Whispers of Waitaha: Traditions of a Nation

Our elder grandmothers instructed the teachers of the families to: hide our nation, hide our information, hide our belief systems in the wananga of silence, to wait the time of Tumatawera... The teachers kept everything hidden in the mokopuna. The grandchild became the nation s library and all information was concealed inside the minds of the mokouna. The patterns of life, the patterns of the universe and the patterns of the families were faithfully transferred across into the mokopuna for the future in the time of Tumatawerra. The wisdom keepers had seen in the smoke of the ritual fires the strangers , making huge changes in the way life would be controlled in Waitangi-ki-Raro. No prayers would again be sent to Io the parentless creator both male and female in essence. No gathering as elder teachers in public. No elder teacher practices and no gatherings of our people. Fear had come with the stranger. Tahana Rerenga o Io had come and gone in his universal flight in the heavens measuring the time of the coming of Tumatawera and our people dreamed the dream of freedom from the fear in the stranger. Grandmothers of Waitaha, helped farewell their husbands and sons into the fiery wars of the stranger, not once but many times in the name of civilization and support of the strangers realm. So the grandmothers whispered into the one hundred and many years since the stranger came. Grandmother Ivy Elizabeth McAnergney, nee Baird, of the family of Ngati Rakai and Ngati Pakau in the summer of 1999 stated quietly to those gathered around her. It is time for Waitaha to step out of the shadows and to walk tall like our ancestors did... It is now the time of Tumatawera, and the laws of the land have become softer to the voices of the grandmothers of Waitaha allowing the teachings of our ancestors to be written for the benefit of our children and our grandchildren. Whispers of Waitaha: Traditions of a Nation tells simply of the oral transfer of information from