Whakapapa - What is it?

The Priestley Whanau Whakapapa

Whakapapa - What Is It?

Whakapapa starts at the dawn of time and weaves it's way throughout the centuries and generations. Whakapapa is continuous and eternal, coming from the past, appearing in the present and disappearing into the future.

Whakapapa binds us together, gives us our connections to the land, establishes our identity to the whenua and ties us to people.

Whakapapa is also our history, for in learning our whakapapa an intergral part of that is learning our history, of who we are, of the deeds and actions of our tupuna and how they have shaped who we are today.

Whakapapa intertwines lines, ensuring that lines and allegiances are kept strong or new allegiances are formed

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Whakapapa Relationships

Through whakapapa, relationships are established in line with Maori rules.

In the pakeha world, your first cousins' children are your first cousins (once removed). However, this is not the Maori view.

In traditional Maori, the words for cousins are the same words for brothers and sisters. Just as your brothers' and sisters' children are you nieces and nephews, so are your cousins' children. Yes, you have just inherited more nieces and nephews!

Your parents cousins are your aunts and uncles, so you have just gained more aunts and uncles.

This applies to, not only your first cousins, but 2nd, 3rd, 4th ...nth cousins and their children and now your whanau has grown to many people.

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Generations

Generation is the term used to define what relationship people are to you and is not tied to age.

Your brothers and sisters and your first cousins are the same generation as you.

Your parents, their brothers and sisters and their first cousins are the generation above you.

Your grandparents, their brothers and sisters and their first cousins are 2 generations above you.

Your children and nieces and nephews are the generation below you.

Sometimes you can have Aunts or Uncles that are younger than you. This usually happens when there are many years between brothers and sisters.

For example, There may be 20 years between the oldest and the youngest brother or sister. By the time that the oldest has their first child, their youngest brother or sister may be born after that.

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Keeping the bloodlines strong in whakapapa

Every few generations the lines married back in. For example, your great great great grandparents on your father's side could also be your great great great grandparents on your mother's side.

Brothers and sisters of one whanau married brothers and sisters of another whanau. Again this was done to keep the bloodlines strong or to form strong allegiances with other iwi.

Sometimes when a person lost their spouse, they would marry another sibling of their deceased spouse.

This is one of the reasons why "pedigree" charts are so limiting when it comes to whakapapa, for it only shows tahuhu, or direct lines and not all of the inter-relationships.

It is also for the above reasons why it is so important to know for example, not only your great grandparents, but their siblings and who they married, their children and who they married all the way down, for there may be ties there.

Whanau today translates as family, and is often refered to in Pakeha as extended family, but the whanau is more wider than the extended family.

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Whanau - What Is It?

Whanau encompasses not only your: - grandparents - parents and their siblings - your brothers and sisters and cousins - your nieces and nephews but also everyone who is connected to you through blood, be they your cousins children, your great uncles and aunts desendants, your 3rd cousins, your 99th cousins, everyone.

If a connection can be made, then whanau is established

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Identity - Where Am I From?

Your whakapapa gives you identity and defines where you are from.

When a Maori asks you where you are from, what they are really asking is where is your whanau (family) from and not where you were born, raised or live.

It is through the place that your whanau is from that connections are made to other whanau. Other people who are related to you will be related from the place that your whanau is from and not from the place that you were born and raised.

If you were born and raised overseas, in the Maori World, you are still from the place where your whanau, and blood lines run. You still have the right to say that you are from the place where your whanau are from, even if you have never been there. The people from there may not know you personally, but they will know your whanau.

If both your parents are Maori but from two different places, make sure that you know which whanau name is from which place. For example, don't use your father's name and say you are from the place where your mother is from, as it is her name that will connect you to that place, and not your father's name.

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How to find where I am from ?

You need to find your whakapapa to find the answer to this question. As a general rule, if you can find out where your grandparents / great grandparents who were born in the late 1800's to early 1900's were born, this is usually the place where they are from. People born in the mid 1900's may have parents who moved, looking for work or following the urban migration trends, hence the reason why the late 1800's - early 1900's are a more accurate gauge.

Another way to find out is if you or your whanau have Maori Land shares, as the place where the land is has usually been inherited through blood and goes back to people who were from there.

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