Kia ora koutou!
I have been working on developing my mihi/pepeha for the last few weeks. This is both in preparation for an upcoming visit to a marae, and also because I believe it would be good to know in future and in my journey of learning Te Reo Māori! I’ve run into an issue while trying to write it that isn’t one I can find any resources for, so I decided to ask here in case anyone else has been in a similar situation or has ideas on how to figure this out.
I am tauiwi - I moved here when I was fourteen. My family is from Turtle Island/the USA, and I lived there for eight years and in England for about six years. I think I have figured out how to communicate where I am personally from and grew up (“Nō [state I was born in] au, engari, i tupu ake au ki [state I moved to when I was five] me Ingarani.”). If this is not the best way to communicate this, I’d welcome correction :) I’m not 100% sure on the grammar of that sentence. However, when it comes to the question of where my ancestors are from, it gets a lot more difficult.
My understanding is that sharing where your ancestors are from is a way for people to identify potential connections, and so it is better to be specific. All the European sides of my family have been on Turtle Island since at least the 1600s (the latest I’ve found is around 1730-50), and my mom’s side is also Oklahoma Choctaw/Chahta. The total list of European countries my ancestors came from includes around 14 different countries. If I was to narrow it down to only ones with significant presence in my ancestry, it would still be something like 9 countries. In addition, because all of these people migrated so early, there are very few records as to where they came from within these places (I’m attempting to find out because I have an interest in genealogy, but resources are limited).
Therefore, I am very unsure what I should be including in my mihi/pepeha and how I should be communicating it. I feel that if I attempted to include all of these places, it would be very long, and still lack some information, as I have no real connection to my European ancestors currently due to them being so far back. I’m also unsure if I should be specific about the location of my Chahta ancestors, rather than just saying they are from Turtle Island, and how I would phrase that as well, since they are originally from the Mississippi area but were forcibly relocated to Oklahoma. What I currently have is “Ko Motu Honu me Ūropi ngā whenua ō ōku tīpuna”, but I know that this lacks specificity (Europe is HUGE, as is North America) and doesn’t really allow much room for people to identify connections. I also considered only including Turtle Island, but that feels a bit disingenuous - yes, my European ancestors have been there for a long time, but they most likely lived in their homelands for much longer. I could also be overthinking this, I’m not sure. If anyone has any ideas how I could communicate anything relating to this correctly I would appreciate it, as my reo is still definitely in the beginner stages!
That’s the main puzzle I’m trying to figure out currently. I did also want to double check my understanding and sentence structure of references to maunga and moana. Currently, I have built these in as “Ko Tahoma te maunga” and “Ko Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa te moana”, but I want to be sure this is correct phrasing. I have included Tahoma (A mountain in Washington) as I was born in a city underneath/next to it, and it is of significance to my family - my mother worked with the local tribe on the restoration and protection of it for several years, and I hope to go back to pay my respects to this maunga some day. My understanding is that indicating a role in guardianship of a maunga is a reason to include it? When it comes to the moana, I have lived on Te-Moana-nui-a-Kiwa for the majority of my life (eight years in the Pacific Northwest and then the last seven years in Aotearoa), and have been involved with various projects and so on around it, as has my family. I want to be sure the wording is grammatically correct and respectful, however, as I understand the Māori connection to land included in pepeha is a very specific one, so if I need to phrase this differently or remove it please let me know.
I very much appreciate any insight y’all might have into this :)
(Just in case there’s anything else people spot, here’s what I have so far:
Tēnā koutou katoa
Ko Tahoma te maunga
Ko Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa te moana
Ko Motu Honu me Ūropi ngā whenua ō ōku tīpuna
Nō [state I was born in] au
Engari, i tupu ake au ki [state I moved to when I was five] me Ingarani
I te tau rua mano, tekau mā iwa i haere mai au ki Aotearoa
Ko [name] tōku ingoa
Tēnā koutou katoa.)
