Kahutoi Te Kanawa – a weaver, textile artist, museum curator and kaiako of Maniapoto descent, has received her PhD in Tikanga Māori Creative Practice from the University of Waikato.
Her doctoral thesis, titled Taonga Tuku Iho: Intergenerational Transfer of Raranga and Whatu, was presented with a solo exhibition; these made up her two-part creative PhD.
Raranga and whatu are approaches to weaving.
Raranga refers to the use of the harakeke rau (leaf) to make kete and whāriki (mats).
Whatu indicates the use of the fibre within the leaf (muka), commonly used to make kākahu and tāniko (cloaks and their borders).
Intergenerational transfer of mātauranga Māori is Kahu’s passion.
The foundations of her learning include applied practice, Māori knowledge systems and tacit knowing.
These akoranga (teachings) learning has passed through family connections.
“Case in point, our grandmother and our mother [influential weavers Rangimārie Hetet and Diggeress Te Kanawa]. They weren’t brought up in that academic world.”
Niece Clowdy Ngatai said their intergenerational knowledge had preceded and informed the academic journey.
“When [Kahu and Rangi] talk about the connection between mātauranga Māori and the scientific world, those things only happened because they were learned … from the teachings of their mother and their grandmother.
“They had that ahead of getting the PhDs.
“The PhDs just made people sit up and listen to their journey.”
When asked what formal study could offer young people, Kahu said it was not the only option, with the trades providing another valuable direction.
“There can be too much emphasis put on academic pathways,” she said.
“For those that are not so academically astute, don’t think that’s the only way.”
University did offer a way to know yourself and your history, as well as a way to share that knowledge, she said.
“The more you get into the academic field, you begin to know more about yourself and your culture and your upbringing.
“That’s what it is for me.
“I was never going to go down [the pathway of] a degree or masters or anything like that, until I started to realise we hold certain knowledge systems that need to be brought out.
“If anything, what academia has done for me, and this is on a personal level, is bring out more about what we know in terms of mātauranga, in terms of kaupapa Māori ways of knowing and being.”
Kahu’s partner, Irene Straker, said Kahu had recognised the value of such connections “quite early in life.”
At high school, she had asked teachers why they learned about Mao Tse-Tung and the French revolution, but not New Zealand’s indigenous history.
“I said, I really want to know more about our Māori history. We’re in New Zealand, we’re in Aotearoa,” she had said.
This was seen as defiance by her teachers, and she was told:
“You’re in the wrong class.”
She was sent to the principal’s office and told to write 100 lines.
At that time, te reo Māori was not offered at the school, except by correspondence.
“We had no Māori teacher. I was the only one that was taking [te reo] in the back of the French class because all the library books were being stolen, apparently.”
Kahu’s PhD graduation took place at the end of April; she wore Kahukura, a kākahu of kākā feathers made by her mother for her father, Tana Te Kanawa, which is otherwise kept at Waikato Museum.
Her PhD supervisors were Professor Leonie Pihama at Waikato and Dr Manulani Aluli-Meyer from the University of Hawai’i. She was also supported by Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith.
KAHUTOI (Kahu) Te Kanawa recieved a PhD in Tikanga Māori Creative Practive from the University of Waikato.
Photo Sigrid Christiansen
