Marae as physical storytelling

The words spoken echoed in my head, “this whare and those individuals carved into the walls are the physical representation of DNA”. I sit under the carvings within Tuhuru Marae with a sense of wonder, the brilliance that one could have a physical space to come back to, to understand where you come from. I am transported back to another Marae, Te Rau Aroha in Bluff, to the moment when I first fully grasped the weight that a Marae holds. A Marae is important because they depict the stories of the land, of migration, and of whakapapa (genealogy).

As I sat in the middle of the wharenui, observing as stories came to life around me, a multicolor swirl of people and history detailing decisions that were made generations past that continues to influence the present. I was surrounded by the carvings of strong Māori Wahine (women), each that married a pakeha (white foreigner) man. The marae tells the story of that whakapapa, explaining a more complex history surrounding the southern island of New Zealand. The shared history and where it broke off only to reconnect again. A family tree that has roots in one place and seeds in others. Just like the diversity of Māori, each marae is a different feel and a different history, but all are just as important in understanding Aotearoa.