Pakirehua me te whakapapa – Connecting pakirehua to your whakapapa

I believe that pakirehua or inquiry is nothing new, it was evident in the times of our tūpuna and it was something that helped nurture and helped us to establish and grow as a people and good examples of this are horticulture, navigation, astronomy, and the intergenerational transfer of mātauranga Māori. So, if we can look back to our own roots, where we come from and actually have that little bit of time to think, we had inquirers within our hapū and iwi. So your tupuna, like for an example for me, from Te Arawa, from Pikiao, Ihenga is one of our paramount inquirers and it goes back, I mean for me, when Ihenga’s  wife was hapū and she was hungry for kiwi, she sent her good man down like sent him to the supermarket, sent him out to the bush to get a kiwi for her, so he took his kurī, Potaka Tawhiti, with him. While he was out hunting, the dog ran off and found a pool of water and 'cos he was so hot and thirsty he drank all the water he could, returned back to Ihenga and on his return he actually regurgitated or actually vomited up the inanga that was in the water he had consumed and Ihenga thought, ‘Wow, there’s fish in there, so there’s got to be water somewhere around here." So, he actually had to have that inquiry process of where is this water? What am I going to do? And thinking, "Yep." So, he went to look for a brow of hill that he could actually climb to see if he could find it. He found this place called Pariparitetai, climbed it, and when he looked down he saw this small lake from where he was, which became Te Rotoiti-i-kitea-ai-e-Ihenga, which is the small lake first seen or discovered by Ihenga. So, he is a real powerful inquirer for me and my roots. So now I’ll give you the opportunity to think about your hapū or your iwi and actually think of a pūrākau that is a good example of inquiry.