Why our marae will always open in a crisis 

by Siena Yates | Mar 17, 2023 | 0  | 6 min read, E-Tangata

In times of crisis and disaster, marae open their doors without question. The reason for the unfailing response is manaakitanga, a word that carries far more meaning than simply hospitality. As Siena Yates writes here.

When flooding overwhelmed Tāmaki Makaurau at the end of January, videos hit TikTok thick and fast to show the rising waters. On Instagram, lists were fired out on where to get help.

Instantly, on those lists, as places of refuge and help, were our marae — ready, just as fast as social media, to respond in real time.

Something stirred in me, as I kept seeing: “This marae is open.” “There’s an emergency centre at this marae.” “Send donations to this marae.”

Pride? Yes. But worry, too, knowing the people of those marae would be working non-stop to help others, even though they were also in the thick of a developing and uncertain situation.

Anyone who’s spent time working on a marae knows how intense it can be.

There’s everything that goes into preparing kai, from breaking up every loaf of bread in sight for the stuffing, to peeling a couple of sacks of potatoes with a knife because you were too slow to get one of the peelers.

There’s organising the wharenui and wharekai. There’s setting out tables and chairs and, later, dragging out mattresses. There’s kai to be served, tables to be cleared, hundreds of cups of tea to pour, and an endless stream of dishes to be done.

That’s not to mention all that goes into the ōkawa, the formal, side of things — sorting your kaikaranga, kaikōrero, that last-minute whispered debate about which waiata you’re going to do, making your way through the hariru line that feels like it goes round the block in time to run over and welcome everyone in for a kai. And that’s just for your run-of-the-mill noho, let alone a national state of emergency.

Which is why something else rose up in me too, as I saw our wharenui doors open without delay or excuse through all the crises this year. It was something close to anger.

Our marae were being casually bullet-pointed in a list of official services without anyone acknowledging that they’re not an official service provider.

It felt like they were being taken for granted. Our people provide the same things as emergency and relief services but with neither the training nor the funding.

Labour’s Māori caucus eventually acknowledged that when they announced a $15 million package to fund a Māori-led recovery response after Cyclone Gabrielle. They also acknowledged not only the extent, but also the speed of marae and iwi responses.

That was after the fact. The reality is that none of the people of our marae wait around to find out if there’ll be money coming down the track. When you ask them why they do what they do, they say: “That’s what we do as Māori. That’s manaakitanga.”

NOTE: This article has been reproduced from E-Tangata, the Sunday Magazine online, run by Mana Trust and dedicated to building a stronger Māori and Pacific presence in the New Zealand media.. It is available in its entirety at https://e-tangata.co.nz/reflections/why-our-marae-always-open-in-a-crisis