Ngā Mihimihi Korero.

So the saying goes:

Hutia te rito o te harakeke,	If you pluck out the centre shoot of the flax,
Kei whea te korimako e koo?	Where will the bellbird sing?
Ka rere ki uta, ka rere ki tai.	It will fly inland, it will fly seawards.
Kii mai koe ki au,	If you ask me,
he aha te mea nui i te ao?	What is the most important thing in the world?
Maaku e kii atu,	I will reply,
He tangata, he tangata, he tangata!	People, people, people!

Therefore in the words of our tūpuna this is our mihi

Tainui te waka                              Tainui the canoe
Hoturoa te tangata                        Hoturoa is the man "Captain"
Taupiri te maunga                         Taupiri is the mountain
Waikato te awa                            Waikato is the river
Waikato te iwi..                            Waikato is the iwi
Ngāti Naho te hapu                      Ngati Naho te hapu

kia ora mai ano tātou.


This is my recorded journey in the search for my whakapapa, I had little to go on but the information that I had, I checked everywhere for it. I made some good discoveries many about where our tūpuna came from and how we all connect to a lot of people. I believe I've found some interesting tid bits of information and found stories that made me proud to be in our whānau. Not everything will come as easy to some whānau who read this mainly about who some of the people are but it's the hope that you will have an open mind about why I've chosen the stories that I have. All I hope is that you get from my research a sense of who you are, where you are from and the pride of history that we descend from. I come from a 70's generation where I had lots of Aunts and Uncles that I didn't even know the connection to. That was the late 20's and 30's age group of many of my aunts and uncles and my parents. It was a time of the party culture when your mates were aunts and uncles to your kids not always a good thing but it was something that happened a lot. Growing up I had so many cousins that only in my adult years I found out how many were related to myself, my parents or not at all. all in all It could only be a good thing and this is what I wanted to capture in my research. Throughout my study I have had to use the research of others such as Dr Pei te hurinui Jones of Ngāti Maniapoto and rightfully so because it's shown that he is blood related. He was a brilliant man who served as advisor to the Kāhui Ariki Māori "Māori Royal Family" and he also was the keeper of Whakapapa and traced whakapapa all the way back to the arrival of the canoes somewhere about 1350. and with other links sometimes even further back to when we were pacific Islanders. Because our Māori history isn't greatly recorded like with many pākeha genealogies there comes a time in our history where we have had to rely on oral histories of kaumātua back in the days that knew stories about how people were related, but that part of my search I rely on the findings of Mātua Pei to answer. I will try and bring my finding as close to this generation as I possibly can as most of us remember our grandparents but not much beyond that and there are too many aunts and uncles to start putting them in order of eldest to youngest so I'm not going to bother. but one thing I will say is that if you are reading this blog then I have sort the permisson of our Nannies to do so, as much as I love my findings it still needs approval of our kaumātua to be released because this is not about causing offence to anyone least of all my grandfathers sisters or my elder aunts. I proceeded to search with the guidance of my karakia to hope that my journey will be safe, because at any time the wāirua"spirit" of my findings weren't good then I was to pull away until my conscience was clear and the wāirua felt right. I will note at times when I felt troubled about what I had found. and I will note on the times where I have asked the spirit for guidance. Wāiho te wāirua e rāru ai i a koe, Whāia te wairua hei pai mōu engari kia whakakii te whawhārua ō te pō ūriūri i te whai ao ki te āo mārama. translation "Leave the spirit that troubles you and follow the spirit that feels good but fill the void of darkness and unknowing from a the glimmer of dawn to the bright light of day"It's not a proverb it's my philosophy on this journey