Gathering and Processing Uku
Nā Alex Tūkariri-Wong
Ka tangi te titi, ka tangi te kaka, ka tangi ahau hoki, tīhei mauri ora.
Tū ana au ki te tihi tapu o Maunga Emiemi, ka huri whakararo taku mata ki te awa o Kāeo, ka rere te awa Kāeo ki te whanga, ko Whangaroa!
Ko Whangaroa te ingoa o te takiwā hoki. Ko te nuinga o te whenua kei kōnei, ko te tinana o Hineukurangi, ka kite koe i te tini o ngā tae o tāna tinana, kōkōwai, kōwhai.
I want to mihi the atua of the work myself, Kauae Raro all of you and are blessed to work with. Papatūānuku, whose child was Hine-tūpari-maunga, the female atua of mountains, who gave birth to Parawhenuamea, the female atua of all waters and lastly Hine-ukurangi the great grandchild of Hine-tūparimaunga who embodies clays. It's interesting to reflect on the fact that all of these atua are wāhine, as the popular narrative is that the vast majority of atua Māori are tāne. Perhaps this relates to the sense of grounding, or balancing that often comes with working with uku. I also mihi to my friend Jess Nicholson, who I exchanged untold amounts of voice messages (the superior message) with, around every aspect of uku, pottery and everything else over the time of Hine-raumati, Richard Beauchamp and Karla Marie, who have always been free for a quick call.
Kia ora e te whānau, I’m a ringauku from Whangaroa whose passion is working with uku and natural pigments. This purpose of this pānui is to shed some light and contribute to the kōrero on the tikanga of collecting and processing uku, and to pose some patai on the ethics of collecting, as Māori and Pākehā within the context of a Landback movement. You might have already came across these kinds of questions on Kauae Raro’s posts on IG. What is your relationship to the whenua, iwi, hapū, marae and whanau where you’re collecting from, and as pākeha what are some of the things to reflect on as tangata tiriti?
Gathering uku started for me in late 2021 in the far north, specifically Maunga Emiemi, about 30 meters out the sliding door of the whare I grew up in. Maunga Emiemi is a long extinct volcanic hill, with a handsome head of rock and gentle slopes of uku, clothed in a mix of old totara, matai, puriri and regenerating natives. It looks out over Whangaroa and various marae, Pupuke being the closest one and one that I whakapapa to. I’ve heard that it was named Emiemi, as it used to be the spot to collect emiemi, a tree similar to tī kōuka that was used for weaving kākahu. Other people remember it as Maunga mimi, after the various streams and springs that come out from it.
After wanting to learn how to do pottery for a long time in Te Whanganui a Tara but facing some barriers with membership of the community club being closed and beginner classes full I went home to Whangaroa in Te Tai Tokerau for a break from te piki tāone of Te Whanganui a-Tara. Mainly for a break and to see if I could find some inspiration. Along the way I had some interventions from tūpuna, including the most wholesome purchase of my life thus far. A wheel from a kui in Taranaki who happened to be a whanaunga from Ngāpuhi, but over on the Hokianga side. Later, I found an old tome of a book for living on communes in the 60’s with matauranga on using uku and building a umu uku from the whenua.
The tikanga I will share is based on my understanding of te ao māori, matauranga from my friends and fellow ringauku, kaumātua, pukapuka, aunty google and best kaiako you can hope for, learning through doing.
I myself have incorporated a fair amount of tikanga from various ringatoi and kaimahi from the Kauae Raro whānau into my mahi and I in turn encourage you to engage with the matauranga on the rest of their site. Sian Montgomery-Neutze’s piece on gathering Earth Pigment (for Māori) in particular is relevant to our work here and confers a wide range of tikanga and do’s and dont’s that are poignant and helpful.
TIKANGA / PROCESSING UKU
First of all and it might seem obvious, but not all uku is the same. In areas that aren’t normally uku rich, you’re likely to find it closer to an awa. In areas such as Ōtaki, you might find it in the river itself. Often the way to find uku is to ask your kaumātua. I found uku in Ōtaki after hearing stories from kaumātua about them diving for uku in the Waitohi river back in the rā. I think to throw at each other as tamariki.
One of the most helpful tests you can do is get a bit of uku, wet it till its a playdough like consistency, and roll it into a snake about the thickness of your pinky. Try wrap it around your finger a couple of times, if it cracks and doesn't stay together it might not have enough uku, or plasticity to be used to be useful for making, but could still be used for pigment, or etahi atu mahi. If it stays together, then on to the next stage. I'd suggest collecting at this stage no more than a clump no bigger than 2 fists, or roughly a kilogram. If it works, then you can potentially get more, but if it doesn’t you’ve disturbed whenua for no real reason and that amount of uku (or ‘oneone’, as if it doesnt have the plasticity required it might be closer to earth in definition) is enough for a huge amount for pigment.
There’s a joke within the ringauku world that working with uku is basically wetting the dry uku, drying the wet uku, wetting the dry uku again, then drying the wet uku again and so on. Don't get it twisted, this is the universal truth of uku no matter which way you look at it.
Now that you’ve got your uku, the next step is to make a thin slurry so you can pass it through a sieve. To do this you’ll likely need to break it into little chunks and dry it out completely till it’s bone-dry. It’s unlikely that its already dry from the ground, as uku once slightly wet likes to stay that way. Once dry, cover with water like you would a pot of potatoes and wait for at least 24 hours.
Now it should be soft enough to mix up till its somewhat smooth. Use your hands, a paddle, (or if you’re onto it a paint mixer on a drill is the real hero). It should be the consistency of runny custard but will probably have roots, rocks and other debris in it, which is what the sieve is for. We will call it a slurry now, or slip.
I made a sieve out of insect mesh from Mitre10, the mesh was approximately 1.2mm x 1.3mm and that seems to work fine. I’ve seen other people use two different size sieves for this stage but i’ve never needed too. A section of the mesh was then stapled to a simple square wooden frame that was sized to fit over a 40L bucket.
With the slurry now made, I gradually pour it through the sieve into a bucket below big enough to comfortably take all the uku. I find it necessary to agitate the slurry accumulating in the sieve throughout this and every now and again remove the debris. Depending on the quality of the uku collected, there may be minimal waste. I am typically left with a fist full of paru left over from a 20L bucket of uku.
Now I pour the sieved slurry onto a board, now I use homemade plaster boards, which really efficiently remove moisture from the slurry. You can use a sheet of plywood, or any clean surface that you will be able to scrape the uku clean from as it dries. Leaving it as even as possible without it pouring off the sides. On plywood, it can take up to 2 weeks to dry properly, and efforts to speed this up can be troublesome. Leaving it in the baking sun will often result in inconsistent drying, this can usually be resolved with vigorous wedging but its best avoided. On a plaster board it takes between 24-48 hours and is much easier to keep an eye on.
I’ll check it every 6-12 hours, as you don’t want to overdry it if you can avoid it. If you do overdry it, you need to re-add water back to the uku in wedging. Now the uku should be free of toka, pakiaka and whatever else might cause issues later in making.
KAITIAKITANGA / HOW DO WE THINK ABOUT TIKANGA AND APPROPRIATE GATHERING OF UKU?
These are the processes I’ve learned preparing uku for my work. You could say I’m lucky but I’d say that it’s tika that I began this work on my tūrangawaewae, within view of my marae. However many Māori live outside of their ancestral takiwā, and tangata tiriti are many miles away from theirs. So where does this leave us, when it comes to collecting and working with uku?
Its arguably much simpler for Māori. Mihi to the appropriate atua, don’t take more than you need to work with, and keep future generations in mind. If your work deprives your mokopuna, or the mokopuna of your mokopuna of a livelihood and the opportunity to work with uku, you’re probably not upholding tikanga.
For tangata tiriti, its a bit more complex and I’d like to encourage discussion and reflection on your role in kaitiakitanga and being allies for Māori. Perhaps the most important thing is to listen, accept uncomfortable spaces and conversations and understand that you may not get exactly what it is you wanted. My sense is that collectively we are moving past the idea, especially in the space of toi, of extraction without thought and only for our own benefit. In a very real way, to collect uku is to take land, and if you’re taking it to sell products, you’re making money from the extraction of Māori land. Regardless of who owns it, if it’s land in Aotearoa, its Māori land. One friend (tangata tiriti) has refused to collect uku as he was uncomfortable with doing so without an understanding of tikanga, and we had some similar ideas on practices in which to approach this.
A way in which I’m doing this as someone who is collecting uku from the whenua o Ngāti Raukawa ki Tonga, is to tākoha a taonga I’ve made to the iwi. Additionally I am working to share my knowledge with descendants of the Ngāti Raukawa ki Tonga and Ngāti Toa, with the hope that this gets passed through the iwi so that can engage with their whenua, and share in the experience from working with uku that I do. Even though I’m Māori and have some connections to this whenua, let’s be honest, I’m from the Naughty North and I’m manuhiri here and I’ve got no place in taking uku without giving back.
Pared back, it might be understood simply as: respect the whenua, share your matauranga with local hapū and add to their skills. When, or if you leave, the mana whenua should be richer for your presence there. This intention can be practiced in many ways, and all of us will have different ideas on how to do this. Some who have more money but less time might consider giving koha of putea to marae, while others who are time rich might consider giving taonga, time or skills to them. Ultimately through this, all parties have the opportunity to benefit and grow.
When, or if I ever leave Ōtaki, there should be a number of people from Ngāti Raukawa and/or Ngāti Toa that have a relationship with uku and can work independently of me and can teach others within their rohe if they so choose to. That’s the kind of community of ringatoi, ringauku that I'm interested in being part of and one that I hope to see people, regardless of whakapapa practicing. We’re all blessed to be able to work with uku, and if done with aroha, respect and in a tika way, each interaction with Hine-ukurangi is a mihi to her. The fruits of that kind of relationship are of a sweetness unrivaled.
