All language subtitles for Origins NZ - 1x03_track3_eng

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When our Maori ancestors
arrived on these shores,

Aotearoa became the last major landmass
on Earth to be inhabited by humans.

Our genealogies tell me the names of those
tupuna, those ancestors, but who came before them?

In this series, I want to truly understand
where we come from and how our people got here.

Last time, I travelled to Samoa and Vanuatu and
found surprising links to our language and culture.

But there are still
So many questions.

No reira, Maori na, no Ahia ranei
tatou? Are we from Asia?

This time, I'm leaving the Pacific and going
beyond the oral traditions of my ancestors,

back before our great
ocean migration.

I want to put everything I believe to the test
and go right back to the very beginning of us all.

Hono mai ki au ki a hikoi tahi tatou ki
te Ao whanui me to tomo au o te wa.

So join me as I travel across
the world and through time.

Captions were made with
the support of NZ On Air.

Rotorua is my ukaipo. It's the place
I connect with in my bones.

My tribe's whakapapa gives us a lineage that
stretches from here back to Eastern Polynesia

and into the beginning
of time itself.

However, DNA and archaeology say the
ancestors of Polynesians, the Austronesians,

came from Southeast Asia, and Taiwan
is believed to be their birthplace.

I've always thought of Taiwan as Chinese, and I can't
imagine finding any Maori connection here at all.

The indigenous people of Taiwan
are made up of 14 tribes.

That's about 560,000 people, and that's 2% of
the 23.5 million people that live here in Taiwan.

Us Maori in Aotearoa, we're 15%
of the population, and climbing.

But as you can see, the indigenous people of
Taiwan are heavily outnumbered by the Han Chinese,

who started arriving here —
kia or a! — in around 1600.

Colonisation hit the
native Taiwanese hard.

Kaohsiung City, on the flatlands of
the West Coast, is now largely Chinese.

So I'm heading to the east coast,

where the indigenous tribes were more
protected by Taiwan's mountain range.

My first stop is near
the city of Taitung,

where the people of the Paiwan tribe are
rediscovering their history and culture.

This small school teaches traditional
hunting, and with it, language.

(SINGS IN PAIWAN)

A hill people, they hunt the small barking
deer that fill these forest-clad mountainsides.

And like us, they are traditionally animists — their
many gods are in the natural world around them.

(SPEAKS PAIWAN)

Chief Tajnubak teaches the qualities and medicinal
use of every plant and tree in the forest —

a science we call rongoa.

(SPEAKS PAIWAN)
(STUDENTS RESPOND IN PAIWAN)

(SPEAKS PAIWAN)
(STUDENTS REPEAT)

So, you and the mountains and the
trees, you are all like siblings?

- Thank you.
(SPEAKS PAIWAN)

I can identify with the Paiwan,
as an indigenous person.

But after this first meeting, I don't
feel a deeper connection as a Maori yet.

But then we don't have snakes,
and here snakes are everywhere.

Legend has it that in the distant past, the
mighty sun came down to earth and laid four eggs.

To ensure their safety, the sun ordered a
giant green snake to protect two of the eggs,

and a hundred-pace viper
to guard the other two.

(SNAKE GROWLS)

The creatures wrapped themselves
around the sun eggs and watched over them.

The eggs guarded by the green
snake hatched a male and female,

who became the ancestors
of Paiwan commoners.

And from the eggs the sacred viper protected came
the man and the woman who became the ancestors

of the Paiwan rangatira,
their chiefly families.

The Paiwan rangatira families
were tapu — divine.

Only they had the right to
wear special adornments.

Their leather, jewellery and tattoos were often
decorated with the pattern of the hundred-pace viper,

in honour of the creature that
had protected their ancestors.

Tattooing predates
Pacific migration,

so there's a good chance the art was
carried down into the Pacific from Taiwan.

Unfortunately, it was banned during the Japanese
occupation and is only now making a slow comeback.

Cudjuy is the only traditional
tattooist currently working here

and is drawing on practitioners of Samoan
tatau and Maori moko to revive his art.

Do these designs mean different
things — the wavy patterns, the lines?

(SPEAKS PAIWAN)

(SPEAKS PAIWAN)

The design on his face looks Maori.
Where did he get that from?

Yes. Yes.

I could recognise it when I saw it.

The art of tattooing is...

one of the main things,
or probably the main thing

that connects people
right across the Pacific.

What does he think about that?

These patterns remind me of what I've
seen on Lapita pottery and Samoan tatau.

I'm heading north now to meet
a member of the Amis tribe.

Martin has built a replica
of the bamboo boats

that may have begun the Austronesian people on
their amazing ocean migration 5000 years ago.

How long did it take
you to make this?

- Uh, a gruelling four months.
- Four months? - Yeah.

It was is originally
a sailboat, though.

So you can tell, there's two slits
here — those are to put your keel.

That hole there, that's to
put the mast for the sail.

- And you reviving this. This is something
that hasn't been around for a little while.

- The last one that was seen
was maybe 80 years ago.

- So, how did you get involved in all of
this, Martin? What prompted you to build this?

- Well, the ocean is right
in front of our village.

A lot of my family like to do diving — diving
for what we call awang, which is your kina.

- Yeah.
- So that's how it started.

- This bamboo raft seems a long way from the
massive double-hulled waka of Maritime Polynesia.

But it would have preceded
them by thousands of years.

- You're the captain now. (BOTH
LAUGH) - Thank you. Thank you, brother.

Thank you for giving
me the mana of your waka.

What's the origin story for your tribe? Do they
have a story about where they originated from?

- There's only a story that is
how we landed on this island.

But there's no time — like we don't know
what time it would have been — like, when.

So, the story goes we came in
from the east coast.

There's a little island
called Green Island.

In our native language,
it's called Sanasai.

And that's basically one of
the islands that we stopped on,

before we came here on to
the main island of Taiwan.

- So, what do you think of the theory that
we could be cousins somewhere along the...?

- Linguistically, I think so.
- Linguistically, yeah, yeah.

- I can count in our native language if you want me to.
- Yeah, go up 10.

- Uh, so it's decay, tosa, tolo, sepat,
lima, enem, pito, falo, siwa, motep.

So, yeah, that's one to 10.

- Falo, quite close to waru. Lima close to rima.
- Yeah. Falo was eight.

- Tolu close to toru. - Yeah, tolo.
- Yeah, there's a couple there, eh?

- Mata is your eyes.
- Mata, eyes, yeah, same. - Tangila is ears.

Taringa. Ears, yeah.

It's mind-blowing to imagine those first Austronesian
explorers heading into the unknown on bamboo rafts,

and then to so quickly develop
the serious maritime technology

to be able to navigate
the vastness of the Pacific.

It makes this part of our
story very hard to comprehend.

*

The colonisation of the indigenous people
along the coast in Taiwan is all too familiar.

It comes down to land — lose your
land and you lose your way of life.

I'm going to meet Sumi Dongi, who
gave up a big-city career and returned

to help her tribe revive
traditional agriculture.

And so how did you get involved
in the growing of rice

and the revitalisation of traditional
practices around growing rice?

(SPEAKS MANDARIN)

(SPEAKS MANDARIN)

So, how did she get
the farmers to support?

It's the land is
the important thing.

(LAUGHS)

For Sumi, her kaupapa is about
the land, the all-important ocean,

and reviving traditional
Amis cultural practices.

Is that rock out there
significant in any way?

- And they still do that now?
- Yes.

- It's not just a story. That's real.
- Yes, yes, very important rock.

I'm heading inland to Guangfu, where I'm told is
the only remaining carved house of the Amis people.

It belongs to the Kakita'an family, who can
trace their ancestry back 59 generations.

CHANTS: Whitiki nukutia
ki te ao o naianei!

Kia tu, kia oho!

Kia putu kite wheiao,
kite ao marama.

Uhi! Wero! Hau mai te mauri.

Haumi e! Hui e!

Taiki e!

Whare e tu nei, tena koe.
E mihi ana ki a koe.

Like the carvings in our wharenui back home,
these panels embody the Amis creation stories.

This feels like going
back in time.

Hoki whakamuri kite ao o nehe.

It feels both very familiar
and yet different.

And I'm shocked to see in this written
whakapapa familiar names like Rata and Maiau.

(HOWLS)

(SPEAKS AMIS LANGUAGE)

There's another New Zealand
connection here.

After visiting a
Kohanga reo in Aotearoa,

my guide, Sifo, returned home
inspired by the idea of immersion learning.

His school is due to open soon.

But in the meantime, this sacred whare is used
to teach Amis children their Amis language

through their cultural stories
and myths.

He honore nui te nohotahi me nga iwi
manawhenua o tenei takiwa i te ra nei.

It's been a huge privilege to spend time
with the local people of this area today.

Uncanny, the similarities between us as
Maori and the indigenous people here —

visual similarities,
linguistic similarities.

Some of the ritual and protocols are very similar
to what we do in te Ao Maori, in the Maori world.

So there's obviously been a lot
of wananga happening in here,

and a lot of tribal knowledge
has been shared.

A lot of elders have sat in this whare, and you can
still feel them here. You can feel their presence.

So I wasn't expecting this.

I wasn't expecting the whare to look
the way it does and feel the way it does.

And it's the look of the whare
and the feel of the whare

that really makes me feel
like I'm in a whare at home.

I could be sitting in one of our wharenui
in Ohinemutu, Rotorua right now.

It would be exactly the same as this. So the
similarity is quite... it's extraordinary.

It's extraordinary how similar this
whare is to our whare at home.

I came to Taiwan expecting nothing.

But I leave more open to the idea that
Pacific migration may have begun in Asia.

And I'm feeling a surprising connection
to the indigenous tribes of this land.

My next stop will take me 8500km away and
hundreds of thousands of years in the past,

deep in to the origins of
te ao tangata, the human race.

I've literally no idea
what I'm going to find.

*

Addis Ababa is the chaotic capital
city of Ethiopia, in north-east Africa,

a place I barely knew of and one I
certainly never thought I would visit.

At the beginning of this hikoi,
kaumata Sir Toby Curtis

said that there were other Hawaiki
outside of the ones in Eastern Polynesia —

a Hawaiki in India,
a Hawaiki in Africa.

Ethiopia is said to be the cradle of
humanity. This is where it all began.

But to tell you the truth — kia pono taku
korero — I feel million miles away from Aotearoa

and a million miles away from Maori
people, Maori culture, and Maori whakapapa.

Ethiopia is the home of
long-distance runners and coffee.

But it's also thought to be
the birthplace of humanity.

Coming from Aotearoa, the last stop
in humankind's long journey,

it's strange to be here,
where many say it all started.

I've come to the National Museum of Ethiopia
to hear the story of human evolution.

If the body found at Wairau Bar
was our Maori auntie,

the auntie of all may be the
3.2-million-year-old Lucy.

But she's just part of the story.

I'm lucky enough to be meeting a man who co-discovered
some of the earliest humans on display here.

- In this particular room, you may
find at least 11 different humans

that lived from six million years ago, all the
way to the present, one replacing the other.

So when you have this data, then you can comfortably
say that Africa is the birthplace of humankind.

So, why is Lucy so important?

- When Lucy was discovered in 1974,

Lucy was the only one which had
almost 40% of the body parts.

At a young age, the vertebrae show
some skeletal problems like arthritis —

very young.

So this tells you that early
humans have walked on two legs.

- Why did humans leave Africa?

- Looking for food.

That's exactly what is happening
still now, trying to get more resources.

If they just walk only 1km a day,

in one year, they're away
365km from their centre.

In 10 years, they're away 3650km.

Then before they know it,
they're all the way to...

- ...New Zealand. (LAUGHS) - ...China. And
then finally, to New Zealand and Australia.

- Lucy was a breakthrough
find back in the '70s.

But since then, our understanding
of evolution has progressed,

with successive discoveries
of human and prehuman remains.

Dr Berhane co-discovered a
number of the exhibits here.

- OK, this is the earliest human.

The date is 5.8 million years old,
so almost six million years.

And we named it
Ardipithecus Kadabba.

Ardi means ground.
Kadabba means 'big father'.

- Good name for our early ancestor.
- Yeah.

In 1994, we found this skeleton.

And this clearly shows at around
4.4 million years ago,

as you can see, very big hands
and the complete foot bones.

This is very important because, 1) it
proved to us that the early humans,

they changed from quadrupedal,
chimpanzee-like animals

into a biped, into a bipedal,
walking on two legs.

When you go to this one, this one,
Australopithecus, the molars are not very big.

Then they started using stone tools — and the
tools are right here, very primitive tools.

So who was the creator of these
stole tools? Maybe this guy.

That is the beginning of the change.

Then comes this one.

This is around 2.4 million
years old.

In 200,000 years,
the brain has expanded.

And then when we get here,
this is Homo erectus.

- This is Homo erectus, here?
- This one is, yeah. Tiny, tiny mandible. Big brain.

And then when you come here, at around one
million years ago, this is what we discovered too.

This is one million years old.
The brain size has tripled.

The mystery, or the miracle that
happened is because the stone tools

gave them access to all kinds of
protein and bone marrow, and everything.

- And then that caused
the brain to grow.

- The brain. Now they are able to feed a big brain.
- Yeah.

- And this was replaced at
around 200,000 years ago

by people like us.

The first Homo sapiens
are right here.

And the brain size here
has expanded to 1450cc.

That is modern Homo sapiens.

So everything that you see
all over the world now,

the differences that you've seen between
blacks, whites, Orientals and everything,

happened much, much
later after this one.

Much later — less than 50,000 years.

So now you have walked through the
whole human evolution in one place.

And the record is right here.

So for anybody who doubts evolution,
this is the place to come.

- The korero with Dr Berhane has
left me with a lot to think about.

My next stop is a
short flight south.

It's one thing to
learn about evolution,

but will I feel a connection with the
ancient tribes that still live in Ethiopia?

*

(STIRRING MUSIC)

Kua tae mai au ki te wharua o Omo.

I've arrived here in the Omo Valley.

The Omo Valley is famous
for three things —

its red clay, what we
at home called kokowai;

its tribes and ethnicities
that call this place home;

and its role in the evolution
of the human species.

The idea that I might be standing in the place where
experts say Homo sapiens developed and evolved,

and the idea that I may be walking in the footsteps
of my ancient ancestors who lived in this place

is really hard to process.

But one thing I do know is that I've been
through a lot of countries around the world,

and right now I couldn't feel
further away from home.

(GENTLE FLUTE MUSIC)

I'm travelling with Minalu,
who grew up in the region

and has written about the
ancient tribes of Omo Valley.

- There are 16 distinct ethnic
groups living in the area.

- Those are tribes? 16 tribes?
- Yes, 16 tribes.

The magic of the people here is
the simplicity of the way they live.

The tribes that live here haven't
always been in this area.

Nomadic people have come and gone, chasing
resources like water, which is precious around here.

Minalu is taking me to meet people of the
Hamar tribe, who consider this river sacred

and use the water to help decorate
themselves for important events.

Their distinctive look comes from ochre
soil and the body paint they make with it.

They brought the ochre
from the Buska Mountain.

The Buska Mountain is the most
sacred mountain of the Hamar people.

- These patterns, do they signify anything — like,
the swirly lines? Does that signify different things?

Yeah, it's just like, you know,
you look like a zebra.

- Zebra.
- Yeah. You look like a zebra.

(STIRRING AMBIENT MUSIC)

(SPEAKS HAMAR LANGUAGE)

So, this red clay, it's like
the kokowai in Hawaiki,

and the kokowai that we use a lot in Aotearoa for
this purpose, as well — in traditional times, anyway.

And the kokowai, the red clay, is said
to be found in a place called Kurawaka,

which is the name of my daughter.

She was named for that purpose —
Kurawaka. Kurawaka.

She was named for that purpose.

The first human created, the female called
Hineahuone — the woman who emerged from the soil,

the red soil of Kurawaka.

I feel very honoured by this.
I feel very privileged.

It feels like I'm being bestowed some mana
from the Hamar people, which is very humbling.

- You call it mana?
- 'Mana'.

- Mana. Mana is a blessing from the gods.
- That's us, too.

- Whoo!
- That's what we call it.

- What's your name?
- Te Manahau.

- Eh? - Te Manahau.
- Te Manahau.

- Whoo! Chur, brother. Good work.
- (LAUGHTER)

(SPEAKS HAMAR LANGUAGE) - 'My name is Dambe,' he said.
- Dambe. Dambe.

- They would like to sing you a song,
and they consider you as part of them.

(CHANTS LOUDLY, VOCALISES)

(ALL CHANT TOGETHER)

(LAUGHTER)

(WARM AMBIENT MUSIC)

(SPEAKS HAMAR LANGUAGE)
- Hey, my brother. Hey.

- Hongi. - Hongi?
- Hongi.

- Thank you. Thank you.
- Hey says thank you very much.

That was...
out-of-this-world experience.

Just being embraced by the boys as
one of them, treated as one of them,

and, yeah, receiving this mana, mana of theirs
from centuries ago, getting a body paint.

It's really, really a privilege to participate
in that ceremony and to receive this.

It's mana, and we know
what that means.

We know how special that is.
You can't buy that kind of stuff.

There's no value. It's beautiful.

I'm gonna put my shirt on, cos I've
put some weight on this tour. (LAUGHS)

(GENTLE ATMOSPHERIC MUSIC)

The body paint is something the tribesmen do ahead
of the Saturday morning market in nearby Dimeka.

The tribes of this area have
come and gone over millennia.

But effectively,
these are the people

who stayed when the rest of humanity
left so many thousands of years ago.

You could say the ancestors of my guide, Minalu,
have been here since the dawn of humanity.

It's humbling and
mind-blowing to be here.

Everywhere you go, there's coffee.

In fact, Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee,
and it plays an important role in life here.

- We are going to meet the Hamar
tribe in their village where they live.

I'm taking you to a family who invited us
to a traditional Hamar coffee ceremony.

- This is the home of Kalla,
a village elder.

Seven people live in this house,
including his wife, Gayto.

- Bordjumay, you say.
- Bordjumay.

- Now they are making a blessing.

- Ooh, beauty.

Tino, tino reka.

- It's very, very sweet and beautiful.
- Yeah.

- Tino reka, yeah?
- Tino reka, that's it, bro. (LAUGHS) Tino reka.

- How old are these people here?
- Hamar people don't care about age. They just live and die.

- Yeah.
- So birth and death; they don't count the age in between.

But we ask them, he will ask
how old, for example...

(SPEAKS HAMAR)

(LAUGHTER)

(RESPONDS IN HAMAR)

- (SPEAKS HAMAR)
- (SPEAKS HAMAR)

- Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

- You're born, you live and then you
die, and that's all that matters.

(TRANSLATES TO HAMAR)

- (CHUCKLES) I'm older than all of you.
- (LAUGHTER)

- Good answer. Good answer.

Have a safe way.

- Does she wanna do a hongi?

(SPEAKS HAMAR)
(SPEAKS HAMAR)

(SPEAKS HAMAR)

(EXCLAIMS)

(LAUGHTER)

Thank you.

Mihi ana ki a korua, nga wahine
rangatira o tenei papakainga. Tena korua.

I'm surprised to find how much
spending time with these people

who still live a tribal
lifestyle affects me.

It makes me think about how
my tupuna lived so long ago,

and how our Maori tribes would
have interacted with each other.

I feel very moved.

Perhaps one of the most
significant days of my life.

So I feel both connected to this
place and 70,000 years distant from it.

Because it was around that long ago that a few hundred
people left Africa, probably across the Red Sea.

They spread out and multiplied.

Some interbred with other now
extinct species of humans.

One group moved into East Asia, probably
travelling along coastlines now underwater.

Around 5000 years ago, a group left Taiwan, beginning
the greatest sea migration in human history,

moving east to Vanuatu,
then West Polynesia.

After 2000 years, they started off again,
discovering the islands of East Polynesia.

And from there, my
tupuna headed south-west.

*

(GENTLE MUSIC)

On this journey I've gone from Aotearoa, the
last major landmass to be inhabited by humans,

back to the first, Africa,
and now |'ve come full circle

back to one of the last stepping-off points
of my ancestors en route to Aotearoa.

My whakapapa tells me that the Te Arawa waka
was one of many that stopped here in Aitutaki,

and over in Rarotonga,
before heading to Aotearoa.

Bombs — one of the true
Pacific traditions.

Looks pretty high.

He teitei te peke.

Three well-known waka came through
here on their journey south —

Tainui, Takitumu and our waka, Te
Arawa, which picked up some crew here.

Tainui have a particular connection. They stayed
longer, and there's even a Tainui marae here.

(CONCH TRUMPETS)

Ali Maao is a tohunga who can whakapapa
to the Tainui and Te Arawa wakas.

- Kia or a, Brother.
- Kia or a.

What's the connections that you know of between
Maori in Aotearoa and Maori here in Aitutaki?

- With our language as Cook Island Maori, your
guys language is New Zealand Maori; same thing.

- When you talk about Hawaiki, where's Hawaiki
for you? Where does Hawaiki mean to you?

So, Avaiki... What I was taught
about, Avaiki is not an island.

You know, it's not like an island
by the name of Avaiki.

Avaiki is where you come from. Like, our
Avaiki for Aitutaki, we come from Tupua'i.

That is our Avaiki right there. And if you trace
yours back wherever you came from, that's your Avaiki.

- So, those three islands out there,
what are their names?

- The name of the island
is called Akitua.

Then you go next door, is Angarei. And
then you got Mangere, and then you got—

- Mangere out here too? So there's
an island out there called Mangere?

- Mangere. Mangere.
- These... - (BOTH LAUGH)

- These are all places
in Aotearoa, bro.

(PEACEFUL MUSIC)

260km, or just over
a day's sail south,

is the next and final stopover on
my ancestors' journey to Aotearoa.

So I'm here now in Hawaiki
Tumu-te-warowaro, or Rarotonga,

and this is a very significant place in
terms of the history of the voyaging waka.

Here we have Pikopiko-i-whiti.

This is the place where our waka,
like Te Arawa, Tainui, Takitimu came in,

and just on the other side there, we have
the island called Te Motu-tapu-a-Tinirau.

Both of these places are mentioned in our ancient
incantations and all of our oral traditions.

So very significant and great timing from
our whanaunga here coming in on their waka.

This is what it might have looked
like all of those hundreds of years ago.

The great fleet commemorated
here may be a myth,

but that doesn't take away from
the fact our waka came through here.

Rarotonga is an important touchstone
in the Te Arawa story.

I know my version of our waka story,
but I'm keen to hear the Rarotongan side,

so I'm meeting waka builder
and master carver Mike Tavioni.

- Kia orana.
- Kia orana.

- Welcome.
- Yeah, welcome back to your original home.

(LAUGHS)

- From what you know, though, Arawa came
through this way as well — the Te Arawa waka?

-I don't need to know. If you are a wise
captain, you will stop here in Rarotonga,

because last leg of the
trip is almost 2000 miles.

- But what about Hawaiki, Papa Mike?
Is Hawaiki a metaphor as well?

- Avaiki is a realistic place.

But for me, my Avaiki is at Cook's
Corner where the bus stop is.

I was born there.

My afterbirth is buried there,
and I should be buried there.

And that's my Avaiki.

My father's Avaiki is in Atiu. He
was born there. His afterbirth is there.

And his grandfather's Avaiki is Ra'iatea
and Bora Bora. And that's their Avaiki.

So Avaiki is simply
where you originated.

But if you talk about your origin as the Maori
people, then you talk about Avaiki Pamamao.

In this case, maybe we say Asia.

So if that is Avaiki Pamamao, then
the row of homelands started from there,

then the next Avaiki
may be in Taiwan.

And then the next Avaiki is Samoa,

and Tonga and Samoa, and then until
it reaches Tahiti and Ra'iatea.

- If I was to ask you what the
connections are between Maori in Aotearoa

and Maori here in Rarotonga,
Aitutaki, what would your answer be?

- I would say you are stupid.
- (LAUGHS)

- It's a stupid question.
- (LAUGHS)

- What is a Maori?
Can you tell me what is a Maori?

- Taua?
- No. What does it mean?

- Native, natural.

- Maori, 'ma' means clean, pure.
- Pure, yes.

- 'Ori' is to move. We might say to migrate.
- Yeah.

To move.

- So that did not originate
in New Zealand.

So you are certainly
our teina, not tuakana.

- So if you want to be Maori, we are more Maori than you.
- (LAUGHS)

I don't think everyone in Aotearoa would agree, but
I thought I'd let the kaumatua have the last word.

Mike's offered to take me
to Taputapuatea Marae,

built surrounding a mauri stone from
sacred Taputapuatea in Ra'iatea.

It's the bridge between Eastern
Polynesia and Aotearoa to the south.

It's the last step of my journey.

(CHANTS KARAKIA)

This has been a journey
of a lifetime.

I've been to some amazing places and met people
who have changed the way I see the world.

And wherever |'ve gone,
strangers have welcomed me.

I've seen how language and cultural
practices echo down through millennia,

and how the thirst to move
on creates new cultures.

This journey has been challenging for me, and
we've talked about a number of possible origins.

Ultimately, it's strengthened my
commitment to my own Maori culture,

and I finish in the firm belief that
I visited my Hawaiki in Rai'atea.

Ko te ahurea, ko te whanau, ko te
whakapone e mohio al tatou ko wai tatou.

Ahakoa nga korero rereke puta
I roto I te roanga o tenei hikoi —

nga korero rereke
kua whaptaritari I te hinengaro —

e pupu tonu ake ana te aroha I roto I te
whatumanawa ki nga korero katoa I puta.

Nga korero I ata tuitui I te korowai o te
maramatanga kia puta ai he matauranga hou

e pa ana ki te kaupapa no hea tatou.

Na tenei hikoi,

kua pakari ake taku mohio ko wai
ahau ko wai tatou te iwi Maori.

And that, my friends,
is pretty cool.

(SOARING MUSIC)

Captions by John Gibbs.
Edited by James Brown.

http://Scene-RLS.net
Capped by sighkick