Penetaui Kleskovic (Te Aupouri, Muriwhenua) is the lead for the Ngāpuhi ki Tāmaki event this Saturday and says it will be an uplifting experience for all who attend.
“Whānau can expect that we’re going to portray our tupuna in such a way that it’s going to be relevant and interesting.”
Kleskovich says there are more than 1,000 people who have registered and that number is rising.
“There’s a lot of people that are culturally bankrupt and they want to find a way to get back in touch with their māoritanga.”
Some 60 per cent of the 180,000 population of Ngāpuhi live in South Auckland and Kleskovic says this is because “Auckland is Ngāpuhi.”
But many were not brought up in Te Ao Māori.
“It was the regions that built the cities. The cities never had any resources. All of the Kauri trees, and the urban migration in the 1960s and 1970s of people from the north and other regions throughout Aotearoa, who moved to the cities and essentially found themselves there.”
“We have kōrero from Rerenga Wairua ki Tāmaki,” event director Tasha Hohaia adds.
“We have the Bombays, and we have the Pūriri trees… Our people are everywhere and we want to love and look after our people wherever they are.”
The annual event will host well over 1,000 Ngāpuhi descendants in Manukau where whānau will learn waiata, haka, and the history of their iwi.
Kleshkovic is confident that it will be a memorable experience for all whānau members who attend, especially those doing so for the first time.
“Especially for young families who I hope will find the motivation to share it with the children rather than some ancient relic like the bone of a dinosaur.”