Hīkoi To Parliament: The Families Taking Part And Why

Tuesday, 19 November 2024, 7:21 pm
Article: RNZ

Phil Pennington, Reporter

Kids can sleep anywhere.

With 35,000 or so people crowded over the grass outside Parliament, and a speaker - and speakers - blasting away, 2-year-old Adonis Webber was tucked away sleeping in a pull-along trolley.

His younger sister Amani and he were tag-teaming a nap through the busiest lunch hour of their young lives at the hīkoi on Tuesday.

The hīkoi is a family affair. Tamariki were everywhere; pēpē sleeping in carts and buggies or tugging their cousins' hair.

The two toddlers' great-grandmother Soraya Poroaki Wallace (Matangi) of Te Ātiawa, missed the Porirua hīkoi coming through - "they changed the kaupapa," she said - so instead, had first duties preparing the picnic kai at home in Newlands, for all 16 or 18 of her whanāu who went along.

"Come together, as one, and that's happening now," she said, following a waiata that she and many others across the wide expanse of lawn joined in on.

On the other hand, as for the political parties, "they don't even know how to sort their own selves out, let alone tell us what to do", Wallace told RNZ.

The kids' koroua William Webber sings along, too. "Honour the treaty," he said.

Their kuia Juliana Webber, meanwhile, opened an umbrella over Adonis's head. He slept on.

It had been a big day.

Amari Edwardson and her little sister Summer-Rose got up at 2am - actually, Summer-Rose at 1.30am "because I had to do my moko", she said - to carry their signs, walking from 4am from Petone into Wellington.

"The sign says, 'Don't glorify our culture only when it's ... beneficial," Amari said.

And a second sign?

"Treaty is rights, treaty is peace, treaty is law, treaty is staying."

Dot Bax and her 9-year-old son Felix made the impromptu decision to get in their truck in Whangārei on Monday morning, to get to the hīkoi.

"We had to do what we had to do," she said.

"Just jumped on my truck, and that was us, we were down here."

Among the many whānau to get their young children up early for a big day ahead was Terongopai O'Riley-Morehū of Stokes Valley, with her tamariki Anthony, Hana in a buggy, and Wairua in a pull-along cart, on the bike path wedged between State Highway Two and the train line, as the sun came up.

"We started walking at around 4, 4.30, 4.20 ... oh, tiring, tiring, but it's worth it, it's worth it," Terongopai said.

Anthony was sure he would make it to the end at Wellington railway station. His dad Kody said it was "going good, better than expected, the kids are actually well behaved".

The Snowden family of Lower Hutt numbered at least a dozen across generations.

Boaz Snowden, 22, was helping push his nephew in a buggy along Old Hutt Road.

"Feet are good, spirits are uplifted, piki tuna te ora," he said, adding he was walking "not only for us but for our mokopuna as well".

His older brother, Awarau, walking with his three young children, said it was the continuation of a 200-year-old battle.

"They've already done all the heavy lifting," he said of his tūpuna.

"We're just lucky enough to just go down to the store and buy a flag and be able to participate this way."

"We've come a long way and we've still got far to go," Boaz said, halfway down Old Hutt Road.

"But the kohanga generation is here."

Bax again: "It's about our tamarikis, (sic) our language, our culture".

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