Under the guidance of two uri of Ngāti Whātua, I was able to visualise the land beneath my feet for the first time, and think more about how we keep our history alive in a concrete jungle.

By Kahu Kutia

For episode four of He Kākano Ahau I've come to Tāmaki Makaurau. I've never really liked it here, but I've come anyway to learn more about the history beneath the concrete. Ngarimu Blair is one of the many uri of Ngāti Whātua who live in Auckland city. He is a director for Whai Rawa, the commercial branch of the iwi. He has agreed to show me some of the significant kōrero in the puku of Tāmaki Makaurau. Over an hour we circle round a couple of city blocks, and Ngarimu weaves for me a history that allows me to finally see the land I'm standing on.

We're standing in a parking lot beneath the university law school in central Auckland, staring quietly at a brick wall.

Ngarimu points to a small hole in the bricks, where water is slowly dripping into a tiny pool. For many years this spring has been concealed here, not known to many. This is Te Wai Ariki, a puna that was once a popular water source for Ngāti Whātua.

"When the settlers arrived we used to sell the water to the ships coming in until one day where there was too many," Ngarimu tells me.

Usually when we talk about Māori in the city, we're talking about Māori who aren't from there. But what we often forget is that beneath the concrete, the city is Māori land too. As Ngarimu showed me around, streets became pathways, hills became pā, and Queen Street became a valley that drives an underground stream out towards the sea.

It's predicted that there will be two million people in Auckland by 2025. The challenge for Ngāti Whātua is how they keep their history alive, and how they advance the legacy left for them by previous generations.

At Ōrākei Marae, Hana Maihi is one of the many young people of Ngāti Whātua thinking about their aspirations for the future. In the late 70s, young activist Joe Hawke and his contemporaries successfully protected Takaparawha or Bastion Point from being turned into suburban development. We talked about what it is our generation is prepared to fight for.

Episode four is about being Māori in the city. Under the guidance of two uri of Ngāti Whātua, I was able to visualise the land beneath my feet for the first time, and think more about how we keep our history alive in a concrete jungle.

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I have a hunch that the city might provide something unique to our people. This episode is about decolonising gender and sexuality in Wellington city.

By Kahu Kutia

I'm sitting by the window in a flat in Te Aro, Wellington. Opposite me is Kayla Riarn, she's pushing cigarette smoke out the window with a black lace fan.

"You go to any marae you see one of us whakawahine. We're in the kitchen. We're with the aunties. We are workers. We don't argue about things on a marae. We get up and we do it. And we're respected for it... Since I've been in Wellington I have worked in eight marae, as sole chef. I don't get questioned."

In this episode of He Kākano Ahau I'm talking to those who are decolonising gender and sexuality in Wellington city. Whakawahine might loosely translate as "trans woman", but more importantly it's a term that also takes into account Kayla's whakapapa Māori. After all in te ao Māori, whakapapa is usually the first level of our identity.

Over a kapu tī, Kayla traces for me her whakapapa back into Taranaki maunga. She tells me that she had to find a lot of this out by herself. Her whānau moved to Tawa shortly after she was born. She's been in inner Wellington since the 70s.

When colonising forces came to the Pacifc there was a lot that changed for all of our cultures. Perhaps some of the biggest changes came with the introduction of the bible, which squashed out any ideas of sexuality and gender that weren't cisgender and heterosexual. In te ao Māori today there is a heavy gender binary. Ira wahine, ira tāne. They are still significant, but perhaps not as rigid as some may think.

It's a story that I don't think has ever been explored in enough detail. After exploring the history, I also wanted to talk to someone of my own generation who could speak to these experiences. I went to see Ariki Brightwell, who's 30 years old. She grew up in Tūranga-nui-ā-Kiwa and came to Wellington to study at Massey. Today, Ariki is an artist and kaihautū for the waka that sit on the Wellington waterfront. Unlike Kayla, Ariki felt a lot of support from her whānau through her transition. Ariki also had good perspective on our history.

"What I've learnt from some of our kaumātua is that our people have always experimented or dived into our sexuality especially our gender - you know - that's one of the main parts of our culture. It's displayed on our carvings, the ure the teke on our carvings, the form of a person on our carvings," says Ariki…

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For this episode I went to Ōtautahi, Christchurch where we're looking at what it's like to move to the city today. From many perspectives, Christchurch seems a hard place to be Māori.

By Kahu Kutia

What defines the current generation of rangatahi Māori? Some might call us millennials, the first generation to be born fluent in digital technology.

Some might call us the kōhanga and kura kaupapa generation. Many of our parents and kaumātua were punished in school for speaking Te Reo. But some of us were the first to taste our language again and to bring it back to life.

We were raised on stories of resistance. Bastion Point. Springbok Tour. Te Matakite Māori Land March. Foreshore Seabed. Tūhoe Raids. Dawn Raids. Raglan. Pākaitore. We look to Māui-tikitiki-ā-Taranga for guidance. The trickster, the pōtiki. With the legacy of our tīpuna in front of us, we walk backwards into the digital era.

Many of us now live in the city, and are redefining what it means to be urban and Māori. Maybe we're learning Te Reo through an app. Maybe we're driving home once a month to spend time at our marae. Maybe we're reviving the hidden history of the whenua beneath the concrete. Maybe we're just looking for a place to be Māori.

For this episode of He Kākano Ahau I went down to Ōtautahi, Christchurch. In the first episode, we learned about the first generation to transition from rural to urban Māori. In this episode, we're looking at what it's like to move to the city today.

From many perspectives, Christchurch seems a hard place to be Māori.

TVNZ's That's A Bit Racist documentary commissioned Harvard University to research racism in New Zealand. The results weren't great for the whole country, but the south came out particularly badly with 89 per cent of South Islanders saying they favoured Pākehā over Māori, compared to 63 percent in the North Island.

The South Island is where Kiwa Kahukura-Denton has lived for most of his life. Kiwa moved to Ōtautahi this year. Like many of us, Kiwa has moved to the city to study. He's at Te Ora Hou studying to be a youth worker. Kiwa and I talk about loneliness, staying connected, and what he hopes to create for rangatahi Māori.

"A system where Māori is normal, Māori is standard you know it isn't that one house for kapa haka it isn't te reo class it isn't the whānau class it isn't when someone flash come to the school and you have a pōwhiri for them it's just normal and it's okay that its normal and they don't have to feel whakama about being Māori or seeing things a Māori way or saying karakia when they need to say karakia."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details