A MUCH-travelled advocate and spokesperson for an indigenous group of people of New Zealand was in West Belfast this week to attend a number of Féile an Phobail events.
Te Kaha is a spokesperson of Ngāi Tūhoe Maori, the first nation people of Aotearoa – the Māori name for New Zealand.
Ngāi Tūhoe Maori are mainly based in Te Urewera, an area of mostly forested, sparsely populated rugged hill country in the North Island of New Zealand.
Ngāi Tūhoe Maori are known for their strong stance on Māori sovereignty from New Zealand.
He tours the world, sharing his wisdom and knowledge and offers the opportunity for people to immerse themselves in the rich culture and traditions of the his people, including teachings, song and holistic massage.
Following an event in Co Clare, Te Kaha travelled to Belfast to visit a number of Féile an Phobail events, staying in St James' with close friends, Ciarán and Rita Marron.
Te Kaha with friends Ciaran and Rita
Speaking to the Andersonstown News, Te Kaha said: "My country has been occupied by the English for about 200 years. When they got there, they couldn't tell us apart, so they wanted us to create a name for ourselves to describe all the brown people that were there before the white people got there.
"They decided to call us Maori people but I'm not a New Zealander, I'm not a Maori. I'm a Tuhoe. I come from a land known as Aotearoa, and my people will never get into colonisation
"This is what I do when I travel. It's like a knowledge, unbroken knowledge, knowledge that comes from the beginning of time and I share this knowledge with people.
"We are the keepers of it, yes, but it's not just for us. So long as you come from planet earth, the things that I share are a part of you."
For Te Kaha, his tours and workshops involve two main aspects.
"I do two main things when I travel. I talk about pounamu, which is traditional stone sourced from the West Coast of the South Island. I talk about the traditional values and relationships of my people to the pounamu.
"I do another workshop on birth and pregnancy which is based on my own personal life.
"When I found out my wife was pregnant, I didn't want to do allopathic medicine in hospitals. We had a huge aversion to anything to do with the medical profession, so we found this man and he started teaching us how to birth naturally.
"This man started training my wife and I and we birthed our own child that first time and two years later, we got pregnant again. I birthed that one. All our births were at home, and then four and a half years later, we had our last child, and we birthed that one too, but in the doing of it, I was taught a few things, and that is that for us, the main caregiver during the pregnancy should always be you, you and your wife.
"When you're pregnant, it should be you. So I don't teach women how to have babies. I teach their partners how to be the midwife, how to be the person who brings his own baby into the world. I teach you how to massage your wife, to release the tension in her body. I teach you how to massage her in such a way. It promotes oxytocin, which our bodies produce naturally, oxytocin, endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, these all are good hormones that our wives bodies produce naturally when they're pregnant. So I teach you how to look after her and promote all that.
"I run workshops where couples come and I teach the man how to become the main person.
"It is natural medicine that I teach. When a man comes to one of my workshops, they leave in tears. I always say, we are pregnant and I teach that's one of the first things I teach couples and men. I say, never say she is pregnant, or my wife is pregnant, because straight away, you're creating separation.
"I teach this togetherness. I create a deeper connectedness between him, her and baby."
You can find out more about Te Kaha on his website here.
