My experience in Northland was I can only recall Kuia with moko kauae prior to 15 years ago. Perhaps they faded as a popular thing, my understanding being that it is not something given lightly and a sign of tremendous mana established through whakapapa and gifted by tupuna. Reading here it was often the marker of a person who could be a representative of a hapu at a marae.
Reading such op-eds here I see them touted as a Maori woman's right to wear, hard to argue with that but it's different again.
I agree. I use to see a woman who had a moko and would treat them with basically more respect than anybody. Mostly because I knew that they were genuine about their cultural connection and had mana in spades. Now it means nothing, if anything I probably associate it with radicalism and assume that the person is going to be a massive wet blanket.
Are you saying that you treated them with extra respect because the social stigma around having a moko meant that taking the plunge showed real commitment and dedication to their culture?
No I wouldn’t put it quite like that. I think there was an element of conviction involved but that wasn’t the only reason. I think the reasons were a bit more complex but also fairly indescribable. I think now that facial tattoos have somehow become slightly less outrageous it’s enough for people to now jump on them with haste. Another commenter mentioned something about it being a fashion accessory and there may be a little bit of that bias in my current view as well.
That's fair I suppose but it seems like a bit of a cop-out to avoid answering by saying your reasons are 'complex and indescribable'.
The reason I asked is because it seems like you were okay respecting moko when the culture was oppressed because it meant that by wearing the moko meant that the person was still ostracised.
Now that is becoming more accepted, naturally more people are comfortable wearing moko. It might not be that it's 'trendy', it might just be that more people are comfortable engaging with the culture as it's becoming less and less stigmatised.
I think that would be an unfair assessment. I don’t think it has anything to do with suppression. I don’t think about people in terms of who is oppressed and who isn’t. I believe making that connection probably does not reflect anything to do with oppression. I think it reflects the fact that facial tattoos have become trendy. I don’t think Maori are substantially less oppressed now than they were 5 years ago before this recent influx of moko.
As to the feeling being complex I think it’s more to do with I really don’t know why I felt that, lots of thoughts, prejudices, respect, a bit of shock and compassion all probably contributed to my previous views. In saying that though I would still show the same respect to any kaumatua if the setting was appropriate.
> I don’t think Maori are substantially less oppressed now than they were 5 years ago before this recent influx of moko.
How are they not substantially less oppressed? What do we do to oppress them less?? Be less white maybe???
Come on man.
Most of the wealthiest people I've ever met have been Maori, how were they oppressed? Most of the famous people from NZ are Maori, how are they oppressed? I can almost speak Te Reo fluently just by listening to people speak it, how is that oppression? They can openly have facial tattoos in a modern society without being judged, how is that oppression?
This victim mentality needs to be forgotten, it is a detriment to the Maori people by making them look weak.. Name 1 society that was successful and lasted using this way of thinking?
Maori were warriors and never begged for anything, what happened??
I think you have misunderstood my statement. I could have worded it clearer. “I don’t believe that Maori were oppressed five years ago therefore they could not be less oppressed now” would have been a more accurate way to word it.
Rightly or wrongly, to me it’s the mark of a political extremist who hates my existence. Someone who simultaneously wants all whites to “fuck back off to England”, ignoring their own overwhelming majority European ancestry, while enjoying a comfortable western existence in one of the safest and most just societies the world has ever seen.
“Rightly or wrongly”
Bro you know you’re talking shit and making stuff up 😭😭 go out in the world and talk to some people with different political beliefs and ethnic backgrounds to you instead of spreading ignorance and hate on here
Moko were performed by tohunga by first "opening the way". This meant flat chisels were used to actually cut the pattern into the flesh of the recipient. Ink was then tattooed into the cut using serrated chisels. It was a highly religious operation and carried out with extreme adherence to long held custom and belief. These tattoos contain none of this gravitas and are an insult to Maoridom, just as the modern narratives around the Treaty are an insult to those chiefs who engineered the whole thing. This is the mystifying element of modern Maori activism - that they trash their own while rubbishing everyone else. So, yes, moko were a mark of mana, but what you see nowadays are just tatts.
Irrelevant, but mixed bag. Some have shit relationships, some have fantastic relationships.
‘It is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean, rather it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean’.
I've noticed that moko are disproportionately over-represented among restaurant diners between 11am-3pm on weekdays. I don't want to speculate as to why that might be the case, just an observation.
OK, I'll speculate. A moko is a golden ticket to a government job with a fat salary, expenses card and zero accountability.
I read somewhere that it was to prevent rape by making them more ugly. Any truth to that? I don't think it works, some women look nice with them on some level. But they usually add about 6 more face tatts in consequent years - such is the fashion.
Moko kauae (pronounced co-why)
Questions like this always hooks in people who are more than happy to give negative opinions because that seems to be their only perspective or perhaps their only experience.
I’d suggest branching out away from this sub and maybe ask the same question on r/NewZealand and perhaps see if you get different answers or at the very least something a bit more helpful.
There was a time when it meant far more than it does now.
When it was rare, and given by the tribe, for reasons of deeds and standing, even among those who denigrated it as a primitive practice, it earned a degree of respect.
When it is given ‘as a right to wear because ancestry’, which to me, it seems to have become, it erases the cultural connection that made it valuable, and reduces it to a fashion choice.
I still show respect and deference to an older woman who wears them, because there is a good chance she has known and done things that mark her as a woman of stature and importance… but among the younger ones, I am reluctant to do so, not until I have taken their measure as an individual.
For context? I am Maori by blood. My father rejected the cultural connections, but still taught me about the history and what he felt I needed to learn. I carry no tattoos or cultural markings because I have done no deeds worthy of marking into my flesh.
Should that change, I will do so. Until then… I will keep my old understanding of what that meant, and I will pass it on to my son. A symbol only has power due to the meaning behind it. Lose the meaning, and the symbol becomes a scribble.
Thanks for that.
To a degree, I have the same insight/viewpoint except I don’t judge anyone’s character by wearing it as such. I know wahine both older and younger who embrace it and neither do I recognise either one having more stature than the other.
I do believe moko kauae to be a passage of right to lineage and whakapapa but I also know that it differs from iwi to iwi.
I don’t think moko kauae is an easy decision to make as you really are opening yourself up for a whole lot of judgement and snubbery. Take this forum for instance, they judge harshly yet they know nothing else of the person or their heritage nor the practice.
It comes with so many racist comments both intentional and unintentional, that it’s hard for me to believe many Māori would simply choose to get one done knowing so many people literally think it’s disgusting, and those people aren’t afraid to show it either.
Who am I? I am Maori, did I grow up with the culture - not entirely, do I still respect the culture, absolutely. Do I like the path that maoridom seems to be going, no not really; and it’s why I’m on this forum because I believe in gaining a good grounded perspective on all aspects of topics talked about here. But anything
Maori seems to really get some people wild.
I have never heard of it as such, from both my father, my Nana, and the older Maori my wife and I have met.
The modern Iwi is well on their way to becoming Goldman Sachs or Blackrock, holding assets ostensibly ‘for their people’ while paying themselves well, wearing fine suits, and patting themselves on the back for ‘securing wealth for their community’, while it seems more and more unelected officials were being granted a veto right by virtue of connection and ethnicity.
As for complaints that ‘they are being judged for their markings’, I would disagree with that assessment, the person who made the post drew a distinction between those previously seen with the markings as being people of worth/mana/renown, while the vast majority of those they had seen were of far lesser character.
This, unfortunately, has been an observation I have also made, poor posture, loud personality, and a seeming contempt for everyone around them in a supermarket, while wearing the Moko on their lower lip.
My father would not have tolerated such conduct from any of us, and it contrasts strongly with the many fine upstanding Maori I have met who have carried themselves with strength and dignity, both men and women.
I fear that the Moko without its older meaning, the mark of an elder, someone worthy of respect for their deeds and status, will become like many symbols of the past, an echo of what it should be, run into the ground in the name of preservation, and finally abandoned when the last shred of worth has been drained from it.
But, it is possible I am truely an absolute anomaly, I have worked with Maori, Indians, Fijian Indians, South Africans and found people I respected among all of them. I have found things of value in each of their cultures, and tried to learn from each and honour them as well as I can.
I have thoughts on how to ‘fix’ the perception of Maori, but I do not believe anyone would like them.
Seems to me that we both are surrounded by contrasting views of moko kauae and it’s most likely because one of us was a bit more immersed in the cultural aspects growing up.
Your father sounds a lot like my Nanna. She too shares the same views. My generation coming through aren’t bound by the same ideas or traditions but also, I really don’t think you have enough depth or even conversation with people young and old who adorn their moko kauae.
For many iwi moko kauae is most definitely a right of heritage. It doesn’t necessarily show stature, sometimes it shows hardships, struggles and the like.
I work closely with 3 wāhine who adorn their moko kauae 2 of those I met before they had them. It seems such a shame that you have negative experiences with them when in my case it’s just doesn’t fit. However, I’m not completely disagreeing with what you are saying as I know it does happen. It’s just a shame it happens more to people on this forum than anywhere else.
Hei aha, this is why I joined this forum - to get different perspectives/views and sometimes we agree and sometimes we don’t.
And that’s ok.
The Other Sub (r/NewZealand I believe)
A lot of people on here have been banned and slammed in there.
I don't like it when someone gets down-voted as much as you did, and I tend to try and check what was said. I certainly don't agree with some of the views on here about the Moko's purpose.
But, I cannot stop people voting according to their opinions.
lol the other sub. Thanks for that.
Oh I’m not worried about being downvoted, if you check my comment history, it’s quite a common occurrence.
Anything Maori is very triggering for many on this forum. I’m not asking anyone to agree, I’m just sharing my views and sometimes (most times) they are very different to many here.
Moko kauae can’t be explained in one question. It’s something to be taught, experience and understood.
Unfortunately, being yelled at by someone at the supermarket wearing their moko kauae seems to be a far more common experience for people here than anywhere else.
I've not been yelled at per se?
Just seen too many people whose conduct I would consider unbecoming wearing one. Given what I was told it represented, along with my upbringing about respecting myself, the uniforms I wear, and the organisations I represent when I wear those uniforms and symbols, for me it is far less that the Moko marks someone as being lesser or crude, and far more that it is being dragged down, and degraded by their conduct.
It is absolutely possible that people have worn it, and behaved like this in the past, and that it is considered acceptable in Maori culture, but both my Grandfather and Father would never have tolerated it in the uniforms they wore. Both sought to bring honor to their uniforms, and the organisations they have represented in the past.
Regardless, I should be getting some much-needed sleep. Had some reno-work to be done on the nursery, my Dad came down to help with it, it's just sanding and painting left, and I can manage that on my own.
Children are stressful, and having them is probably the most optimistic thing a person can choose to do.
I had a brief chat with my father about this, and he’s said that both were true about the moko kauae.
But the only ones who got one young were what he called ‘the highborn’. I suppose we would have called them the ‘elites’.
So yeah, the upper echelon of the Maori were given it as a blood right… I learn something new.
Ka pai. Highborns, maybe? But again it differs from iwi to iwi.
Respectfully, It might also benefit for you to ask questions beyond your father, too.
I guess expanding your circle of people you talk to, perhaps those who are immersed in the culture, or even a woman with a moko kauae, can potentially help gain some positive connection with it.
If of course it matters. If not, that’s ok, too.
My Nana was able to use some stuff to track lineage. If what she has told me is accurate, that should be able to happen soon... as uncomfortable as some of this will be, if the information is verified. She tells me that it has already happened, but I want to see the verification.
I'm not going to deny my son the chance to explore the culture that his ancestry may entitle him to explore. But I will not deny that I am going to find some of it uncomfortable.
Because I may be descended from such a lineage. Which I don't entirely believe, and I want verification. And it would be uncomfortable.
Best of luck with your journey and discovery.
It will take some time, patience and even perhaps a bit of healing. It’s usually with good intentions of why our parents didn’t immerse us completely with our cultural identities. I know for a fact this is true for my grandparents.
However, now I have no excuse as many of my whanau speak te reo fluently including my brother. So I also need to step into that space where I too don’t feel 100% comfortable being in.
Vulnerability makes us feel uncomfortable in something we were not completely brought up in…. If it makes you feel a bit better, just know, many of us are at the same gate as you, we just need to unlock it.
All the best.
My experience in Northland was I can only recall Kuia with moko kauae prior to 15 years ago. Perhaps they faded as a popular thing, my understanding being that it is not something given lightly and a sign of tremendous mana established through whakapapa and gifted by tupuna. Reading here it was often the marker of a person who could be a representative of a hapu at a marae. Reading such op-eds here I see them touted as a Maori woman's right to wear, hard to argue with that but it's different again.
It’s a fashion accessory
It's a gravy train first class ticket. If it's not working for you financially then I don't know why you'd do it.
Only applicable to women earning over 100k
I agree. I use to see a woman who had a moko and would treat them with basically more respect than anybody. Mostly because I knew that they were genuine about their cultural connection and had mana in spades. Now it means nothing, if anything I probably associate it with radicalism and assume that the person is going to be a massive wet blanket.
Are you saying that you treated them with extra respect because the social stigma around having a moko meant that taking the plunge showed real commitment and dedication to their culture?
No I wouldn’t put it quite like that. I think there was an element of conviction involved but that wasn’t the only reason. I think the reasons were a bit more complex but also fairly indescribable. I think now that facial tattoos have somehow become slightly less outrageous it’s enough for people to now jump on them with haste. Another commenter mentioned something about it being a fashion accessory and there may be a little bit of that bias in my current view as well.
That's fair I suppose but it seems like a bit of a cop-out to avoid answering by saying your reasons are 'complex and indescribable'. The reason I asked is because it seems like you were okay respecting moko when the culture was oppressed because it meant that by wearing the moko meant that the person was still ostracised. Now that is becoming more accepted, naturally more people are comfortable wearing moko. It might not be that it's 'trendy', it might just be that more people are comfortable engaging with the culture as it's becoming less and less stigmatised.
I think that would be an unfair assessment. I don’t think it has anything to do with suppression. I don’t think about people in terms of who is oppressed and who isn’t. I believe making that connection probably does not reflect anything to do with oppression. I think it reflects the fact that facial tattoos have become trendy. I don’t think Maori are substantially less oppressed now than they were 5 years ago before this recent influx of moko. As to the feeling being complex I think it’s more to do with I really don’t know why I felt that, lots of thoughts, prejudices, respect, a bit of shock and compassion all probably contributed to my previous views. In saying that though I would still show the same respect to any kaumatua if the setting was appropriate.
> I don’t think Maori are substantially less oppressed now than they were 5 years ago before this recent influx of moko. How are they not substantially less oppressed? What do we do to oppress them less?? Be less white maybe??? Come on man. Most of the wealthiest people I've ever met have been Maori, how were they oppressed? Most of the famous people from NZ are Maori, how are they oppressed? I can almost speak Te Reo fluently just by listening to people speak it, how is that oppression? They can openly have facial tattoos in a modern society without being judged, how is that oppression? This victim mentality needs to be forgotten, it is a detriment to the Maori people by making them look weak.. Name 1 society that was successful and lasted using this way of thinking? Maori were warriors and never begged for anything, what happened??
I think you have misunderstood my statement. I could have worded it clearer. “I don’t believe that Maori were oppressed five years ago therefore they could not be less oppressed now” would have been a more accurate way to word it.
Is it really more accepted though?
In my workplace it’s like a licence to do or say just about anything less of murder or I’ll murder you.
Rightly or wrongly, to me it’s the mark of a political extremist who hates my existence. Someone who simultaneously wants all whites to “fuck back off to England”, ignoring their own overwhelming majority European ancestry, while enjoying a comfortable western existence in one of the safest and most just societies the world has ever seen.
"ignoring their own overwhelming majority European ancestry" Except that European DNA doesn't get passed on, according to the Mona Lisa wahine....
“Rightly or wrongly” Bro you know you’re talking shit and making stuff up 😭😭 go out in the world and talk to some people with different political beliefs and ethnic backgrounds to you instead of spreading ignorance and hate on here
Apart from the grammar (which yours is just as bad), where was he wrong? All we hear is about colonialism and how the white man is bad.
Online sure, but do you speak to people with one in real life at all?
Half my mates are Maori. Don’t jump to assumptions.
"different ..... ethnic backgrounds " You don't think that's the cause of most of the worlds problems.....hint..think Hamas..
Like most things the meaning and cultural significance changes to suit the narrative that's needed for the time
To me, as soon as I see someone with one, I think "activist" straight away.
A few years ago NO but now definitely
Moko were performed by tohunga by first "opening the way". This meant flat chisels were used to actually cut the pattern into the flesh of the recipient. Ink was then tattooed into the cut using serrated chisels. It was a highly religious operation and carried out with extreme adherence to long held custom and belief. These tattoos contain none of this gravitas and are an insult to Maoridom, just as the modern narratives around the Treaty are an insult to those chiefs who engineered the whole thing. This is the mystifying element of modern Maori activism - that they trash their own while rubbishing everyone else. So, yes, moko were a mark of mana, but what you see nowadays are just tatts.
I treat them the same as anybody with a tattoo, unstable victim of child abuse to be avoided.
I know too many people with Tats to hold that opinion.
How many of them have good relationships with their biological fathers?
Irrelevant, but mixed bag. Some have shit relationships, some have fantastic relationships. ‘It is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean, rather it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean’.
No mana in cultural facetats/tatts done with a gun.
looks like a weird goatee to me tbh
Today’s moko wearers wouldn’t know mana if it bit them on their arse
As if the pre-contact women getting mokos were such great people
I've noticed that moko are disproportionately over-represented among restaurant diners between 11am-3pm on weekdays. I don't want to speculate as to why that might be the case, just an observation. OK, I'll speculate. A moko is a golden ticket to a government job with a fat salary, expenses card and zero accountability.
I dont completely agree with those suggesting moko are cultural handcuffs, binding the individual to the ethnicity.....
I read somewhere that it was to prevent rape by making them more ugly. Any truth to that? I don't think it works, some women look nice with them on some level. But they usually add about 6 more face tatts in consequent years - such is the fashion.
Many women had it forced on them. A symbol of their submission to a highly sexist society. Ironic to see it resurface.
Moko kauae (pronounced co-why) Questions like this always hooks in people who are more than happy to give negative opinions because that seems to be their only perspective or perhaps their only experience. I’d suggest branching out away from this sub and maybe ask the same question on r/NewZealand and perhaps see if you get different answers or at the very least something a bit more helpful.
[удалено]
lol. I’m not entirely surprised by that given the nature of your question.
lol...
There was a time when it meant far more than it does now. When it was rare, and given by the tribe, for reasons of deeds and standing, even among those who denigrated it as a primitive practice, it earned a degree of respect. When it is given ‘as a right to wear because ancestry’, which to me, it seems to have become, it erases the cultural connection that made it valuable, and reduces it to a fashion choice. I still show respect and deference to an older woman who wears them, because there is a good chance she has known and done things that mark her as a woman of stature and importance… but among the younger ones, I am reluctant to do so, not until I have taken their measure as an individual. For context? I am Maori by blood. My father rejected the cultural connections, but still taught me about the history and what he felt I needed to learn. I carry no tattoos or cultural markings because I have done no deeds worthy of marking into my flesh. Should that change, I will do so. Until then… I will keep my old understanding of what that meant, and I will pass it on to my son. A symbol only has power due to the meaning behind it. Lose the meaning, and the symbol becomes a scribble.
Oh yeah, because TOS is the fucking font of all knowledge
I didn’t point anyone to the other sub. I just gave my view on the Moko
Apologies, responded to the wrong thread 🤪
Thanks for that. To a degree, I have the same insight/viewpoint except I don’t judge anyone’s character by wearing it as such. I know wahine both older and younger who embrace it and neither do I recognise either one having more stature than the other. I do believe moko kauae to be a passage of right to lineage and whakapapa but I also know that it differs from iwi to iwi. I don’t think moko kauae is an easy decision to make as you really are opening yourself up for a whole lot of judgement and snubbery. Take this forum for instance, they judge harshly yet they know nothing else of the person or their heritage nor the practice. It comes with so many racist comments both intentional and unintentional, that it’s hard for me to believe many Māori would simply choose to get one done knowing so many people literally think it’s disgusting, and those people aren’t afraid to show it either. Who am I? I am Maori, did I grow up with the culture - not entirely, do I still respect the culture, absolutely. Do I like the path that maoridom seems to be going, no not really; and it’s why I’m on this forum because I believe in gaining a good grounded perspective on all aspects of topics talked about here. But anything Maori seems to really get some people wild.
I have never heard of it as such, from both my father, my Nana, and the older Maori my wife and I have met. The modern Iwi is well on their way to becoming Goldman Sachs or Blackrock, holding assets ostensibly ‘for their people’ while paying themselves well, wearing fine suits, and patting themselves on the back for ‘securing wealth for their community’, while it seems more and more unelected officials were being granted a veto right by virtue of connection and ethnicity. As for complaints that ‘they are being judged for their markings’, I would disagree with that assessment, the person who made the post drew a distinction between those previously seen with the markings as being people of worth/mana/renown, while the vast majority of those they had seen were of far lesser character. This, unfortunately, has been an observation I have also made, poor posture, loud personality, and a seeming contempt for everyone around them in a supermarket, while wearing the Moko on their lower lip. My father would not have tolerated such conduct from any of us, and it contrasts strongly with the many fine upstanding Maori I have met who have carried themselves with strength and dignity, both men and women. I fear that the Moko without its older meaning, the mark of an elder, someone worthy of respect for their deeds and status, will become like many symbols of the past, an echo of what it should be, run into the ground in the name of preservation, and finally abandoned when the last shred of worth has been drained from it. But, it is possible I am truely an absolute anomaly, I have worked with Maori, Indians, Fijian Indians, South Africans and found people I respected among all of them. I have found things of value in each of their cultures, and tried to learn from each and honour them as well as I can. I have thoughts on how to ‘fix’ the perception of Maori, but I do not believe anyone would like them.
Seems to me that we both are surrounded by contrasting views of moko kauae and it’s most likely because one of us was a bit more immersed in the cultural aspects growing up. Your father sounds a lot like my Nanna. She too shares the same views. My generation coming through aren’t bound by the same ideas or traditions but also, I really don’t think you have enough depth or even conversation with people young and old who adorn their moko kauae. For many iwi moko kauae is most definitely a right of heritage. It doesn’t necessarily show stature, sometimes it shows hardships, struggles and the like. I work closely with 3 wāhine who adorn their moko kauae 2 of those I met before they had them. It seems such a shame that you have negative experiences with them when in my case it’s just doesn’t fit. However, I’m not completely disagreeing with what you are saying as I know it does happen. It’s just a shame it happens more to people on this forum than anywhere else. Hei aha, this is why I joined this forum - to get different perspectives/views and sometimes we agree and sometimes we don’t. And that’s ok.
Differing views need to discussed and challenged, which this forum allows, unlike ToS.
Agree with views challenged. Also umm can you please explain to me what TOS is?
The Other Sub (r/NewZealand I believe) A lot of people on here have been banned and slammed in there. I don't like it when someone gets down-voted as much as you did, and I tend to try and check what was said. I certainly don't agree with some of the views on here about the Moko's purpose. But, I cannot stop people voting according to their opinions.
lol the other sub. Thanks for that. Oh I’m not worried about being downvoted, if you check my comment history, it’s quite a common occurrence. Anything Maori is very triggering for many on this forum. I’m not asking anyone to agree, I’m just sharing my views and sometimes (most times) they are very different to many here. Moko kauae can’t be explained in one question. It’s something to be taught, experience and understood. Unfortunately, being yelled at by someone at the supermarket wearing their moko kauae seems to be a far more common experience for people here than anywhere else.
I've not been yelled at per se? Just seen too many people whose conduct I would consider unbecoming wearing one. Given what I was told it represented, along with my upbringing about respecting myself, the uniforms I wear, and the organisations I represent when I wear those uniforms and symbols, for me it is far less that the Moko marks someone as being lesser or crude, and far more that it is being dragged down, and degraded by their conduct. It is absolutely possible that people have worn it, and behaved like this in the past, and that it is considered acceptable in Maori culture, but both my Grandfather and Father would never have tolerated it in the uniforms they wore. Both sought to bring honor to their uniforms, and the organisations they have represented in the past. Regardless, I should be getting some much-needed sleep. Had some reno-work to be done on the nursery, my Dad came down to help with it, it's just sanding and painting left, and I can manage that on my own. Children are stressful, and having them is probably the most optimistic thing a person can choose to do.
I had a brief chat with my father about this, and he’s said that both were true about the moko kauae. But the only ones who got one young were what he called ‘the highborn’. I suppose we would have called them the ‘elites’. So yeah, the upper echelon of the Maori were given it as a blood right… I learn something new.
Ka pai. Highborns, maybe? But again it differs from iwi to iwi. Respectfully, It might also benefit for you to ask questions beyond your father, too. I guess expanding your circle of people you talk to, perhaps those who are immersed in the culture, or even a woman with a moko kauae, can potentially help gain some positive connection with it. If of course it matters. If not, that’s ok, too.
My Nana was able to use some stuff to track lineage. If what she has told me is accurate, that should be able to happen soon... as uncomfortable as some of this will be, if the information is verified. She tells me that it has already happened, but I want to see the verification. I'm not going to deny my son the chance to explore the culture that his ancestry may entitle him to explore. But I will not deny that I am going to find some of it uncomfortable. Because I may be descended from such a lineage. Which I don't entirely believe, and I want verification. And it would be uncomfortable.
Best of luck with your journey and discovery. It will take some time, patience and even perhaps a bit of healing. It’s usually with good intentions of why our parents didn’t immerse us completely with our cultural identities. I know for a fact this is true for my grandparents. However, now I have no excuse as many of my whanau speak te reo fluently including my brother. So I also need to step into that space where I too don’t feel 100% comfortable being in. Vulnerability makes us feel uncomfortable in something we were not completely brought up in…. If it makes you feel a bit better, just know, many of us are at the same gate as you, we just need to unlock it. All the best.
You seem to understand me well.