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With the news of Pākehā in Ōwairaka claiming to be mana whenua, I just wanna make a small point as a Pākehā who's just finished 2+ years of work on my whakapapa (additional to all the other far more important points that have been made):
Pākehā claiming that they're *of* this land is insulting to their own ancestors, as well as mana whenua. I feel like if I did that, my ancestors would whoop me. They didn't (rightly or wrongly) come here in earnest so that I could forget where they came from or who went before me
My ancestors toiled in mines & workhouses in Cornwall, starved in Ireland and were forcibly sent from England to the end of the world - never to see their families again - for stealing a length of rope or a petticoat. God help me if I forget that for some janky attempt at clout.
I whakapapa to them, and to the Treaty, but not to *this* land. The maunga are not my tūpuna, even if many generations of my family were born and raised in their shadows. For me personally, I rationalise this as not being *from* or *of* this land, but I can be *for* this land.
And I'm comfortable with that because I have lands of my own, even if I don't live on them and may never do. There are lands which have native trees which gave me my last name. Lands where my family's bones lie with stones that have measured the earth's movements for 5,000 years.
Maybe if more of us REALLY knew our whakapapa, we wouldn't be so desperate for a sense of belonging at the expense of tangata whenua and native ecosystems.
Settler identities can feel a bit like limbo (trust me, I get it!) but it's on us to find better ways to ground ourselves.
Settler identities can feel a bit like limbo (trust me, I get it!) but it's on us to find better ways to ground ourselves.
