Tēnā koe e hoa,

[Hello, my friend]

Tēnā whakatau mai, haramai ki taku taha.

[Come over here, sit by me]

Ko wai koe?

[Who are you?]

Nō hea koe?

[Where are you from?]

Hmm, kia ora.

Whakarongo ki ngā manu e kōrerorero mai ana.

[Listen to the birds chattering away]

Whakarongo ki te awa e pīpī atu. 

[Listen to the river floating downstream]

I sing of earth that crumbles

I sing of earth unscattered

I sing of earth hot and scorched 

And earth washed out to sea

And deep in Te Urewera, 

Where the wind cries like howling dogs

And the ngāngara are fat and undisturbed

I sing of earth that will take me once again

Tōku tūrangawaewae 

My resting place

Welcome to the homeland, to Te Urewera. Not bad here eh. This place, this whenua, is my beginning and my end. It is inseparable from my people, Ngāi Tūhoe. See those mountains up there, they raised us, raised me, just as much as my whānau did. I love how lush that ngahere is, that rich dark green. When we’re driving up our dusty gravel roads, I sit on the back of the truck and follow those ridges with my eyes.

I’m always drawn to the rākau kaumātua, the big trees that stick out of a green mass. I always wonder how many generations in my whakapapa have looked at those very same trees. 

And that awa right there, that’s where we wash in the summertime. Or chase the fat cockabullies that hide behind the stones. 

Te Urewera is my school, Te Urewera is my church, Te Urewera is the folding earth from which I originate, Te Urewera is my pātaka kai. Well, I say that, I skipped the hunter-gatherer lessons. Ah, Pak n Save is actually my pātaka kai. But anyway, I’m working on that. Even if you can’t hunt, and don’t know which plants to harvest for kai or for healing, Te Urewera can feed you in other ways.  

Nei rā tētahi waiata koroua nō roto o Ngāi Tūhoe. Nā Mihi-ki-te-kapua i tito.

[Here’s a waiata koroua from Ngāi Tūhoe. It was composed by Mihi-ki-te-kapua.]

Taku rākau e

Tau rawa ki te whare

Ka ngaro a Takahi e

Te whare o te kahikatoa

Hei ngau whakapae

He whakapae ururoa e hau mai nei

Kei waho kei te moana

Kāore aku mihi e

Aku tangi mō koutou

Mau puku ko te iwi

Ka mō wai tonu te whenua

E takoto nei

When I hear this waiata koroua, suddenly I’m six years old again, climbing up in to the whare mate at a tangi, following with very precise movements the footsteps of my mum, or whichever aunty is in front of me. 

When you went to tangi, did all your nannies make you kiss the tūpāpaku too? The person lying in the coffin? Even if you had no idea who they were? 

My nannies did, their bony fingers digging in to the fat of my arm as they gripped me closer. A pretty traumatising experience at the time. But I think I understand it now.

Or that thing! You know, the pōhiris on, the ātea filled with the karanga and soft wailing of women. To this day, the experience still brings goosebumps to my skin every time. Those kuia, they are our puna roimata, the guides of our grief, the wellsprings of matemateāone. And we make our way across wet grass to our seats. 

And then! The second the whaikōrero are finished, and everyone gets up to harirū, suddenly the air snaps, tension broken by an inappropriate joke, or the dirtiest of innuendos. 

All the air is warm again and filled with laughter. Grief carried in to te ao mārama, the world of light.

As a kid, I always wondered if it was all a performance. But again, that’s matemateāone I think.

Oh e hoa, but I haven’t even told you what matemateāone is! Oh my gosh, sorry, my bad. Here. The billy’s hot. You pour us a kaputī, and I’ll try my best to explain. 

Now as you know, with any Māori stories, there are a minimum of 500 versions of that story, all of them true. But this kupu matemateāone comes from here, from Tūhoe. This is one version of the origin story that was told to Rangi Mataamua, by our koroua Pou Temara.

Tēnā whakarongo mai.

[Come, listen in]

Ka tono a Maui ki tana kuia, "E kui, te taonga i a koe na, homai ki a au kia ora ai te tangata."


Maui asked of his grandmother, "Grandmother, the taonga that you have, give it to me so that humankind will live forever.

Ka whakahokia e te kuia ra, "Kao"

The old lady responded, "No." 

"A tena e koe, me matemate-a-tau te tangata". 

"Well then, let humankind die as the year turns.”

"Kao".

The kuia says "No" again.

“A e kui, me matemate-a-marama te tangata, kia pera i te marama" 

"Well then, let humankind die as the moon changes."

And this is what the kuia said back to him.

"Kao, ka whakamatea e au te tangata i te ao, i te po, kia tangi ai koutou ki o koutou mate, kia matemate-ā-one ai”

"No. I will bring death to humankind in darkness and in light, so that you will lament for your dead, and thus relate through matemate-ā-one, grieving, with each other.”

[Reference: Pages 21-22 of Ngā Taonga o Te Urewera by Ngahuia Te Awekotuku and Linda Waimarie Nikora]

So that’s what I mean when I say that a kuia wailing in the whare mate is matemateāone. And when we go to tangi, even if we didn’t personally know the person, that is matemateāone. The laughter in the moments after a pōhiri is matemateāone. 

See one of the ways that I would describe this word is the deep regard for connection, in shared humanity, and with the whenua. The origins here are born in dirt and death. Living and dying by the land, and by people. It’s āhuatanga is uniquely Tūhoe. For our bonds are joined in each other and in the Te Urewera which we call home. Matemateāone is the heart that yearns for this place. For our mountains and our rivers.

It’s the feeling I get when I reach Matahi Valley Road, and the valley bleeds skyward in to Maungapōhatu, a hazy blue lump in the distance watching over us all.

It’s sound of Tūhoe reo, in a busy room. When I hear it I’m instantly called home.

It’s the kererū I see on a power pole when I’m away in the city. And the way my mouth waters when I see it.

One of my aunties describes matemateāone like a feeling of being wrapped and cocooned by the earth or being in a spell. 

She said,

“It is like being privy to the yearning that Ranginui, [the sky father,] feels for Papatuanuku, [the earth mother,] from whom he is eternally separated.”

[Reference: Cynthia Turuwhenua on pages 43-45 of the book Tūhoe: Portrait of a Nation]

And one of uncles talked about his nanny, sitting in the dirt, sorting potatoes. He said:

Sometimes she would just start wailing. Later we would get a telephone call to say someone had died. We would ask, “How did you know that? How did you know someone had passed?” It was the matemateaone, the sensitivity. She got the news long before we did.”

[Reference: Clifford Akuhata on page 42 of the book Tūhoe: Portrait of a Nation]

There’s a little urupā on a small cliff in Ruatāhuna. Just above my marae. Our kōhatu spend winter in frost and wet wind - and on special occasions, a shallow layer of snow. But in the summertime, you leave tiny clouds in your footsteps as you take the path from road to gate.

The earth there is clay and dry pumice. I make the journey as often as I can deep in to Te Urewera, along those dusty gravel roads to see my pāpā who’s buried there, to clear weeds and reorganise the pile of stones I laid down a few years ago. I take the time to wander along rows of people I knew and people I didn’t. I find great peace in the idea that this might be my resting place too.

I remember one afternoon, tidying the urupā with one of my whanaunga. I asked him what this word matemateāone meant. He described it as the act of driving along the road and visiting every house along the way. Every doorway entered, every packet of biscuits consumed an act of deepening whanaungatanga, and deepening the bonds of our connection.

And when I sit with my sister at her kitchen table, over a kaputī and biscuits she tells me about her childhood. Her nanny and koro picking her up, and on their way out of the valley, picking up whichever kids are hanging out near the road. 

They would head out to Te Ahiaua, or one of the places to kohi pipi and other kaimoana. They would make their way home with fat sacks full of kai.

And as they make their way back down the home roads, much like the school bus, they would stop every few houses to let another kid out of the van, sending them running back in to their houses with arms full of kai.

And as my sister puts it, by the time they got home, there were barely any pipis left!!!

And that my friend, is another way to think about matemateāone. Feeding the people, looking after your community. 

This is the warmest feeling, and something that nourishes my heart.

 Are your ears tired yet? Let’s just lay here for a bit eh. 

You and I were born of earth 

Matemateāone, it speaks to me.

Our bond is wide, it is earth planted in kūmara in late summer. My pāpā used to eat it raw from the garden.

Our bond is deep, it is fat eels that watch from little coves when you splash your face at the awa.

Our bond winds, through tree and bush and spluttering stream to the top of a maunga. And in the corner, the place where a whare once stood. Lay down here on these banks, be with our tīpuna a minute.

Our bond is the dying 3am fire, and hot salted lamb. Our bond is hupe nose children, and the clearing of a throat about to speak, and the feeling you get in early evening when you’re driving down the road and you spot the lights on in your whānau home. 

Our bond is the tiny birds that my kuia used to catch with nimble

 hands, and the tiny birds that send me messages in the afternoon. 

i will live and die a thousand times and still be of this land.

i will live and die a thousand times and still be of this land.

i will live and die a thousand times and still be of this land.

I am alive in you and you in me. We are breath, we are earth, we are the sea. 

Material referenced in this soundscape:

Ngā Taonga o Te Urewera by Ngahuia Te Awekotuku and Linda Waimarie Nikora

Tūhoe: Portrait of a Nation by Kennedy Warne and Peter James Quinn

Taku Rākau, a waiata koroua composed by Mihi-ki-te-kapua.

I referenced my own art, in the book Mana Whenua curated by Sarah Hudson

Finally, this soundscape references a thousand different conversations I’ve had with members of my whānau, hapū and iwi. Including Te Peiti Kutia, Emma Kutia, and Puke Timoti. Maybe some tīpuna dreams too.

This soundscape uses heaps of audio samples I ripped off the internet. Including some from the Department of Conservation. Ironic I know, given that Te Urewera was taken from us by the Crown and managed by DOC for years, but they were Crown Copyright and free for re-use. So I used them eh. They’re listed below:

Dawn chorus with tūī in the foreground 

Kōkako song 

Dawn chorus with bellbird/korimako in the foreground

Morepork/ruru song

New Zealand pigeon/kererū/kūkū/kūkupa

If you want to hear them, you can do so here.