Click below to check out what she told Holly about:
Holly: Why do you think there's been a resurgence of moko [Maori tatooing]?
HM: I think it's part of a general resurgence of appreciation for understanding things Maori and celebrating who we are and our uniqueness. Because although tattooing around the Pacific has been something very popular, and you do carry with you the story of yourself and those who have gone before you through your tattoo, it is also something in the Pacific that is appreciated. …Indigenous peoples around the Pacific get together for tattooing conferences and share their different styles… I think it really shows something special about who we are and the pride that we have in our culture.
Holly: And when did, in general, women stop doing the tattooing?
HM: Well…probably the old timers, there wouldn't probably be anyone left alive. So maybe about 80 years ago it was pretty much stopped. Although in some small areas you hear of the last few women that have them, but I don't think there are any that are surviving from the old time. But now often I've seen at Maori gatherings, often I've seen young women carrying the moko. But I think that it's a very big responsibility and you have to make a very big commitment to carrying it and always being exemplary, I think, in how you perceive yourself, and respect and everything regarding the culture.
Not that I'm not ready for that commitment, but it is a big thing to have something as unique as that on your face, because you're really standing in the mark. And so I guess for me, because I have such European features, it would probably [seem] fake, it would stand out, you know, on my fair skin.
But I think it's just beautiful! I just think it's the most wonderful, eloquent of arts. And also that deep spiritual connection that we have to local peoples and…from our ancestors, and the story that is handed down is very much a unique and special one, and has critical spiritual implications.
Although in, I think, the early 1900s when the last women were being tattooed, the stories were that basically the young women of 12, 13, 14 of high rank, they were rounded up and brought into an area where they were all laid down and tattooed systematically. There wasn't much choice. It probably didn't feel particularly spiritual at the time!
Because especially in the old days it would be a chisel…and not really the swiftness of the needles as it is done today.
Holly: Do any people today do it in the old manner or not?
HM: No. Because they find that…
Holly: It hurts! …Do you think there's a generation of Maori who don't know home and family as well as you do?
HM: Yes, definitely. And those are the young ones who…well even older ones my age who perhaps were born and bred in the cities, never been out. And maybe their parents, grandparents moved to the cities to find work, and struggled. And so…it was just really tough to have their language taken away from them and their spirituality taken away from them… A lot is stripped from you…even the clothes that you wear.
And so there were all those sorts of things, and lots of bigotry and discrimination which happens everywhere. But colonization is particularly hard to…
Holly: Nanny, are you going to come sit down with us? Did you make the pavlova yourself?
Nanny: Yes.
Holly: How many egg whites?
Nanny: Six. Two and a half cups of caster sugar, six teaspoons of corn flour, two teaspoons of vanilla, two teaspoons of vinegar, a couple pinches of salt, and then you just beat it until it's nice and stiff, and then you make sure that the oven is going when you cook the pavlova.
Holly: Have you made this?
Nanny: I've given her the recipe.
HM: I don't have a beater.
Holly: Well this isn't a Maori dish, is it?
Nanny: It's New Zealand.
HM: I think the Australians have tried to take it, but we claim it as our own. I don't think it came from Pavlov's dogs or anything.
Holly: So can you explain to me what happened at the marae this morning?
HM: Well it's very important for us to welcome and care for our guests if we have visitors from wherever they may come, and it's very important for us to have a feel that we can take them onto the marae and that you would bring the spirits of your loved ones who have passed on. And then as we touch the noses, it's almost as a way of cleansing all the spirits or anything bad that has gone before us.
Holly: Having people visit the marae is it a way to teach the new generation some of the traditions?
HM: I think it's really important and in the last 20 years there's been quite a resurgence and learning of Maori, but also doing up the marae centers, which are our community centers. And we come together at the marae to celebrate life; as a mark of respect for the end of a life, but [also] to bring us all together and acknowledge who we are and where we've come from, and the ancestors that have brought us here.
And so it's all embroiled in a lot of family history and historical in terms of the way this country has moved socially and economically, and we need to celebrate that in our modern context. The women are always the first to call the visitors on.
Holly: Why is that?
HM: Because the woman's voice was the first voice ever to form a human being. The god of the forest created Hine ahu out of the earth, and her first voice was just as…the god of the forest breathed into her nose, which is why we had the pressing of noses. And she sneezed and let out the sneeze of life it's known as. And that's the very first word spoken and that's why the woman has the first priority if you like to express the arrival of visitors and to start the whole process and protocol of welcoming visitors to the marae.
***
Holly: There's no written word still?
Nanny: There is now, yeah. But there never used to be any written…
Holly: When you were a girl.
Nanny: Long before my time, there was no written word, it was all oral.
HM: And that was in the days when communal living meant the oral history and all the laws of the people were able to be passed down from generation to generation because you were all in the one setting, sharing everything — sleeping, eating and living and dying together. So that was possible. But these days we all live away from the marae so it's very difficult to maintain it. And with the process of colonization, as I say, it's been broken down and that whole communal system of living has been broken down, so the oral history struggles to survive. Although we've been able to maintain certain elements of it, it's still really difficult to have a good handle on the incredible depth of spiritual laws that governed our existence in the old days. But it has changed and adapted and I think gone on and developed in the modern world anyway, which is important for us to survive.
Holly: You seem to have a really strong sense of home and family, given all these pictures around here. Do you think that informs your music?
HM: Definitely. It gives me a firm basis for what I base my music on, but also it gives me a solid understanding of who I am and where I've come from, and my responsibilities as well. For our immediate family, Nanny is the matriarch, she pulls us all together.
Holly: I know! She cracks the whip!
HM: And that's really important. And for the marae setting, it is difficult because a lot of our family live in the city, so have moved to the cities for work or other opportunities. Because in the small rural community that…this is home for us, but there's a lot of unemployment and it's very difficult.
Nanny:And these days a lot of school children visit the marae, like a home-stay, you know? They stay there for two or three nights in various marae around the Hawkes Bay district, I don't know whether they do it in any other district. But it teaches the European children the culture, which wasn't taught in the old days.
Holly: What was it like when you were little?
Nanny: It was very difficult, because the Maoris were second-class citizens. And it wasn't until after the second World War that gradually the Maoris were recognized. ..The Maori girls went to boarding schools and were taught to be good housemaids, that's what they were. That was their station in life. But that was in the old days.
Holly: What was it like when you were going to school?
Nanny: Very different to these days! We walked to school, we weren't taken in cars like our children are today. And we warmed up our feet in the cow pads. We were very poor then. Do you know what a cow pad is? Well the cows go along and…you know, along the road?
Holly: I thought there were supposed to be sheep here instead of cows.
Nanny: We've got cows as well. Lots of cows as well. And we mostly went to school barefooted, even in the wintertime, and it was a bit frosty, so you would go along and the cow would perhaps be in front of you and you'd put your feet in the cow pad and you'd keep warm.
Holly: Did you speak Maori?
Nanny: Yes.
Holly: In school?
Nanny: In school. And then we got the strap. All the children were supposed to speak English in the schools. And there were two white children there, a boy and his sister. And when I think of it now, we were really even racist in those days!
….There was this boy and his sister, they were the only two pakeha kids there. And we used to torment them! And we weren't allowed to speak Maori in the playground, we always got the strap. We had to speak English.
HM: But then when Nanny was 15 she found out that she was actually a pakeha. So it was all a rather interesting situation.
Nanny: Oh yes, we won't delve into that!
HM: She grew up with a stepfather who was Maori. But Nanny moved to that community when she was four with her mother and her stepfather, and was speaking Maori from that age. And was absorbed into the community as all little girls of any community, thinking that their brothers and sisters and cousins were all one and the same. And it must have been a delightful community existence and sort of relationships that I think you developed would have been so nice, because you were all in the same situation.
Nanny: And of course for instance going back to…I started school in 1931, the day of the very bad earthquake in Napier, and we made our own fun. There was no TV of course, and a few people who we thought were quite rich had radios! We didn't even have electricity in our house.
…But we went horse riding, we went eeling, catching carp and playing hockey with willow sticks. And we had tops, we made wooden tops. And we did the flags and tied them on a string and stuff and… hopscotch, and fighting with the boys.
Holly: I'll bet you took them out, too!
HM: She was a good-looker, my Nanny! She still is. And I heard from one of the old fellows that she was sort of, you know, the local girl. She was gorgeous! Everyone thought she was absolutely beautiful!
Nanny: Oh, don't believe everything you hear.
HM: …So she married my grandfather when she was just sixteen.
Holly: What do you think of Hinewehi's career?
Nanny: I think it's very wonderful.
Holly: How did you start singing?
HM: Well…the marae that we went to today wasn't rebuilt until I was thirteen, so we used to go to the other marae in the same community a little bit but I grew up on a farm and we were isolated for a big part of our lives, say. It wasn't until really I went to St. Joseph's, then we began to sing and we sang all the time and I just loved it! The singing is so sweet and pure and it was an experience that…it's kept me in good stead I think for taking my music career on at a later stage of my life because we had a very strict teacher who kept us in line. And that's really helped me when we've gone into the studio to record, because I've a disciplined approach because of what she taught me. And here she was, she was really tough but she got the best out of us.
And I went to harmonize and I used to just marvel at how the girls who first started out and they'd been singing all their lives in contra groups and it just came so naturally to them. And we did all the forms of dancing which is expressing and using your hands to describe the song, and also balls on a string that we call poi. And it's a fantastic dance, and it's a recreational thing as well as entertaining…men used to do the poi too…now it's more of a women's…
Holly: Is your family with you all the time when you perform? So all your global travel they're along with you?
HM: Yeah…it's part of the package deal…The album that I released…it was 18 months ago now, but the music that I've been promoting the last couple of years, I wrote at the time my baby was small. And it was a really difficult time, especially when I was a [new] mother. And I was consumed about her survival, first and foremost. But there's lots of elements to her care that we have to be very mindful of.
Holly: What about the music? If she wasn't there do you think the music would be different? I mean how does the music reflect the fact that she came into your life?
HM: This particular album is…it's a complete celebration of her, because it was the most difficult time of my life and I hadn't met my wonderful husband. And so I was struggling, and emotionally it was very difficult for me, so this is my expression of love for her. But it's not a reflection in a negative way, it's a celebration of her life.
And also, the thing is each song is different, but basically talking about how the Maori have struggled to survive also, so it's a two-pronged way of celebrating the survival of my daughter and then celebrating the survival of the Maori people…
***
Holly: Do you think that good things have come out of your struggles?
HM: Yeah. Yeah. I mean I've grown as a person, and I've changed so much…but this sort of [challenge] is a real sort of blessing to us… She teaches us so much every day, it's truly wonderful and we feel really very pleased to have her in our lives…her needs are very basic, …breathing, thinking, and all the very basic things in life that we take for granted is a struggle for her. But she has such a cool attitude to it that you can't help but be inspired by that strength and life. She just enjoys small things in life too, I mean she appreciates so much about life and what it has to offer.
… Hineraukatauri is named after the grace of music, the guardian of all the Maori instruments. And she was actually a moth of the goddess of music. And she was a certain species of moth that the females don't fly, they stay in the cocoon in the chrysalis. And the wind was blowing through the cocoon and you could hear this beautiful sound coming from the cocoon. And this boy heard it, and he thought…here's my girl! And so he flew towards the cocoon and…they were joined in love. They didn't know that after they were joined in love that he was going to die. And so very soon after he became weak and died. And so the sound that you hear from this cocoon, what's now being carved out of wood, is a flute, is the sound of Hineraukatauri mourning for her lost love.
Holly: Do you have a particular mission with your music? Or is it just kind of can't help it?
HM: A bit of both. And it's a nice thing to not be able to help myself with… Lots of people say it's given to me as a gift, and I know it is, and I really enjoy sharing it with others and I love to perform, but I think most of all I can see how wonderful music can be used to express yourself. But it can also be used in teaching ourselves about ourselves and sharing with anyone, and it doesn't matter if people can't understand the modern language, because if they appreciate the [feeling] of the song and then they'll fall in love with it anyway.
And I guess for me it's a really important responsibility that I have to take the Maori language to a world stage through my music, and it's a wonderful way to do it.
Holly: What were you thinking…or did you think about singing the anthem in Maori?
HM: Yeah. We knew that it would create some problems because the rugby fraternity is a very staunch one, and not particularly embracing of things Maori….[but] they performed the traditional war dance of haka… it still puts chills up my spine so I think it's fantastic. And also it represents who we are as a unique nation in the South Pacific.
Holly: So how do you think the international audience perceives your music?
HM:Well I think that perhaps in Europe they know the country and they understand that there's this indigenous culture in New Zealand. And for some places like in France, they really love the Maori culture and it's something that fascinates them, and so I combine traditional forms of singing and dancing within my performance so that it incorporates a lot of the traditional dance and it brings it into a modern context with the use of modern music. So I think that there's a familiarity and association to what I'm trying to achieve. But we had such an electric response to our performances in Europe, and last year in America it was the same sort of appreciation for something very different.
I think modern music today is being replicated on stuff that was done 20, 30, 40 years ago. And it's just really a version of the same thing. So this is very different from anything that most Americans would experience.
Holly: What was the fallout from singing the anthem in Maori?
HM: Well at first it was quite horrific, because the whole country I think was brought into the debate of should we have a Maori element incorporated into it. I think the general appreciation for the language is good, but it was just a bit freaky for most people that…you know, for most non-Maori, to hear no English incorporated in my version of the singing of the national anthem.
I think probably I could give you a comparison if someone was to sing a major…the "Star Spangled Banner" in Navajo or something, with no English. And probably a similar response when Jimi Hendrix did a pretty wild guitar version of your national anthem.
Holly: People don't like what they consider sacred messed with, huh?
HM: Yeah. But it's turned around so dramatically that last year I was paid by the Ministry of Education to record and perform the national anthem in Maori for schools.
Holly: Well that was a quick…I mean you know in the scheme of things, quick!
HM: Yes. And now I think everyone expects there to be a Maori and English version. So that's cool! Because it was all a little bit fuzzy in terms of what people were wanting, and I guess different versions of it came a little bit piecemeal.
Holly: So did you know she was going to sing the anthem in Maori?
Nanny: No.
Holly: You didn't tell anyone beforehand, not even your Nanny?
HM: Well we were here and she was in England. But I wasn't sure…I rang you and told you I was singing it, didn't I?
Nanny: Yes, you rang and told me you were singing it, but you didn't say…
HM: And I rang her up straight after I sang it. "Wasn't that beautiful!" she said! Well they'd sung it in English for 160 years, why couldn't it be sung in Maori? This is our attitude, you know? This is our attitude.
It was difficult at the time though. And I also had arranged to have an interview with probably the country's leading broadcaster and…we were meant to be talking about our music, but because of the ruckus that the singing of the anthem caused, ended up talking all about that.
And I was really quite…I guess, upset by the reaction. Because I was thinking that we were a nation that could accept the fact that we were different and that we had this very special quality to our culture. And I think it's nice now that there's an acknowledgement of the languages. Because Maori and English are both official languages of the country, but of course Maori language lags behind because of the lack of use.
Holly: Is there a generation though, probably around your age or maybe even younger, that is as matter of course learning Maori?
HM: Definitely there's a lot more taught in the schools. When children first start in what we call primary schools, they're learning a lot more and there's just a greater appreciation for learning the history of the country from a European discovery situation and coming here, as well as the Maori perspective, as far as we can recall in terms of it being our oral history.
So it's nice that the new generation are more bilingual, bicultural, and people coming…
Holly: Would you say that it is a bicultural culture or it's working towards being bicultural?
HM: I sometimes meet non-Maori who are wonderfully bicultural, and I think how fantastic, because that's what we should be working towards. But then when you hear the response to the singing of the national anthem in Maori 18 months ago, you suddenly think, ummmm, not everyone thinks like this! Or there is more to work through and there are more issues to work through. And I think that we are working through the issues. There's entrenched racism.
Holly: So where are things landing right now?
HM: Well it's a far more open to bringing in the other culture…and so that's wonderful. I got lots of really fantastic response. I didn't get any one-on-one direct…oh yes I did, I got one…
Holly: Threatening mail or something?
HM: Yeah I got one. One. But I think every Maori in Auckland got one.
We felt very isolated over in London because there is a big New Zealand community there, but also the New Zealanders have got a weekly newspaper, and there was lots of very negative criticism of it, as well.
So it made me sort of totally…right down in terms of, okay, so am I just taking it for granted, this cultural aspect of myself? Because you know, I have European ancestry and it doesn't stop me acknowledging it by singing in Maori, it just means that I'm trying to promote the Maori facet of my cultural background, because that's what I have a passion for, and because frankly it's struggling.
And if we don't use it and take it through into future generations then it will just be lost like so many languages around the world have been. And I just don't want that for my children and for my grandchildren, and I want to think that we can be brave enough as a nation to actually stand up and say, "We're different! And we like it like that!" And we do appreciate that we [have] a global situation through the Internet and all the things that make the world so much smaller. But we can actually be very proud and distinctive for our differences as well as our similarities.
Nanny: I'll tell you something too. New Zealand history is not taught in the schools. And there are so many pakehas, especially in a large place like Auckland, who don't understand anything at all about Mary Carter. And when you don't understand you often condemn. And I feel if more is taught in the schools about New Zealand history, instead of worrying about Shakespeare over there, people would understand more. You see today there are a lot of pakeha who just want to go onto the maraes so they can learn about the Maori culture.
It's all a part of who we are as New Zealanders, and…as a nation. So it's really important that we can have fellow Kiwis who can speak Maori and appreciate the differences of the Maori side.
Holly: What is a diva?
HM: A diva? Well normally I would think it's someone that's going to burst out into song and probably do a pretty good job of it. But you know, I'm narrow-minded when it comes to divas. And I enjoy your more…
Holly: So the Pavlova interrupted your telling me what a diva is.
HM: I can't remember from one question to the next!
Holly: It's okay, you're a flaky artist.
HM: I'm so flaky! But it's okay because I'm creative. [laughter]
Holly: Well I'd like to have Nanny behind the wheel of the Valiant.
HM: She's a bit of an accelerator queen!
Holly: This brings me to sort of women steering the boat, shall we say, which you've mentioned. But like especially the time at the beginning of the renaissance of…for lack of a better word, of Maori culture maybe about 25 years ago.
HM: Yes, it's quite complex that if we think about the position of women in Maori society. I think traditionally there was really good equality. But you see different roles of women like involved with the protocol of going on to the marae. There's lots of different perspective on what the position of women is. And it's been distorted by colonization because when the missionaries came they had a very…a warped appreciation of women, or lack of appreciation of women, and so that of course is factored into the culture as well.
It's not that women aren't able to generally, in most tribes in this country, aren't able to speak on the marae because they are inferior and no one wants to listen to them anyway… It's really because on a practical level my thoughts are that in the old days women were pregnant from when there was able to be children right through to [menopause] probably, and so they were always in a position of carrying the future generations. And so they had a very important job, and so to be on the marae, which could have been a very volatile situation for them to put themselves into, wasn't something that the community would want.
So generally I think the men spoke the opinion out on the marae, because that's the domain of the God of War. But the inside of the meeting house is the domain of the God of Peace, and so women are able to speak there. But if you were in a heated debate out on the marae in the old days, if you were saying something quite profound and not necessarily well received by someone, you could expect to come into a physical combat, a confrontational situation.
Holly: And they were pregnant a lot and didn't want to be…
HM: So it was impractical, really [for the] mother and child. Bearing children was a very important job of the women.
But…we pay respect to many women, strong women leaders. And in the political history of this country we don't need to look too far to see their strength of character.
Holly: So can I go back to the diva thing? What's a diva?
HM: A diva I think is a…well for me, being a singer and all, I'm so narrow-minded. Somebody could hold an apron well, of the female variety. But I really like your interpretation of it being someone who is able to hold their own in any kind of position and take that responsibility of holding the flame for [the] pride and prestige of women.
Holly: What's mana?
HM: Mana is a word that really… basically gives you a lot of prestige and a lot of strength of character.
Holly: For inside? Or is it something that you get from…
HM: There's lots of different ways of describing mana and Maori, like different elements of your innermost strength as well as your physical strength or whatever. But I guess mana has been bandied around in terms of being a popular word in this country. And not necessarily used appropriately I don't think.
Nanny: They mostly tried to use it…they sort of know what it means, but it's just a special word that's pretty hard to…to say in English exactly what it means.
Holly: Is it tied to a spiritual…?
HM: Spiritual strength and…it's just…mana… it comes out in what you do, what you say, or how you hold yourself or how you…
Nanny: An aura.
HM: An aura, yeah. I think they call it "innermost ethos". But for many it's a wonderful way of saying, you know, I get my strength from way back! From my ancestors and from those that have gone before me who have set me up and who continue to guide me and look over me.
Holly: Do you think your creativity comes from way back too?
HM: Yes. Definitely. Because for me, I've been brought up with a real love and respect for who I am as a Maori. My father wasn't speaking Maori as a child because in Nanny's generation coming up they were taught that you needed to get on with life and the world of the pakeha, so you had to speak pakeha. You had to enter into an English-speaking world so you needed English.
And so my father and his five sisters weren't taught Maori, but have gone on to learn at different levels, the language and culture and applied that to different parts of their work and their lives. And that's all part of their renaissance.
Holly: Are power and creativity tied for you?
HM: Hmmm… Well it's probably a bit skewed but I guess sometimes my position is quite powerful. Because of my creativity I am in a position where I have quite a high profile and I have this responsibility to take my language and culture to the world, and people look to me to be doing things right for the Maori people, and it's a bit overwhelming and I don't think about it too long because I might freak out!
So it is a powerful position and of course power can be used in a good way or a bad way. And I think for me it creates wonderful opportunities to express myself and to show to the world how wonderful we are. Because I think by taking our culture to the world and for their appreciation to come filtering back, makes young Maori feel good about themselves. Because a lot of young Maori don't feel good about themselves. They don't want to be Maori, and even if they are obvious in their features and their behavior, they're obviously Maori but they don't want to identify with that part of their culture because for generations it's been deemed as not on an equal level…
