Piki te Ora, Piki te Kaha, Piki te Māramatanga: A beautiful life

Te mea tuatahi, me mihi atu ki te poari e whakahaere nei i o tātou whenua i raro i te Koporeihana Ātihau Whanganui, e pupuri nei te mana o tātou whenua.

Ka hoki ngā mahara ki muri ki o tātou pāhake nā rātou i whakaae kia tukuna mā rātou hei kimi e huarahi kia kore e ngaro o rātou whenua. I pā mai te ture o tauiwi kia utua ngā reiti ka kore ka riro e te Kaunihera Pākehā.

Ka pōuri te ngākau o tēna o tēna nā te kore mahi, kore moni. Kua ea ngā wawata, ngā moemoea kua kitea te ara tika hei whakahaere i o tātou whenua i tēnei rā.

Nā reira ka mihi tonu ki a koutou e te poari Matua. – Piki Waretini

‘Adopted to the river’ during the Great Depression, she spent years of her childhood in a TB ward, waitressed at Pipiriki House, raised 13 children and became part of a partnership that helped strengthen reo and tikanga among the river tribes. Moana Ellis talks to Piki Waretini.

The voice is thin, determined and full of aroha. This is where she wants the kōrero to start – with this song of mourning, written in the dark of te atapō by her tāne Te Otinga George Waretini in his final days. Sitting in her living room in Aramoho, she sings.

Ka tangi wheoro te hau waho, Ka tangi momore te ngākau, Pūtongatonga te ao, Pūwatawata te ao, Kua whatu ngarongaro, Te tirohanga e, Mā wai koe e tohu, Mā wai koe e hua, Te maunga e tū mai nei, Te Awa Tupua e rere nei e

“What it means is that our old people are no more amongst us,” Piki Waretini says. “What’s happening out there in the world today is not how it should be, and our people – they aren’t all well. Our old people are no longer there to help the generations of tomorrow.”

The waiata tangi was written in 2013 just before George passed.

Above: George Waretini, the love of her life.

“I realised the essence of it, what he was talking about,” Piki says. “It was concern for his mokopuna. He was trying to guide them. He was saying: you look to your mountain and your awa because they’re part of you. These are the most important things in your lives – they are your wellbeing.”

“I know our people. Our families are struggling. They’re homeless, they’re in poverty and some are finding it hard to even survive.”

A child of the Great Depression, struggles such as these are nothing new for Piki. Her father was Te Tua Nepia, of Whakatōhea. Her mother was Huingapatu Stephens, of the river and Te Āti Awa. Born in 1934 at Parinui in the remote middle reaches – number 15 of 19 children – Piki was taken three days later by her mother’s parents, baptised as Rātana during the Māramatanga, and ‘adopted to the river’.

In all, her grandparents took three of the children, eventually giving Piki and her brother Sidney to a childless daughter, Rua. Married to Hēnare Keremeneta, Rua raised the children ‘in a little bach’ at Matahiwi Marae and later Pipiriki.

“During those times, our old people went from marae to marae to awhi one another. I belong to every hapū from the mountain to the sea, I can’t separate them. I’ve got a bit of dirt everywhere,” says Piki.

“That’s how we were brought up. We lived off the awa, and the awhi of one another. I had a beautiful life; the people were caring.”

Above: Piki lived te ao Māori.

“There were a lot of our people on the river until the Depression came and they had to go into the city to look for jobs and raise their families. They had to come out of the awa to survive. Our people were under pressure from colonisation: we had to pay rates on our lands and our people didn’t have the pūtea.”

A rations van came from town during the war, trading sugar, tea and flour for coupons.

“That kai had to last. They treasured it. Some had farms, some had maara kai, their river and the bush. Each marae would help one another, from the upper river to the bottom. That’s what I saw in my childhood. I was brought up in sugar and flour bags, those were our bloomers. I knew how our people struggled.”

Above: Nanny Piki having a laugh with mokopuna Ngākura Ponga and Te Korou Koroirangi.

One of Piki’s earliest memories, aged four, is of Rua teaching her Kōrerorero, a waiata now often sung by her daughter Rihi.

At 11, she fell ill with rheumatic fever and then tuberculosis. Rua brought her to Whanganui hospital, where she spent the rest of her childhood in semi-isolation. Her name changed during this time, from Piki Kahukiwi to Piki Te Ora, Piki Te Kaha and Piki Te Māramatanga, a reflection of her tenacity and also the Rātana faith that was part of life for many Māori patients. She fondly remembers the eldest Māori patients, and her daughter-in-law’s father John Waitai, who would visit to pray with her.

“The Rātana faith was very strong – Mōrehu were great prayer warriors. At that time, there wasn’t any cure for TB and they had separate baches (isolation huts) at McKenny Ward. We were like aliens; the nurses were all completely covered,” she recalls.

Schooled at McKenny Ward, Piki remained in the unit for four-and-ahalf years until a cure was found.

“My mother wanted me to go to Turakina (Māori Girls’ College). I cried and begged her not to send me because I had been locked away for so many years. I pleaded with her to allow me to go nursing. Most of us who went through what we did, the first thing that came to mind was to go nursing,” she says.

But she was only 16, a year too young, so she briefly took a waitressing job at Pipiriki House, a stop for Whanganui River’s famous paddle steamer and still a tourist mecca. As soon as she could, she signed up for nurse aiding at McKenny Ward, Gonville Sanitorium and Ōtaki Health Camp. At 21, she was asked by Rua to return to Pipiriki to help care for her grandmother, Nanny Tiori.

During this time, she met and married Temo Ponga, a gardener at Pipiriki House. They had 13 children together and raised three whāngai, living first at Matahiwi before moving to Whanganui for work. She rousied in the shearing sheds, where her mother cooked while minding Piki’s latest baby. To help make ends meet, Piki used skills learnt during her early childhood.

Above: Aunty Piki sharing her stories.

“I’m a good provider, I make things – it was instilled in me. We were taught to survive. We preserved everything – kaanga wai, piharau, kōura, kākahi. Those are lost to our awa today. Kererū – our old people would only get two or three and eat them straight away. But they dried eels and īnanga and put them away in a muslin bag in the pātaka. They laid down ferns and put potatoes on them. Miro, karaka, pikopiko. They went hunting, tahu the meat and preserve it in fat in kerosene tins.”

“Geese, chickens, ducks, pork ... they made candles and lamps from rendering the fat. We weren’t poor for kai Māori, everything was there for our old people. It was the next generation – the likes of me – who came into town with our children. That’s where the hardship came,” she says.

In the kitchen, the table is set for a cup of tea. Not just a plate of biscuits, though – there are a dozen dishes... sweets and savoury, seafood, salads... set out carefully by one of Piki’s daughters. At the sink, a moko (of which there are ‘about 200’) is cleaning some gifted snapper heads. The shelves are heavy with preserves and pickles, home-made spaghetti in tomato sauce and even karaka berries, prepared exactly the way her mother Rua taught her.

“You boil it for five or six hours, then put it in water like kaanga pirau, and preserve it with sugar – turns it into peanut,” she says. Daughter-in-law Keria Ponga says that, according to Piki’s offspring, she is the best maker, bar none, of fried bread, toroī and mīti tahu boil-up.

“She would knit her children’s jerseys, crotchet their blankets and with her green fingers she can stick a dead plant into hard ground and make it grow,” Keria says.

In her 30s, Piki and Temo parted ways. Some time later she met the love of her life, George Waretini.

Her life changed: everything she did now was with George. “They were inseparable, and it is hard to speak of one without the other,” Keria says.

Above: George and Piki celebrating Matariki with mokopuna.

George, a master carver, brought Piki back to te ao Māori and together they became involved in the Māramatanga, wānanga, poi poi and Hui Aranga. Life with him was based around community service. They composed waiata, mōteatea, haka and poi for St Vincent’s Māori Club, helped rejuvenate Te Ao Hou Marae, were part of the national Toi Māori body Ngā Puna Waihanga, and taught Te Ataarangi.

“I was brought up with the language at Pipiriki, and even though I was denied it in my schooling, I was still able to hold onto it,” Piki says. “The language was slowly being lost. George and I knew the reo. Not only that, but he was a carver and I was a weaver, brought up around my mum and my kuia who were weavers. So even though I had a big family, George and I were able to walk together with these kaupapa.”

In the 80s and 90s, she taught at Mangawhero Te Kōhanga Reo, now known as Te Rangahāua. During this time, Maungārongo Marae in Ohakune commissioned George to carve the meeting house and Piki to complete the tukutuku panels for Tikaraina. They lived at Maungarongo while carrying out this work and were among the original ‘roadies’, or support crew, of the first Tira Hoe Waka, later completing the Whanganui river journey themselves in a motorised dingy captained by George.

In the late 90s and into the new millennium, the couple became patrons of the Te Rangakura teacher programme at Rangahāua in Whanganui, and joined the National Māori Choir led by Morvin and Kura Simon. They supported the Whanganui River claims and the Pākaitore occupation, were involved with the Whanganui Regional Museum and the Sarjeant Gallery, and, together with the Simons, were appointed kaumātua for the landmark Te Awa Tupua exhibition at Te Papa.

Piki and George both received Kingi Ihaka Awards from Creative New Zealand in recognition of their leadership and service to Māori Arts. Piki was also awarded the Tohu Whakapakari from the National Te Kōhanga Reo Trust and has spent more than 40 years supporting the movement.

An Ātihau-Whanganui Incorporation shareholder, her mihi to the incorporation is one of gratitude for the leadership and vision to save the land, support education, and provide for the people.

“We wouldn’t have these gains today without our leaders of those days. Today, they’re training young people, and I have seen scholars come out of there, including my mokopuna. They’re not only looking after the generations, they also awhi the world... sending Angus beef, honey and lamb overseas; it’s all come off our whenua.”

Her advice to those managing collectively held assets is: “Do the right thing for the future of the generations ahead of you. Don’t think of tomorrow but think of the generations to come.”

For today’s descendants, her message of hope is to look to the past.

“Our old people had their own way of surviving. They had their own doctors, tohunga, they knew rongoā, they healed themselves. They knew when to plant because they read nature, they read the world. There are things that you can be part of, like keeping your rivers clean, taking care of the taiao, so that this will come back to us.”

Renowned rongoā Māori practitioner Rob McGowan credits her mother Rua as being his teacher.

“It was only when tauiwi came that our old people weren’t there any more. They weren’t there in the bush or [beside] the river to teach the next generation,” he says.

“Some of our generations have forgotten to be who we are. If only they would look to the generations past, perhaps there might be a better future for tomorrow.”

Left to right: Te Rangitautahi Ponga, Te Korou Koroirangi, Mere Kemp, Keria Ponga, Nanny Piki, Ngākura Ponga, Cedric Nepia.