Interview with Mate & Sonny Heitia
August 2023
Mate & Sonny established Reka Trust in 2008. A vehicle to encourage whānau to eat fresh kai from the whenua, just like our tīpuna did. In this interview Mate and Sonny share their stories of growing up by the awa, growing kai and how mana motuhake is linked to what we eat.
Ko wai kōrua?
Ko Mate Heitia toku ingoa. I was born Mate Kopae and I was born in Whakatāne.
My dad is from the Kopae and Nuku whānau. A mokopuna of Hoani Nuku. A tīpuna from the Taiwhakaea line and his wife Iritana was from Te Patuwai who was a well known healer. That was our Pāpā. And Māmā is Rangitekanawa Ngatai from Matakana Island. Her mother is from the Palmer line and she was raised in Tauranga Moana. I’m the youngest of 9 tamariki. I was born the day my eldest sister was buried. I have 3 tamariki and 10 mokopuna and I have been married to Sonny for a long time!
I was raised around all the marae at Ngāti Pūkeko and also this marae here (Te Whare o Toroa). I came here every holiday from 5 years old to stay with my Aunty Rhona Lawson and Uncle Jim Lawson.
Ko Sonny Heitia taku ingoa.
I te taha o toku papa. No Tainui waka. Our iwi there is Ngāti Mahanga, Ngāti Tamainupō, Ngāti Tahinga, Ngāti Koata. My father was brought up in Aramiro. My grandfather is from Aramiro, that’s between Raglan and Pirongia. My grandmother is a Paikau from Whaingaroa. Both Tainui waka. Our homestead is at Manu Bay - Whaingaroa. I didn’t grow up with that side, we did visit but not often.
We spent a lot of time with my mums whānau who comes from a few waka up there. Matawhauroa, Kurahaupo, Marama and Mata-atua. Our iwi up there are Te Aupouri, Te Rarawa, Ngāti Kuri and Ngā Pūhi-Nui-Tonu. My mother comes from a place up there, above Hokianga it’s called Whangape. As kids, we spent a lot of time there.
My dad was in forestry so we ended up in a place called Waiotapu which is about 30 mins out of Rotorua. I was brought up in Rotorua but we went up north a lot too. There’s 12 in my family and I’m the 5th. I have 3 brothers and 8 sisters. Big whānau.
Kauae Raro often talk to tamariki about their mātauranga around clay and soil, can you tell me about your childhood memories around soil, clay and/or the whenua?
Mate: I do lament over the loss of the water in the awa. With my cousins, we learnt to swim by the gradual introduction to the water. We slid down into the water, there was so much of it so when it was low tide it was very safe for us to swim. We came from a big whānau with lots of older siblings so we were able to have some independence and enjoy our connection to the mud and the water. Today I’m lamenting that I have to walk so far to the river to be able to take my mokos to dip their feet in there.
We were able to experience natural things such as we had a tree that had fallen down in the flood and it served as a graduation diving board. So as you grew you went up the trunk and you became the big Tarzan being able to dive.This was our ingenuity and innovation through play. We hardly ever saw someone over 25 there. We had brothers, sisters and cousins looking after us. We never had adults around and stayed there all day even as 3 year olds. That would never happen today, I wouldn’t allow my mokos to be down there by themselves. (The awa has changed so much that it would not be safe). I do not remember any losses of life with the interaction with that water.
The mud was our sunblock and when we got cold it warmed us up. It could keep you cool but if you baked it on it would keep you warm! Those are some of the things that I remember.
Sonny: When I was growing up we were around the awa a lot too. We didn’t exactly cover ourselves in mud but we would roll the mud into balls and have mud fights! There were blackberries everywhere that we would eat while we were there and my mother would send me down to collect berries so she could make jam. That was how we played with mud though by having mud fights. We did the same with the river though, lots of swimming, lots of fishing. We would run away from Sunday school and get down to the river with a pan, loaf of bread and some butter and go fishing for the day. We could easily get 16-20 trout a day.
Did you have maara kai growing up?
Sonny: Yes we did, and I would run away from gardening growing up but yes everyone had gardens then. Up north at our grandparents the gardens were huge. Orchids were big and fig trees galore! We had kūmara, cabbage and even watermelon. All our kai came from the whenua or moana. Our paua and kina would come from the ocean and in the harbour was all the mullet, kina and mussels. Meat and milk from the farm. When my grandparents went shopping all they would come back with was flour, sugar, salt and tea. I didn’t have cream paua until I went to the city. Our grandparents would just beat the paua, cook it up in butter and onions and put it in a Māori bread for us. I now long for a paua sandwich like that.
Mate: Our mum grew us watermelon and rockmelon, she was quite famous for being a good gardener. So all our cousins would encourage us Kopae kids to bring the watermelons. Sooo many fruit trees and most of the whānau in Poroporo had gardens. Sometimes our big cousins would dig up the kai and cook it for us down at the river.
Sonny: I even remember the marae when I first came back to Poroporo and you would be given a knife and a sugar bag to get puha, a carload went off to get mussels. Also trailer loads of kamokamo, sweet corn and watermelon from Te Teko. This was all for tangi and events. Now everything that comes in the backdoor, comes in a plastic bag that has PakNsave or New World on it.
Mate: There’s a disconnect from where the kai comes from.
REKA Trust was established to encourage our whānau to fuel their body with better kai, can you tell me about your mahi with that and what inspired you to follow this ara whenua?
Mate: I created REKA and took that kupu Māori as a vehicle of wellness. I’ve always eaten how my Mummy taught me. Lots of fresh kai. I still eat like that and feed my kids like that. I'm well known in our whānau and hapū for that.
Reka was a vehicle to encourage our whānau to go back to eating how our tīpuna ate. All my cousins would say “what's the secret cousin?” and I would say there is no secret, just eat like our tīpuna and stay active. So we coined it and we got some funding and worked with all our different connections. We talked with our whānau and hapū. That is the only way Māori can successfully move! Is when everyone is involved and in touch with what the kaupapa is.
The kaupapa was really just introducing our whānau back to eating good kai. Sonny and I automatically went into our spaces, him in the maara and I'm delivering the kai on the table. And you have experienced that yourself.
I have! So lucky. You took Reka into kura, how did that go?
Sonny: It was awesome. When we went into one of the kura they already had a maara but it was cabbages and silverbeet. So we went in there and said no this isn’t what tamariki eat, there should be cherry tomatoes, strawberries, apple cucumbers and watermelon. Kai they can eat straight from the maara. We designed gardens around that idea and implemented that into the kura. One of the biggest buzzes I got from this was picking one of the watermelons just before morning tea, cutting it up and eating it with the kids.
That joy it brought aye?
Mate: Aē, when we had that all the time. We had trailer loads come into our marae as kids. Some of these kids had never tasted a watermelon, they had just seen it at the rich orchids for $15. How many parents can afford that?
There's the element of mana motuhake to REKA trust, what does that mean to you?
Mate: Food sovereignty is our connection to the environment. We can’t have food sovereignty without our whenua, we can’t have food sovereignty without clean whenua, we can’t have food sovereignty without water, we can’t have food sovereignty without clean water. Without those key principles food sovereignty is not attainable. That is a key feature of food sovereignty. Food sovereignty is our ability to feed ourselves. We have proven in history that we have that ability and we worked with the environment. We are at total risk because of the disconnection of our people, not from just eating from the environment but that's why we must re-connect through food. You will kill for food! Humans will kill for food, because that is a natural instinct! We need to feel murderous about what is affecting our food sovereignty when we think about whenua and our awa.
Koina! Te tikanga tuatahi!
We want better kai, we want food forests everywhere. We are the food basket. This is the manawa of Māori here. The next generation like yourself and others who can see a better future by not following the example that has been given in the last 50 years. Indigenous people need to be connected to their whenua.
Do you have any kōrero tuku iho/mātauranga you would like to share? This could be a whakatauki, mōteatea, pūrākau around soil and/or whenua?
Mate: I want to go back to our REKA trust kōrero, Rapua E te iwi, nga Kai o ngā Atua (REKA being an acronym for this whakatauki).