When her two-year-old daughter saw her bleeding and asked, “are you mamae māmā?”, Qiane Matata-Sipu explained it was her īkura.
Years later, with her daughter now almost eight, she searched for a pukapuka with a Māori view on īkura. Because there wasn’t any, it compelled her write ‘My First Īkura/Taku Ikura Tuatahi
“I was looking for rauemi to support the puawaitanga o taku tamāhine, but there just wasn’t anything for her age group,” she says. That inspired her to write My First Ikura / Taku Ikura Tuatahi.
Published in te reo Māori and English, the book helps parents start the conversation, as studies show some girls are beginning as young as eight.
Qiane says she wants tamariki to have a different experience from what many of their mothers and grandmothers had, one too often surrounded by shame and stigma.
Illustrated by Isobel Joy Te Aho White and translated by Stacey Morrison, the book draws on Dr Ngāhuia Murphy’s research into atua wāhine and traditional practices, featuring kōkōwai art honouring the whenua, whare tangata names, and a karakia for whānau to learn together.
“Equipping our tamariki with this mātauranga from an early age helps them feel confident,” says Qiane.
Those same themes resonate with Rangipare Ngaropo of Ngāti Awa descent, who says it was her father who first taught her about ikura through the story of her tūpuna wahine, Wairaka.
“I tau mai te ikura o te waiwhero o Wairaka ā i kite e ia i roto i te wai ko te pātai ki tōna pāpā he aha tēnei mea pāpā? ko tana whakautu ko tērā te awa o te atua,” says Rangipare.
He wānanga ikura
Hei te mutunga o tēnei marama, ka hono atu a Qiane ki a Ngākau Harris-Peke ki te Ikura Wānanga o Para Kore. He wānanga e ako ai te hunga rangatahi ki ngā tikanga tūturu mō te ikura.
“I really want kōtiro to have that hononga with themselves, to understand their bodies, to know they’re ever changing, and that’s normal and okay,” says Qiane.
Mā te tautoko a Dignity NZ, ko tana tūmanako kia takoha i te rima rau pukapuka ki ngā kura o te motu i mua i te Kirihimete, mā reira e puta ai te māramatanga ki ngā kōtiro o te motu kia tū pakari, kia whakahī i ō rātou tinana.
