Brave Words
It has happened a couple of times this year when I’ve been MCing an event – palpable discomfort, a resistance to the welcome I am giving in te reo Māori. If you can imagine the sound of a group of people rolling their eyes? Like that.
Nine out of ten times, it’s the opposite. Something about hearing our indigenous language settles people and often, when I acknowledge whichever iwi are mana whenua for the place we’re in, there’ll be a warm murmur of “kia ora” back – and that’s the bit that settles me.
But I know there are people distressed about the “Māorification” of Aotearoa (see what I did there?) and lately I’m aware they’re in the room.
Meanwhile, closer to home, my daughter Holly (Ngāti Ranginui and on her reo journey) has challenged me to use more kupu Māori – not just for formal events, but in conversation. I told her – and you should have seen the way her eyes rolled at this – that sometimes when I casually include words like “mahi” or “whare” in conversation or on social media I’ll be accused of “virtue signalling”.
Unfathomable from her perspective. But it’s a thing Pākehā can be nervous of, right? That we look like we’re dropping in a bit of te reo to earn a Good Girl Biscuit, for approval from “woke” friends, to make ourselves look… superior somehow?
This “virtue signal” jibe does two things – it crushingly assumes your motives are selfish and then has a chilling effect – which is it’s goal. People who describe embracing te reo Māori as “virtue signalling” would prefer less of it, and they’re hoping to put you off.
It’s hard to defend yourself without looking like you’re doubling down on the signalling of your virtue. But here goes.
I made a decision ten years ago that the first words I spoke at an event would be in te reo Māori. I did it for my mother-in-law, Kiritapu (Kitty) Wilson who died in 2014. Nanny Kitty was, like many of her generation, beaten at school for speaking her reo. Her grandchildren and children are reclaiming it, but that is a hard road of rupture and repair.
A few months after Kitty died, around the time of my first mokopuna’s first birthday, I asked Jennifer Te Atamira Ward-Lealand – much-respected Pākehā from my creative rōpū, fluent in te reo - to help me create a mihi to welcome guests, thank mana whenua, and acknowledge leaders.
Each time I speak these words, I am nervous but oddly calm. I’m nervous because I don’t want to get it wrong, look stupid, or offend anyone.
And I am calm because I do it for Kitty, bringing her memory into these fancy rooms to show her that her reo belongs there. Because there can be no place that it doesn’t belong.
Lots of us feel uncomfortable about meeting words we don’t know, and get anxious about getting stuff wrong. I lean into Te Aka Māori Dictionary, a terrific free app which gets a constant workout on my phone for translations and pronunciation guides for words and phrases I’m unsure of, and listen hard to other people.
So I will do what my daughter tells me and use the kupu Māori I have and keep adding more.
Also, I mentioned to Holly someone told me incorporating words from another language into your conversation is “appropriation” and we laughed quite hard. We have no idea what they say when they want to order sushi at the café after ballet.