Mana moana, mana tangata Testimonies on depletion and ...

Interviewer #2 – And could you say how for us ...
Interviewee #18b – The ability to retain [mātauranga] and pass it on. That’s huge social capital, spiritual
well-being, the community strength that grows from that and then you get the by(?) and you get
succession. You get continuity. It’s the social capital that people on the grassroots are in, just fit in,
really.
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Interviewee #18b – Rangiwewehi are the same ... say, ‘If the river’s not well, the people are not well,’ in
all senses of the word.
Interviewee #14b – It’s a little bit like a coin, the coin is you know, one side is just the other side of the
other side and you can’t have one side without the other. That’s really what it is.
Interviewee #5b – So one way, another way of looking at the same thing is like the kai might be the
physical nourishment, but without everything that supports that kai being there then you are looking at
depletion of what else nourishes you, you know, the wairua, the (hine arau?)
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I remember when we used to go out whitebaiting with my Mum, it was never in August. It was always
earlier. It was always around June, May/June. Those were the- and it was plentiful, well I mean
probably the reasons why it’s changed is because of the depletion of those things. I don’t know, but
when you get to August … they’re just about out of season, to us, but I reckon that legislation has
changed access to that too – Interviewee #29
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Interviewer #1 - Have things changed for the better or for the worse for Rakaipaaka?
Interviewee #29 – I reckon for the worse because once those tikanga things start going we just lose our
identity, we lose everything that was transferred to us from our old people, you know, I was thinking,
‘Geez, this is really frustrating having to sit here for hours and getting this much in the bucket or why,
when we used to go way out with our Mums.’ One of the things with tikanga, you never take a big
bucket. We used to end up going home naked because Mum would take all our clothes off to fill up
those with whitebait, but that’s how it was. That’s how it was but you go to the river now, you can sit
there all day and just keep, not worth bloody, rather to let them go.
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some of the research that’s come out from our Koro, Kuia still here with us. It’s not that abundant, is it?
Not in our customary area. Well I’m saying that because just from knowing our customary area –
Interviewee #29
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