‘Tiahuia – A Karanga to My Mother’
Our family is the embodiment of a positive Treaty Relationship. My sister Merenia has done a remarkable job telling the life stories and bi-cultural marriage of our late parents: Tiahuia Te Puea Hērangi Ramihana (Ramsden) Gray and Neil Edward Gray. ‘Tiahuia – A Karanga To My Mother’ is a labour of aroha, and it’s a fascinating read.
Dad’s parents George and Hilda Gray migrated to New Zealand from Aberdeen, Scotland and Norfolk, England. This makes us 3rd generation New Zealanders. It was a brave journey to make for my British grandparents in the 1920s - to start a whole new life, knowing they were unlikely to return. Our Nana, Hilda did get back once to see her siblings during her 95 years. In parallel, consider the waka hourua navigating the almighty, seemingly impenetrable Pacific over 1000 years prior. No sextant. No sense of longitude or latitude. Just an indisputable display of genius executing skills of celestial navigation, comprehending wave reverberations, whale migrations, weather patterns and specific bird species to determine if land was close by. The bravery underpinning those journeys of survival cannot be disputed. This is the start of the journey of my mum’s lineage (whakapapa) which ties us 44 generations to Aotearoa. This is what it is to be tangata whenua. This is why 100,000 people turn up to hikoi.
Mum had been adopted at birth under the care of Princess Te Puea Hērangi in Ngāruawāhia where the Kīngitanga resides. Letters from my sister’s book show a promise made between our Grandmother Merenia Henrietta Manawatu (Billie) – a Kai Tahu socialite from Koukourarata (Port Levy) near Christchurch and our Grandfather journalist Eric Oakes Ramsden, (who had forged a close relationship with Te Puea covering her life on Tūrangawaewae marae in the newspaper The Sun and later The Post), that they were gifting Te Puea with their first child. Te Puea could not have children and had instigated the union between my grandparents Eric and Merenia.
Life for both of my parents growing up was tough. Everyone pitched in on the marae in Ngāruwāhia to enable the community to survive. Te Puea’s dictate was: ‘if you are old enough to walk you are old enough to work.’ From age 6 my mum would wake up at 5am each day to have a hearty breakfast before heading off with the men to work in the tobacco fields and Chinese gardens. She would chop up gorse bushes, then walk half a mile to clean out the pig trough beating away the beasts she was afraid of with a stick, as well as collect the eggs – a job she enjoyed. She would also play the role of Te Puea’s handmaiden, waving the fan to keep her cool during the hot Hamilton summers. Her constant close proximity to Te Puea and the other kuia instilled mum with a deep knowledge of the rights and rituals of tikanga Māori, including karanga, the Pai Mārire religion and tangihanga – skills she served the community with right to her last days.
Dad came from impoverished roots too. I remember a story he would recount during the rationing days of World War II when he was about 6. One time his mother Hilda brought home bananas. You could never get bananas! He couldn’t resist sneaking one, but what to do with the peel? The beating would be harsh if he was caught. Thus he was forced to eat the peel as well to dispose of any evidence.
It was no surprise he became a lawyer.
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When you don’t have much in life, the drive to build yourself up is strong. He worked his way from his birth town of Nelson working in the ship-yard office and digging holes to place power poles to secure his ferry ticket to Wellington and pay his way through law school at Victoria – the first in his family-line to get to University. He worked his way tirelessly for 60 years through the legal ranks to reach the senior partner pinnacle of Chapman Tripp Sheffield Young – one of the top law firms in the Nation. He met mum during one of his parties in Island Bay and they forged a connection that was to last over 50 years before their passing.
Our home as kids was filled with friends and community members from all walks of life and races. Mum’s manaakitanga marae instincts, trained by the very best in the game, came to the fore. Meals were constantly provided, a giant pot of boil up on the go for any who turned up. She did the same for all the students at Victoria University when running Te Herenga Waka marae. Her work ethic was profound. She never stopped. On top of raising us 5 kids, her loving tentacles would penetrate deep into the community. For example, she would start wrapping presents for over 100 of our close family friends and whanau up to two months prior to Christmas. Meanwhile she would be simultaneously completing her Bachelor of Arts Degree and then going back to school to complete her 5th form and 6th form certificate at Wellington High School which she never got to do as a teenager, (before being invited onto the faculty to work as their Māori teacher.) She contributed to the City Council – providing the ‘TUMEKE PONEKE’ Māori translation to the ‘Absolutely Positively’ slogan we love today. And she was an absolute stalwart cleaning the toilets and constantly fundraising for Ngāti Poneke Young Māori Club that embraced those that had come from the rural heartland to the capital during the silent migration.
Growing up, I never realised that there was an underbelly of racism in our country. With consistent multicultural gatherings – we were all just people round our home and we all just got on. My parents cultivated a welcoming environment that included all ages, races, and political ideology celebrating the kotahitanga (unity) of our community. Now in the days of fragmented communities and social media those divides are more apparent. Perhaps we should get off-line a little more and put our head into a hard copy book to learn from the ways of the Golden generation.
Tiahuia – A Karanga to my Mother. (Huia Publishers).
To secure a copy of Merenia's book click the link below, or visit any good bookstore throughout Aotearoa-New Zealand:
System Engineer at Datacom
5dTiahuia was an awesome gentle person, who spoke softly with wisdom of our ancestors. She never stopped sharing and never stopped learning.
Bookshop Proprietor, Poet, Novelist, Publisher
1wkapai to mahi
Freelance journalist
1wYour mum came on a school camp with us to Koriniti marae on the Whanganui river when I was 12 and I remember her taking me and Harriet Brookwhite aside and telling us as we were the only ones going to Onslow College the following year it was important that we looked after each other.