Sister Act doctorates: Kahu (left) and Rangi (right) learned about persistence during their childhood in Oparure, with parents Diggeress and Tana Te Kanawa. They are two of 12 siblings. PHOTO SIGRID CHRISTIANSEN
Te Kūiti’s Te Kanawa whānau are celebrating two new doctorates and a King’s Birthday honour.
King Country News reporter Sigrid Christiansen talks to Rangi and Kahu about their life journey.
One PhD in a family is cause for celebration.
But the Te Kanawa whānau has a ‘Sister Act’ – two doctoral graduates in the past 18 months.
Drs Rangituatahi and Kahutoi, or Rangi and Kahu, are the hardworking pair.
The Te Kūiti duo gained their nickname with a shared research event at the University of Hawai’i, later “livestreamed everywhere” around the world.
“We called it the Sister Act. That was just a working title. And it’s stuck,” Rangi said.
“We’ve been doing two different things, but still aligned.”
The two grew up at Oparure, near Te Kūiti, among a close-knit group of siblings, cousins and older whānau.
“There was this foundation of very strong Māori values.
“We were brought up on a farm, in a family of 12 – although there were only about five or six at home at any one time,” Rangi said.
The Te Kanawas were largely self-sufficient.
“We had an orchard, we had a garden, we had chooks. A favorite job for me was collecting eggs; I loved doing that. I had a dog. There was a cow, a milking cow.
“Dad would do a home kill.”
The Te Kanawa kids would also help their mother with preserves – getting the fruit or doing the peeling. And they loved catching crayfish.
“We were really quite sustainable.”
Few grocery items ever came from the shops.
“Mum’s shopping grocery list … it was always tea, soap, sugar, flour because everything else, we had.
“The reason I’m talking about this is because it’s become more evident to me in my old age that, ‘oh my gosh, we had all those things.’”
“We didn’t even realise we were eating organic. And our water was spring water,” Rangi said.
Farming life allowed their parents many opportunities to demonstrate strong work and community values.
Mum Diggeress was sometimes on her own for weeks, when dad Tana had to travel for his work as a fencing contractor.
She and grandmother Rangimārie would be gardening, sewing, knitting, crocheting, screen printing, and even covering couches. And also, cake making: iced wedding cakes, birthday cakes and reunion cakes, their daughters said.
She was “hard out, always doing something.”
Tana, also, did nothing by halves.
One story which illustrates his character was when Kahu and another sister, Aroha, went away on a Girl Guide camp.
Each whanau had to supply sausages, supposedly two per girl.
“Everyone had their sausages brought along in a nice little bag. And then Tana Te Kanawa turns up … at about 6pm, when everyone’s in the hall and kai is about to be made. Over his arm he’s got this great big half carcass of a sheep.
“He just walks in and just slaps it on the on the table.”
He hadn’t believed in sausages, so he said, “you do everything else, I’ll take care of the meat”.
“To him, sausages were just minced up old meat … stuff like that.
“We had half a freaking lamb for the whole of the camp. But that’s how he thought. And he always stuck to that,” Kahu said.
Each year, he’d start fattening up the Christmas pig in September – and this was such a great concern for him that when he developed dementia late in life, it was something he always worried about.
Throughout his life, Tana made sure to give the mokopuna first-hand knowledge of farming.
“When [Rangi’s daughter] Clowdy was a young toddler [she and her mum] would be in bed out at Oparure, and it would still be dark outside, Tana would go in the bedroom. Rangi would wake up and look up and this big arm just goes across her and gets Clowdy, ‘We’re going to get the sheep.’”
Then they’d be off in the Land Rover, out to the back of the farm.
When Kahu and Rangi were younger, they were expected to be involved with all aspects of farm life.
There was no avoiding mutton killing time.
“You had to. You had to stomach it. You had to be there.”
The kids also had to dock and drench sheep – if they wanted to be allowed out on a Saturday night, anyway, Kahu said.
No idle hands – that was the family philosophy.
“We all had our chores, we had to have chores.
“We learned to clear the table. To wash the dishes, sweep the floor, get the clothes in, feed the chooks.
“There was no time for people to get into drama because everybody had a job.”
Boys weren’t excused, Rangi said.
“Our brother Tui, who turned 80 in March … he’s always had the reputation for the best sponge maker. He makes fantastic sponges, pies and stuff like that.’
His speciality? Rhubarb pies.
Nana Rangimārie Hetet had her own list of chores for mokopuna when they stayed, which included vacuuming up flax left over from weaving projects.
“A lot of our people don’t realise that was our education, our mātauranga, our knowledge. And it holds you in great esteem,” Kahu said.
“By observing everything that was going on, that just became inherent knowledge, part of our life and living.”
“You learned how to respect each other.”
At that time, European ways of doing things were considered progressive in many Māori families, so English was spoken at home: unless their mum, dad and nana had something “just for their ears only.”
Despite that, the family was well-connected to te ao Māori.
Older generations were a constant presence in the Te Kanawa siblings’ childhood. Relatives would get together to sing long, complex waiata which connected them to their whakapapa.
Religion was another source of connection.
“We always used to attend monthly Sunday Ratana church at our Auntie Miriama Tahi’s place.
“We learned with the elders around. We thought they really would last forever, because they were just there for us.”
Their older family members were politically astute, with roles on the pā committee, the school committee, and the women’s branch of the Federated Farmers. A relative, Koro Wetere, was a government minister.
Diggeress was in the Māori Women’s Welfare League and later became a life member, alongside aunts Miriama Tahi and Rora Paki-Titi.
All up, that family background proved “a strong foundation,” for the sisters’ PhD achievements.
“If the task was put in front of you, you did it. You went from go to woah.
“Get the job done, no matter how long it takes you. Do it properly,” Rangi said.
Rangi and Kahu are not the first in their immediate family to have ‘Dr’ ahead of their names.
Dr Diggeress Te Kanawa and Dr Rangimārie Hetet received honorary doctorates for their dedication to the arts.
