Pōrangahau Chronicles

Every day the events of our lives are consigned to history. However, it’s the recording of these stories that ensures they are not lost in the passing of time; that gives them context in the wider frame of whānau, community and the sense of a place.

Marina Sciascia (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāi Tahu – Ngāti Kaweriri), co-author/editor of Matatoa; Fathers & Sons notes in her foreword: “These are the building blocks of a small New Zealand place. The stories may be lost, or altered with the telling. They may be passed down through time but in the end we need to have them recorded. Writing them down is the point of difference.”

Pōrangahau, a compact coastal settlement in southern Hawkes Bay, has once more been brought to life by Sciascia and co-author/editor Hilary Pedersen (Pākehā).

The “highly readable and proud publication”, as one Hawke’s Bay Today reviewer summarised it, showcases 18 family stories, Māori and Pākehā, from the Pōrangahau area, penned by 37 family members. Ngāi Tahu threads are woven through four of those stories with the Rakapa Nohoturuturu/Tutaki family, the Wakefield family, the Tipene-Matua family and, of course, the Sciascia family.

“Pōrangahau is my home,” Sciascia explains, “I’m born and bred here, but we’ve always had this lean towards the South Island.” The eldest of nine, Marina has never let leaving school at 14 stand in the way of her goals. “I’m pretty much a self-taught person, but writing has always been something I’ve loved.” The daughter of a Riverton-born mother, Marina lived in Southland for several years in the 1960s before returning north.

“It takes a bit of nurturing of families to get them to write their stories, especially for the Māori families,” Sciascia says. “It’s a lot harder for them to participate, because part of our culture says you don’t tell your own story … the kūmara doesn’t speak about his own sweetness.

“Those are some of the reasons why Pacific Islanders and indigenous people don’t interview well; because you don’t stand up and say, ‘Well, I’m really good at this’, whereas in Pākehā culture of course you’re taught that you’ve got to be promoting those things. And then this whole thing about our whakapapa being tapu, and should you be sharing it?”

Matatoa took two  years to finish, and completes the final part of the trilogy, which includes Hākui; Mothers of Pōrangahau and Tuāhine; Sisters of Pōrangahau. “For me, the book was a natural progression from the two previous ones that we had done,” says Pedersen, an award-winning writer and journalist.

“Having said that, I don’t believe we set out to write a trilogy, but it evolved because obviously, having covered mothers and sisters, we needed to address fathers and sons. So it’s been a rounding-off, but in a more genealogical, solid-history sort of way.”

Pedersen, a councillor on the Central Hawke’s Bay District Council,  considers her hometown a platform for tolerance, understanding and mutual respect that may not be as common elsewhere.

“In terms of the rest of New Zealand, I’m not so sure that it is, to be perfectly honest. I think there is great room for the platform to be discussed, debated, accepted. We need to continue talking,” she urges.

Pedersen says an important achievement of Matatoa is that it has established a lasting historical record of a place and its people.

“We’ve actually produced something which will stand up for reference purposes, and it’s there for future generations to refer to,”
she says.

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