Kuini o te maunga - The path out for survivors of state abuse
Sunday, 27 March 2022
For decades Whaea Kuini Karanui saved the futures of hundreds of tamariki Māori who were destined for state care . While she never got a chance to give evidence to the Royal Commission of Inquiry, her story light up an otherwise sombre room. Maxine Jacobs reports.
Under her protection dozens of street kids slept on mattresses in a garage, knowing they were loved by her. They learned the Māori values of tika, pono and aroha that drove her to defend them as taonga.
The late Whaea Kuini (Te Rarawa) knew the measure of a home was not material possessions, but the unconditional aroha that fills up a whare. Today, her some 90 tamariki and mokopuna have never been to prison, and never been a victim of state care like she was.
This is one story of the lengths Māori have gone, to protect tamariki from the “care and protection” of the Crown. It was heard during a two-week hearing, part of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into abuse in care, dedicated to the voices of Māori. In those two weeks their frustration was palpable. But the story of Whaea Kuini lit up the room.
**READ MORE:
* Abuse in Care: Māori expert panel says the time has come for the Crown to step aside
* We need a truly independent champion for our children
**
Whaea Kuini came to the attention of the state in 1946, aged seven, because of her truancy from the local native school in Te Tai Tokerau.
Her grand-daughter, Tracy Karanui-Golf, is the eldest child of Whaea Kuini’s eldest son, and the voice that the whānau asked to share her story at the Inquiry.
Through a western lens, Whaea Kuini grew up in poverty – but what that lens failed to see was the love her parents and wider whānau had for her, and the foundations of te ao Māori she learned.
Whaea Kuini’s pāpā father would say she was Kuini o te maunga, queen of the mountain. It was a sentiment she didn’t understand at the time, but the meaning would revel itself to her later in life.
She didn’t like school, Karanui-Golf says. The teachers tried to scrub her her skin and forced her to speak te reo Pākehā.
But that’s not why she skipped class.
Her mother had died from tuberculosis, and it was up to her to care for her grandmother, who was suffering from the same illness. However, while she cared for her kuia, a man would visit and sexually assault her.
It left a resentment in her heart, which is how she believed she was tricked into leaving her whānau, Karanui-Golf says.
“The state offered her a different life… she would get to go to Auckland, and to schools, and there would be all of these opportunities. But unfortunately, my Nanny spent many years in two foster placements where she was sexually abused many times over a long period.”
Whaea Kuini wasn’t visited by social workers, sparking thoughts later on in life that they knew the homes weren’t positive places to bring up a child. When she did get moved to a loving family, the visits began.
It was in her final placement at 16 when she finally felt safe, Karanui-Golf says. Whaea Kuini knew that was the environment she wanted for her tamariki, and any others who needed that aroha would be safe with her too.
While her life had been an uphill battle, her connection to te ao Māori was strong. The teachings of her māmā and kuia were the foundations of the home and community she would build across the course of her life to defend tamariki Māori from the Crown.
Those who gave evidence to the hearing in March say the state has been proven time and time again not to act in the best interests of Māori. For iwi, hapū and whānau this is well known.
It’s not clear how many tamariki Māori were taken into state care between 1950-1999, but it is clear they were over-represented according to youth justice statistics.
At the hearing, 25 Māori told their stories – raw and unedited – so the Crown could understand the torment they suffered as tamariki, and the struggles they faced as they aged out of care. They described rape, child pregnancy, beatings, and mental abuse. They were expected to conform and become “little Pākehā kids,” the Commission heard.
They spoke of being locked up and treated as criminals without support, then thrown into a world they felt had rejected them, with only the solace that those who had suffered the same treatment would understand. When they became parents they tried to protect their tamariki, using whatever means necessary to avoid intervention by the state.
Whaea Kuini was one of them. At 89 she had seen the world change before her.
From humble beginnings in her whānau shack, learning from her parents and kuia to live off her whenua and awa, to the whare she had built to protect tamariki from the abuse she had suffered in care, Whaea Kuini life is a testament to how unconditional aroha can shape the course of a person’s life.
Growing up in te ao Māori she knew she had the blueprint for care and protection, and she used it to love and awhi those who needed it the most.
Surrounded by her whānau Whaea Kuini drifted away from her earthly life and back into the waiting arms of her husband, children, tīpuna, and saviour in November – just months away from her opportunity to speak at the Inquiry.
She couldn’t share her story herself with the Commission, but Karauni-Golf, and her daughter Susie Falwasser, stepped up to present her evidence last week. These are her words.
“Me whakarongo rātou kia mōhio i a rātou e ahu ana rātou ki hea. Nō reira, kei konā koutou hei awhi, hei hautū i ngā tikanga me pēhea te Karauna e awhi i ō mātou whānau, e mahi tika ana ki ō rātou mahi.”
“[The Crown] need to listen so that they know where they need to go. [The Royal Commission] are there to support and guide the Crown on how to best to take care of our families, and to ensure they are doing this properly.”
It’s a sentiment shared by all who presented to the Commission and the panel of experts who shared their recommendations following the hearing.
The foundations of their requests were the same as Whaea Kuini’s blueprint – by Māori, for Māori, with Māori. Let us care for our tamariki as a whānau, hapū and iwi. Don’t take them from their whenua and culture, give us the resources to care for our own and move aside.
This kaupapa has been raised before.
Pūao te Āta Tū – Day Break was a Government-requested and Māori-led investigation into the treatment of tamariki Māori in 1988. Led by John Rangihau, the report’s interviews with whānau and tamariki who had engaged with state care, kaimahi who worked in state care, and wider Māori groups, reflected the experiences of the mōrehu (survivors) who presented their evidence to the Commission.
The report’s recommendations were the same as those that the panel and mōrehu challenged the state to uphold. The most consistent call was for “Māori people to be given the resources to control their own programmes.”
“Our problems of cultural imperialism, deprivation and alienation mean that we cannot afford to wait longer. The problem is with us here and now,” the report said at the time.
But for more than three decades tamariki Māori and their whānau are still suffering under the Crown’s protection.
“At the heart of the issue is a profound misunderstanding or ignorance of the place of the child in Māori society and its relationship with whānau, hapū, iwi structures,” Pūao te Āta Tū states.
As expert panel member and mōrehu, Tupua Urlich, said to the Commission, “if the Crown was a person it would be the least trusted, most hated person you would want anywhere near a child”.
After Whaea Kuini aged out of care she eventually settled in Devonport’s Rutland Rd with her husband Alfred, and began raising her own whānau. It started with one pepi, which led to eight before her Alfred died .
But her determination to care for and protect tamariki from the abuse she suffered throughout her childhood drew in more children. With no state resources Whaea Kuini built her own social welfare system – and it was like moths to a flame.
Her care was more than a roof, it was the wraparound support that a māmā gives to her pēpi, Karanui-Golf says.
“Her love was not bound by just whānau, she loved the people that were maybe the hardest to love. And her love was unconditional.”
Karanui-Golf says she was never aware that they were poor because they were rich in aroha and connection.
“Now people would call it overcrowding and it might not be allowed, but [Rutland Rd] was like a magical place.
“I remember there was a big double garage and people always slept in there. Nanny always looked after her cousins, street kids, kids that were just struggling with their own parents and their families, and they all grew up together.”
Whaea Kuini’s connection with at risk tamariki Māori was so strong that others working in state care began to notice.
The Commission heard that Linda Blincko, whowas working with social welfare at the time, and was setting up a place for tamariki to be safe nearby, became confused when she saw them heading to Whaea Kuini’s home instead.
“[Linda] was involved in trying to help young people and she said that she wasn't having any luck, but down the road she could see Nan’s house with all these kids.”
She realised Whaea Kuini’s blueprint was working, so Blincko poured her resources into Whaea Kuini and never looked back.
The courts also began to notice Whaea Kuini’s presence as the children she cared for got into trouble.
Many of them had poor relationships with their parents, so Whaea Kuini would support them as they faced the judicial system. In Whaea Kuini’s own words to the hearing she recalled showing up to court and being asked by a judge why she was there.
“And I was clear to the judge that I was there to take care of them and provide them with a safe place. I wanted to keep them out of trouble, but the judge never had anything nice to say to me about these kids.
“Looking back on this time of my life I think I wanted to care for these kids and make them feel like they were part of the family because of what I had been through.”
Whaea Kuini also used her own pūrākau to teach her whānau how to protect themselves from abuse.
In Whaea Kuini’s final days she spoke to Karanui-Golf of her father's kōrero – Kuini o te maunga.
“She viewed her life as a journey up the mountain, and that early on in her life the winds would try and push her down the mountain all the time – that’s what she looked at her life like in social welfare – and as the winds pushed her down she learned how to climb the mountain even when the winds were blowing.”
Having reached the top of her maunga Whaea Kuini finally has her crown, Karanui-Golf says, but the legacy of her life will live on in the hearts of all those she protected from the system.
It’s with a heavy heart that Karanui-Golf reflected on all those who did not have a Whaea Kuini to protect them.
“If the Crown let us care for our people the way that she cared for her people maybe things would have worked better.”
Whaea Kuini’s last words of wisdom to the Royal Commission were this:
“Tika, pono and aroha are values that were instilled in me form a young age, and through these values I know that Māori have the solutions and capabilities to care for their own tamariki.”
So let them.
Ki te tūohu koe, me he maunga teitei. If you bow your head, let it be to a lofty mountain.
Let it be to Kuini o te maunga.