06/08/2024
Once upon a time, a long time ago 😂 good, sound, official & professional river advice to any up & coming Riverguide (now… Cultural Navigator) was ⬇️
“Look for the V (the deepest part of the river where the current mobilises into one channel), commit to your line (where you intend to steer your waka/canoe) and paddle hard 🛶”
Well… let’s start with a back story…
It wasn’t that long ago (for a number of reasons that will come across too strong to the fragile)… our people of the river (Māori from Whanganui) were disconnected (at least in an embodied manner) to their river.
And not too long before that… say a hundred years or so. That physical & embodied disconnect wasn’t something we perhaps even considered possible. Well… the disconnect is REAL and the need for reconnection is even more real.
So… taking a few leaps forward back to nowadays again, it’s important to highlight the vision of some of our tuupuna for initiating our annual Tira Hoe Waka (annual tribal pilgrimage) of the Whanganui River where we as descendents traverse the length of the river from the Mountain’s to the Sea. And that in doing so, we saw the revival of our narratives, our songs & our intrinsic connection to ourselves again.
And with that reconnection, comes the reminder that…
It is a relationship with the river, with the environment & not one that advocates on behalf of… that see’s the best solutions… if we really ARE, serious about looking after the environment.
So to counter the age old advice above, the video here shows that… the safest passage when navigating some of The River’s biggest rapids, is actually in the calmer waters that sit right beside the turbulence 🤔
So to our fellow tribesman 😬😅😂🤪 perhaps our beautiful waiata ‘Pokarekare Ana’ could be re-worded to
Pokarekare ana
ngā tahataha
o ngā wai o Whanganui
Tirohia te
waimāmā e
kia kore e tipi e
🤣🤣🤣
