measured in his outreaching and sharings. Especially, it appears, with these two-legged newcomers. For time after time, he has always felt a searing pain of loss when he has innocently put his faith in these strangers.
So, to protect himself and his family from these sharp unpleasant experiences with these intruders to his mountainous home, Kea must simply seek shelter even higher up the mountain. It is there he hopes they will all find sanctuary from those who would willingly hurt him and his kind, especially the younger, innocent generations.
But, alas, time after time, because of his beauty he and his flock continue to be pursued. So higher and higher the birds fly further up the slopes. Inevitably though, every mountain is only so high and the interdependent life systems that are all reliant on the wellbeing of the mountain start noticing the new imbalances and are alarmed at their own impending fragility.
Systems that have taken for granted, or have not been made aware of their whakapapa or genealogical linkage with the mountain (in this instance), will in the end fail. For everything and everyone has a common source/ancestor and are related, for everything is merely an appendage off of the same natural source, or the same bodily limb. We are all being suckled and nourished from that One (call it what you want) Divinity/Mystery.
Turning a blind eye to one’s narrow perspective of the “ugliness” aspect of life, while only worshipping the rainbow beauty of “its” wonder, has never been a flaw in societies like the Kea that have lived faithfully in harmony with the Nature. With the truth of the situation sadly acknowledged, the mountain whispers its concerns to the Kea Elders – who in turn, listen reverently.
If one is attuned to the natural vibration and the rhythm of the “universal voice” one not only sees the beauty of Kea, one also sees the genealogical lineage/linkage of the bird to the entirety of the mountain, which includes the two-legged – the only member who has stepped away from it.
For it is only with the deepest of reverence can one discern the music within the pitter-pattering of water-crystals that warm the heart of the Kea taking droplets of refreshment from the most favorite of her mountain-springs.
That is the definition of Whanaungatanga.
So, on a still day in the brittle chill of their beloved ancient mountain retreat high above the cloud line, where their nation of parrots now live, trying their very best to adapt. A circumstance far beyond what their natural inclinations for survival would ordinarily have accepted.
But what else could they do; this was the only home they knew? In si-tu, one doesn’t just up and leave because you’re unhappy with the situation. In the olde understandings, the same applies with the land. One doesn’t migrate unless one is directed to explicitly, and that had not happened YET!
It was at this point that the wise council of the Kea met to discuss their plight.
Usually, before every meeting began, Kea families were required by their strict governing Lore to open with a traditional group song which they loved to do anyhow, meeting or not. Wherever Kea happened to be ensconced, throughout the mountainous ranges, they were renowned for their raucous singing.
But the assorted groups of neighborly folks had all done their calculations, and when asked: “What would they choose, the singing to stop, or the loss of beautiful colors flying overhead?” the immediate answers were always the same, “Let our skies be forever filled with the rainbows!”
However, on this occasion, a young, pale green and orangey-reddish immature parrot, “A troublemaker in the making, if ever there was one,” the Nation’s Seer fondly commented at his birth. “Yes, the moment his damn, lovable little head popped out of his shell,” the Old Ones all opined in agreement.
On behalf of the younger ones present, Willy, named after a renegade ancestor from another mountain across the sea, spoke up and told the wizened ones in no uncertain terms that they should immediately stop this ridiculous “peaceful crap” talk of not hurting anything or anyone immediately, and that they, the young ones, would be recommending to all the old washed up, scaredy cats among them, to retire from the council and go find someplace else to live.
As for them, the young cocks, they were going to recommend to the nation that everyone over 6 weeks of age, girls, boys, teenagers, and everyone else capable of flying, even those that had some type of disability, would have to report immediately to the chief-filer-in-charge to have their beaks and claws sharpened. Then, a declaration of war would be made on all two-leggeds who trespassed onto the mountain without permission from a new and emboldened, younger Kea council. The Elders, their eyes closed, just nodded their balding heads sagely. This almost-featherless head status was a subtle notice to the Kea clan, to the youngsters in particular, of a merit award, a badge of honor of how those Elders, to date, had overcome all the challenges of life. That Elder was enjoying the “peacemaker’s fight,” the “good fight,” the battle with life by simply submitting to it.
That is why Eldership is so respected in the Kea family.
Muttering to themselves as all Kea do while thinking deeply, the Elders, their eyes still closed, waited patiently for the youngster to regain his breath as the poor little fellow – chest heaving expansively – had completely exhausted himself with his quaint, juvenile squawking.
But they had to admit to themselves, the little rascal did have a point!
If they were to be banished, where could they go? This mountain represented their beloved ancient tupuna, the most ancient of ancestors, and for as long as the oldest members of their families could remember, this was where they had always lived.
All the sacred bones and colorful feathers of their ancestors since time began were lodged in the crannies and nooks of the deep caves scattered around the mountain where they’d all flown on their final flights home. How could they possibly leave those treasures behind unprotected?
Every Elder knew everything there was to know about this mountain – everything. If they left, who would be left to teach the youngsters the knowledge about their living, breathing mountain?
They knew the names, numbers, and members of each and every one of those diverse families that were being nourished on this, their beloved mountain. At any one time, as one of their own, they looked out for every living being, seen and unseen, by adhering to the One Lore that governed them all.
They even knew the name and purpose of every essential and non-essential trace element that was the thriving, beating heart within this singular stone monolith among the range of others, that was their ancient mountain sanctuary.
Whanaungatanga or Everyone and Everything is Related. We each are a building block for each other. Failure to adhere to this simple principle will ensure we all will become a concertina of stumbling blocks to each other’s swift demise and eventual fall from the mountain.
Now, they were all being told to leave; their time had arrived to go find a new mountain, a new homeland, where, maybe, the air was light and fresh and the mountainside would be covered in succulent berry trees and they would all be able to live in peace, comfort, and safety; as they had once been able to on this beloved mountain before those strangers had arrived and brought the suffocation of their presence and the stabbing pain.
Authentic indigenous wisdoms, generally, could well be considered in the same category as the Kea, for time and again the sweet nectar of simple truths found in these allegories has, in our experience in Aotearoa, New Zealand, been compared to the rainbow-colored feathers of the friendly mountain parrot. No one feather is more colorful than the others. Every exquisite feather has its place in making the Kea the beautiful bird that it is.
It has been seen that people fall hopelessly in love with a simple truth, because it fills that unquenchable, mystical part of the human frame that was left incomplete when the cosmic design was being constructed in the very beginning of time.
Then, too, must those who have been entrusted with the custodianship of the remnant oral stories ponder how best to ensure that the vibrancy of their priceless whisperings don’t get incorporated into the swirling maelstrom calamity being roused by the armies of modern day charlatanism, subtly disguised behind all its dress-ups, masks, and respectability.
It is a sacred experience to share, to be present and witness how valuable the gem of a truth is; when realization occurs in an instant by an individual and how an application of change will make an enormous difference in his or her everyday life experience moving forward.
My mother’s mother was the 1st born child of a renowned Rangatira. There was no word for chief in our language, so when the English arrived in the early 1700’s and saw how the role of the dominant male played in tribal life they termed his role as Chief and immediately assumed him to be the person to go to, to get things done.
Unbeknown to those fearless, intrepid travelers from across the ocean, the real “chief” for the locals remained the granny who sat in the shade of the Marae with her fellow grannies watching their mokopuna (grand and/or great grandchildren) playing games.
Quietly watching the newcomers as well.
But those Elders, especially the Grannies, would take each of us on walks for miles and miles and miles in Silence.
As I was saying, Brother, each story represents a feather of the Kea and each feather has its designated function on the versatility of the bird, as does the story have on how it might be applied going forward by its reader – the student.
In Lore, we have to always crawl so we don’t lose sight of the importance and danger of the little things, like the tip atop the mountain that spits fire and the one atop an ice-burg that cuts through steel.
Or the almost invisible one of today, covid19, that is cutting through our self-imposed differences and distinctions.
That is why, my brothers, I have struggled to write this story; for there wasn’t the usual flow of lesson learned in the Lore in the traditional way. But I love and trust you both so much to trust the integrity of your request, Brother.
Your search for meaning to this word Whanaungatanga.
The Underlying principle under which this particular writing is composed is the Ancient Waitaha (Water Carriers) teachings that taught their students that every individual holds a sacred relationship to everyone and everything else.
Whanaungatanga – Relationship, a Kinship to all Things
As human beings, we are all part and parcel of the whirling, swirling merry-go-round of debates and contra responses; and we were told that, when in discussion we ensure to always sit with openness. To always have an open heart and be mindful of another’s opinion, for everyone had a right to have a point of view aired and to be heard in a respectful setting.
Everyone, the Elders espoused, also had the right to be right and even yourself, if given an opportunity, to somehow find the immense courage in that moment that you would absolutely demand from another, to change course midstream, instead of shamelessly guiding your canoe of a flailing argument against the undeniable current of a raging truth.
Whanaungatanga – Bowing before the Light of another
My grandmother teachers would always remind their students that when you spoke a simple truth, it didn’t take a book full of words to relay; and the beauty was, truth telling always makes for short sentences. Be watchful though, those grannies would add, and discern carefully, between those with something important to share and those with nothing to say after spending a day sharing it.
And yet, the question deliberated on in quiet tones by mostly forgotten, nature-driven communities (with far more different histories and measuring sticks then the European model has been): “Does western science define and measure everything equally? Or are there taboo areas that conflict with aspects of their investigations, and has that in anyway delayed their progress?”
More and more a trickling has begun to be heard of references made of another collective group of wind-scattered peoples who were adherents of another form of inquiry.
Who were these groups of wondering eclectic societies and what was that inquiry called?
Indigenous Societies – 1st Nations and their points of reference were called Lore, Ancient Wisdom!
Lore: orally transmitted knowledge of a tribal people’s lived history. Every life experience bound together as an unadulterated oral recitation of a particular tribe’s entire journey, reaching backward into their histories and mysteries across the vastness of time.
Including their incredible interconnectedness with the star-studded homelands.
Each Nation’s heritage can be estimated by drawings done by their original ancestors that still remain in secure locations showing relationships with a worldwide network of human relationships, as well as inter-relationships with their Stellar Manuhiri, or Celestial Visitors.
Specific categories of information stored away in their two-legged librarians’ encyclopedic minds. Only able to be accessed when the appropriate “passwords” karakia-prayers have been uttered by the Tohunga-Priest.
Each generation’s information added to the previous ancestors’ stories and passed down through the blood lineage to selected members of the tribe. The next to follow never knew who they were until they heard the implanted mind song and the world within them changed forever more.
Indigenous peoples they were, older than old. They who had been living ramshackle lives compared to the host of their other unshackled brethren. Living naturally alongside rather than outside of Nature; from this advantage point they were rewarded a perspective that gave them an understanding of Nature’s calamity, tragedy, horror, neutrality, and, most of all, Her incredible wonder fest of magic.
The almost…for it, as some suggest there is no God or Goddess, who then is responsible for Miracles? Is it Nature?
In living with Nature, one quickly discerns there are never problems to solve, simply challenges to understand. Not to see the issue as being an external one to be “fixed up.” Rather, they were taught to correct one’s own perspective of how they saw things and then modify their conscious awareness to fit in with the greater pattern of life’s community, which included the array of two-leggeds.
Nature doesn’t know what a problem is. Her system wasn’t a perfect one; it was simply a workable one, as it had been since the very beginning. All this attuned synchronicity and harmony until it became compromised by the behavior of humans who believed that they had the wherewithal to become their own masters and mistresses by simply stepping out of the Sacred Circle of Union.
Whanaungatanga – Relationship – Kinship
The belief of our Indigenous People, Waitaha, was a practice of applying the teachings being taught while living “fully immersed” in the classroom of one of a multiple number of teachers called Natural Phenomena.
Nature was the Head Mistress of this school and She thereby dictated that all Matriarchal lessons would be based on the teachings we knew so well, Marama, The Moon.
We knew so well because the information that had already been garnered from ages past had been complied into verses of what is now called Purakau, or Storytelling.
Individuals don’t ever qualify in this classroom; in fact individualism is anathema to this particular model. Instead, they merely pass those solutions to issues that were successful for them onto the following class (generation) and “earmark” all those “outstanding issues” that still required further observation, contemplation, and resolution.
In this classroom, solving an issue wasn’t the problem; having it open for discussion was. It could take decades to solve an issue. In short, the answer wasn’t a requirement; what was of the most importance was the process.
Each person representing one stitch in the one generational strand in the flaxen cloak being woven (metaphorically) for whichever following generation saw the completion of the woven garment, or in Christian terms, viewed the glory of Eden.
We are all each other’s sacred relation. I state this for the mere fact that nowhere else in the cosmos, to date, is it possible for the human species to survive anywhere else.
This is the founding principle of our ancient people.
Whanaungatanga.
A union of Relationship through Kinship – with everything!
Further, love doesn’t enter our lexicon to the degree it does in Western and Eastern systems of belief. Rather, our one and only tenet is Rongomaraeroa, PEACE, and just as important, UNION; in fact, because our people are a Matriarchy, that is the name of our singular Goddess as well, Rongomaraeroa.
Mother Earth (Papatuanuku) we, are the present beneficiaries of all our past ancestors’ unique and mostly frail human behaviors.
As happens in all families, we are all dependent on each other, and therefore responsible for one another.
Whanaungatanga
As students of the Ancient Lores of Waitaha, we were taught we had to have hearts like the resolute whale; for others would enter uninvited into his house and unashamedly leave their litter behind, and a time would come where there would be a race between the litterers being inculcated into a higher awareness of their shameful recklessness or the collapse of the whale’s ramshackle home – which would come first?
Whanaungatanga
We were encouraged to develop minds like the Matakite (Seers, Dreamers) and to never stop imagining a world over-populated by storytellers, poets, songbirds, dancers, orators, and the best you could possibly be at all times; interspersed with the balm of ordinariness, spiced with the nectar of silence. Where privilege and presumption had finally become relics of an ancient past – scribbled graffiti on the walls of caves.
We were taught that everyone and everything are temporary, fragile gifts to be handled with care, some waiting to be given and others still waiting to be received.
Whanaungatanga can be best described as a spring trickling from its source, The Mountain. The pure spring water filled with its pure contents of raw mountain and earth then runs off and finds a meandering stream where it finds life, teeming. With these new passengers aboard the spring-water, now incapable of being discerned biologically from the stream family, marries into the river.
Whanaungatanga
If only the River had a voice, humanity might then finally understand. Sadly, all it has is the abstract picture that it constructs for the human family within itself, with the only tools at its disposal: the human recklessness of raw sewage and waste. And it uses its entirety upon which to assemble its horrific scream. The River’s art is called “I Forgive You”.
Whanaungatanga
And finally, the Ocean; all the contents of all the riverways are spewed out into the oceans and all her children are left to suffer in silence…
And woe is us.
With all my Love,
Raymond TeKorako Ruka