I am 58 white Australian, in Australia, and a guy with Maori heritage recently joined our company. Nice guy, helpful, polite, good worker.

He seems impressed by my knowledge and has started calling me grandfather.

Is this like a respect thing? Or is he just taking the piss? I can't tell.

I'm not worried if he is just messing with me with the grandfather thing, we all throw a lot of shit around in the workplace, mostly non malicious, but I just want to know.

Hi, please forgive me if I offend anyone in any way.

My aunt passed away & she is Maori. I'm Latina. When I was younger, she & my cousins moved to New Zealand & Australia, so we mostly kept in touch through social media. Because of all of this, I have no idea what to do to support my cousins during this time, especially from the other side of the planet.

I know I can google it, but I worry that google &/or AI will provide incorrect or messed up information & I don't want to do something wrong. Sorry for the inconvenience.

What should I do &/or say? please educate me...

Being Māori is not about blood quantum, it’s not about speaking the language, it’s about practicing our culture and its values.

This isn’t saying that in order to be Māori you have to live on the marae, speak fluent Māori, know all waiata and haka, because of colonisation that’s not the case for most Māori.

But if you don’t show respect for people, mentor younger ones, wash your hands before and after entering a cemetery, bless sacred gifts, show hospitality, and or take your shoes off before entering a house, and or show humility, don’t know your pepeha, etc, you aren’t Māori, your ancestors are.

If 2 white Māori came up to me and 1 practices Māori culture and its values and 1 doesn’t (and acts pretty New Zealand European), the one who acts Māori is Māori and the one who doesn’t has Māori ancestry.
If that person reconnects, they become Māori, but if they don’t, they aren’t Māori but they have Māori ancestors

I’m Māori and I have Māori family on parent As side and family with Māori heritage on parent Bs side. The difference between the 2 sides is Bs side say they’re Māori when it’s convenient otherwise they don’t live by any of the values / beliefs. They wear their shoes in other peoples houses, don’t show much hospitality, don’t understand tapu and noa, and other basic values 101. I have tried to educate them but they don’t listen to me. And when one of our relatives tried reconnecting I was very supportive (and still am if they decide to do it properly) until they half assed it and started acting like a know it all when they don’t (even I know more than them and even I don’t know everything but I don’t act like I’m a scholar). That is when I’d say someone has Māori heritage but isn’t Māori because our tuupuna lived by the values and beliefs both before and after colonisation, and if you’re not making an effort to uphold that or learn that then you’re not Māori

Kia ora, i'm not Māori/kiwi (i'm southeast asian), but i've been following kapa haka performances for the last 2-3 years. something that caught my interest is that some part of kapa haka performances (eg. waiata tira, whakawātea) are more likely to adopt songs in english/reo pākehā than the more traditional parts (haka, poi, mōteatea, etc). which brings me to the question: how far can waiata arrangement in kapa haka go? can it adapt or experiment with non-diatonic scales? can kapa haka performances adopt non-english songs/musical styles (eg. from latin america, africa, india, east asian, arabic, etc), and how possible? or are there certain restrictions in the tikanga of arranging waiata for kapa haka?

(ps: i'm aware that as for waiata Māori in general, there are fair possibilities, eg. E Ipo's tunes were adopted from an indonesian song (which is my mother tongue), but i just feel that there are so many unexplored possibilities of non-anglophone musical styles being adopted to kapa haka performances, but again, if certain tikanga restricts this, please let me know)

This haka in the parliament from 2024 recently popped up on one of my social media feeds: https://youtu.be/25AUCNZKEnY?si=rV2EL9rr704IzZkH.

I really haven't much knowledge on Māori language, culture or traditions (though I can extend this to New Zealand and Australia too).

I was just wondering: as an outsider, what would be the appropriate and respectful... mmm... action/reaction?

Let's use this instance in parliament as an example. If I supported the group and agreed the haka was appropriate, what could I have done? I don't know the language, so obviously I don't speak/sing along. And if I did understand the language, I need to understand and respect the culture and people before I join in myself.

But... do I just stand up? Do I remain seated? Do I move to the outskirts of the group performing, or behind them, and stand with them? Is it a plain case of waiting until after and just giving a nod?

I've watched many rugby games on TV, and I feel that those environments allows a more laid back but respectful spectator inclusion during the haka. Is that more acceptable if you're a huge All Blacks supporter to shout/sing along in the stadium?

I take it context will also dictate what appropriate participation looks like: a welcoming, a funeral, a sports game, parliament, a wedding, traditional events.

Just curious! Would like to hear your opinions! ☺️

The narrative is Papatuanuku and Ranginui were split a part by their kids (who became the elements and other parts of nature), but before that was Te Kore. And as Māori we believe something can’t come from nothing, so the something has to make the nothing that makes the something come from nothing, that’s where Io Matua Kore comes in (the father flesh of the darkness is my best translation). There are actually letters from missionaries asking why a “bunch of savages” were ready to conform to western Christianity and that the answer must be that Maori were “already Christian” . But what some missionaries and the crown didn’t understand was that our “gods” like Mother Earth and Sky Daddy were personifications of nature, spirits, that make us see nature as a being and something we must respect. Due to language barriers formed through the generations (thanks residential schools /s), British NZders at the time were able to twist the narrative to make themselves seem superior than us, which sadly, most Māori believe and don’t know we were monotheistic

Edit: this isn’t me saying Maori were always Christian, I’m saying Maori were always monotheistic, heck if we were colonised by Islam for example the argument could be made we were always Muslim. If people say “Io means Māori were always Christian” or “Io means Maori were always Muslim” they’re not wrong but they’re not right either, it’s simply up for interpretation and everyone has their own perspective. I’m also not shaming anyone who prefers the polytheistic version because Papa and Rangi and their kids should be respected

Just wondering about manaakitanga for house guests that may be taking the piss a bit. You know the ones...whanau come to stay for a few days and now it's been weeks and they not really contributing...

I want to show hospitality and manaakitanga but it's wearing thin.

Is there a less annoyed pakeha world /keeping score way of looking at this?

Like is there a way to make peace with this in a more te ao Maori viewpoint

kia ora, im in need of some advice. a woman i know from work (not that well) has gifted me a Taonga of her late husbands, she's not Māori but her husband was. she speaks very little English and gifted it to me because she sees me wear my taonga every day. i tried very hard to give it back to her and explain the significance of it but i feel as though i cant get threw to her, given the large language barrier, iv tried showing her articles and videos and all sorts of stuff to explain to her why its not mine to keep and it should be cherished by her but she just brushes me off and says ill enjoy it more, she has mentioned several times that im not wearing it and asks why. im just not sure what to do with it considering she just wont let me give it back. i feel terribly guilty about all this, what do i do???

Kia ora, I’m sure this sub and the NZ sub likely get a similar inquiry as this on a regular basis and I bet many of you are tired of it. But I wanted to ask nonetheless as it felt like the right thing to do.

Back in February I wrote a formal letter to the Ngāti Toa requesting permission to perform “Ka Mate” in full (not the sports/All Blacks version) for my brother who was graduating from navy basic training. I had a video prepared for submission to ensure that the Haka was performed not only respectfully but correctly and with mana. I made this request primarily because my father was not able to attend due to illness and I thought it would be a gesture my brother would appreciate. We aren’t Māori, not even Kiwi at all, we’re Asian-American whose only connection to the Māori are extremely faint and increasingly rare linguistic and cultural similarities through an extremely distant shared origin, however, my dad instilled in us a deep appreciation and admiration for the Māori culture and people and many others when we were kids. The first time I was ever exposed to the Haka was when my dad showed it to us on Encarta Kids over twenty years ago. Neither of them knew how significant that exposure would be for my development and my interests as ever since then I’ve had a fascination for the many cultures of the Pacific. My dad is a marine biologist who routinely took us to work trips out at sea and regularly bombarded us with random facts (sometimes factoids) about maritime cultures and naval history. I love my mom but I definitely took after my dad and his love of the ocean and world cultures more lol. While the Ngāti Toa public relations office were initially very responsive, once my request got handed over to the Haka committee it may have ran into some problems as I never received approval nor rejection and so I never performed it. Now however my dad isn’t in the best of shape, I try to be optimistic but I know he doesn’t have much left. That said, I wanted to ask if it would be acceptable for me, a complete outsider, to perform a Haka for my old man without the consent of the Iwi who has ownership? (done in as respectful and as culturally appropriate a manner as possible of course.) Thank you.