Being Tangata Tiriti: Pākehā Voices on Belonging, Responsibility, and Aotearoa

By Te Urukeiha Tuhua (He/Ia) Tūhoe

I’ve heard a lot of kōrero about what it means to be Tangata Tiriti- a non-Māori person living in Aotearoa under the promise of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. This is an identity rooted in both privilege and responsibility, and involves coming to terms with a past that is violent and colonial. I am passing the microphone on to various Tangata Tiriti students to answer my pātai and lead some of these conversations. 

What Does It Mean to Be Tangata Tiriti?Being Tangata Tiriti is about honouring the agreement that allowed Pākehā to be here in the first place, but it also comes with responsibility to stand in solidarity with Tangata Whenua to uphold Te Tiriti. For many, it is important to recognize that their ancestors were colonisers and to recognise the injustice that occurred, and to actively work alongside Māori for a better future. 

‘It’s permission for me to be here. It’s permission for other Pākehā to be here. It’s an agreement between two cultures which is really special and unlike any other country in the world. With this current government that is trying to erase the more nuanced parts of this history, I have a responsibility to speak up and say, ‘No, this is not okay’.’ - Millie (she/they)

‘Te Tiriti is what allowed my ancestors to come here and is what allows me to be here. [It is] the legitimacy on which that’s founded.  The Crown hasn’t upheld their end of Te Tiriti, but as a person who is here by way of treaty, I have to take that responsibility onto myself. In my life, in my political action and my way of existing, I have to carry that forward.’ - Dani (she/they) 

‘I am Pākehā. I come from a history of colonisers and it’s about acknowledging that. It’s my responsibility to be aware, to educate myself and acknowledge what’s happening.’ - Isaac (he/him) 

‘We live in colonised Aotearoa. We, as Pākehā, are the dominant majority group, but we weren’t here first. It was written in [Te Tiriti] that Māori were supposed to have sovereignty, and the people from our heritage and culture took that away from them. It’s about standing up for people.’ - Joey (he/him) 

‘It’s important to know about the history, and that includes the ugly colonial history of it. It’s important to recognise that a lot of hurt and generational trauma has come from colonisation. It’s not about putting the fault on Pākehā today, but more about asking what we can do as Pākehā, as Tangata Tiriti, to help our fellow Māori siblings to move forward as a society where we can all be equal.’ - Rique (he/him) 

Where Is Home?Questions about home and where we come from are never simple, especially for people whose ancestors arrived in a place through colonisation. There is deep conflict for many Pākehā in how they define Aotearoa as being their home when it is a colonised place. 

‘I was born in Australia but I’ve lived here all my life. My roots and history are here. This is the country that has provided for me throughout my life.’ - Millie (she/they)

‘I see a distinction between home and homeland. This is my home, but it’s not where I’m from. My people are not from this part of the world at all.’ Ruby (they/them)

‘In a way, I feel like an unlanded person. All of my history from when my ancestors lived in Ireland and England is lost in the mist for me. I never heard stories about it growing up, or if I did it was sort of vague whispers. This is the only home I’ve ever had, and so there’s a level of connection here, but you can’t feel connection if you don’t understand where that connection comes from, and for me it comes from Te Tiriti. There’s grief there. My ancestors were shipped away from their homes through economic hardship and had that connection to land stolen from them, so there’s this real temptation to take up some new land and be like, ‘This is now my connection. I’m filling this hole with someone else’s land.’ There is grief there, but it’s okay to feel that grief and not make it someone else’s problem, and not need to patch that hole with stolen land. There’s a way to exist there and it’s complicated and it’s nuanced and it takes internal analysis. It’s learning who you are as a person and learning more about where your family came from. Home is a word with so much weight to it. Home is where I connect to personally. It’s where I feel comfort, where I feel safe, where I know the landscape, where I know the people. It feels so right that this (Aotearoa) is my home that it’s hard to think of it as anything else. But you have to be able to hold it with a sort of looseness. You have to be able to feel this attachment and feel this connection without feeling like you own it, without feeling like it’s yours exclusively or without fearing that it’s being taken away from you. If you feel like it’s your home, then it’s your home, but that doesn’t mean you have ownership over it. Home is a place that has manaakitanga over you. It has ownership over you because you’re part of it.’ - Dani (she/they) 

Why Does the Term ‘Pākehā’ Offend Some People? I’ve always found it interesting how people can react so defensively to the term ‘Pākehā’, treating it as a slur when it is not. 

‘I wonder if it makes them uncomfortable because it’s a reminder that they’re not from here originally, and it disrupts their relationship of being a kiwi, and being from New Zealand, and it makes them feel othered when really it’s such a non-issue. It’s just not what it’s about.’ - Millie (she/they) 

‘It is disingenuous, sometimes when people from a position of privilege come face to face with discussions of equality and equity, another minority group being lifted up feels like oppression when it’s actually not. Being called Pākehā isn’t an offensive thing, it’s just a distinguishing term.’ - Rique (he/him) 

‘‘Pākehā’ is a word that sounds like an attack to a certain group of people because they’re used to hierarchies. They’re used to one thing being higher than another inherently, so ‘Pākehā = bad, Māori = good’ is how they’re hearing it. They jump straight to the defensive because deep down they have this guilt. That’s why people can react so strongly. They feel threatened by it. You can understand why: People who have a legacy of stealing and killing and taking and dominating are always going to be afraid that that’s going to happen to them. That’s how they think of the world. That’s their whakapapa, and so they carry that forward with them.’ - Dani (she/they) 

‘They don’t know what it means. Some people don’t like it when they don’t understand a language and they don’t understand a label that’s being put on them. If you take the time to learn, it doesn’t mean ‘white pig’.’ - Ruby (they/them) 

Using Te Reo MāoriUsing te reo Māori is undoubtedly powerful. As an official language in Aotearoa, everyone should make an effort to incorporate it into their everyday lives. Learning te reo can also be a pathway to deeper understanding of the culture, land, and ourselves. 

‘Living in Aotearoa, you can’t just ignore it. That’s how you connect with people. The connection between everyone relies on understanding and learning from each other.’ - Isaac (he/him) 

‘I’ve always felt a responsibility to learn te reo Māori. I was really interested in learning Mandarin for a while, and a friend of mine learned Chinese and he was talking to someone in China and they said, ‘Do you know Māori because you’re from New Zealand?’ He said no, and the guy was like, ‘Why the hell did you learn Mandarin then?’ I think that pointed out to me the sort of foolishness I was being engaged in, that I was trying to escape my context rather than becoming part of it. Being a New Zealander- being a kiwi, being Pākehā- is part of who I am, and I was trying to lean away from it because of that same guilt. My ancestors came here and stole land and killed people, it’s uncomfortable. So I thought, I want to be a citizen of the world. I want to travel around the world and become stateless, because that’s more comfortable than being one with a violent history. Learning te reo is me coming to terms with my identity as Tangata Tiriti and coming to terms with the wrong that’s been done, and the limited ways that I as an individual can make steps to change that. Being able to speak te reo is the baseline to start a process of healing.’ - Dani (she/they) 

‘You don’t have to be well-versed on everything, that’s not what it’s about. Knowing the basics- knowing basic terms, phrases and words in te reo is super cool.’ - Rique (he/him) 

What’s Next for Tangata Tiriti?Tangata Tiriti have an important role in working towards a fairer Aotearoa- not as saviours, but as treaty partners. 

‘As someone that’s from a marginalised community I think that we all need to stand up for each other and make sure that our voices are heard and respected so that change can happen. Coming from a culture that has been oppressed throughout the years, I understand what it’s like to be othered and pushed beneath the institutions that are in power. It’s really important for Māori to be able to claim the land that they have sovereignty over.’ - Payton (she/her) 

‘If you’re not familiar with the term (Tangata Tiriti), get into it. It’s super interesting, from a historical perspective but more than that, it will help you relate to different kinds of people.’ - Rique (he/him) 

And as Green MP Marama Davidson reminds us, change doesn’t always begin with policy. It begins in conversation. 

‘For me as Tangata Whenua - it is important that Tangata Tiriti keep doing more of the work of leading conversations among Tangata Tiriti communities. When Tangata Tiriti create spaces among their peers, to pose questions on the value of Tiriti led relationships - this is powerful. And then just adding a proudly Tangata Tiriti perspective to Tiriti and related issues - as we have seen through the Treaty Principles Bill submissions - will help us slowly but surely to have a more positive narrative for our country.’ - Marama (she/her) 

None of us can undo the past. But we can choose how we respond to it.