Returning to the Source: Te Reo Hawaiki and the future of Hauora in Aotearoa

In the coming days, our Rautaki Māori, Jade Kameta, is preparing for Te Reo Hawaiki, a wānanga that is not just about revival alone. It is a portal. A reactivation of Moana-nui-a-Kiwa knowledge systems that once placed atua, whenua, and whakapapa at the centre of collective wellbeing. This is the kind of thinking our systems need, not as an add-on, but as the foundation.

Led by a collective of Indigenous thought leaders and hosted by Taupua Waiora and Te Ipukarea Research Centres from AUT, at Taumata o Kupe (Te Mahurehure Marae), Te Reo Hawaiki brings together language custodians, healers, astronomers, and community leaders to reconnect with the deep linguistic and cosmological roots of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa. The symposium brings together ceremony, kōrero tuku iho, and wānanga, as participants explore themes of Indigenous astronomy, ancestral linguistics, and the interconnectedness between these systems and our overall health and wellbeing.

Imagine if our health, education, and community frameworks were shaped not by imported paradigms, but by the ancestral philosophies that sustained our people for generations? Whakapapa-based systems change asks us to do just that: to redesign from the inside out, with language and story as the architecture of wellbeing. Unfortunately, history shows us that modern-day systems have severed Indigenous people from the knowledge that once maintained balance, knowledge found in the stars (e.g. Tautoru, Rehua), in tides, in maramataka like Rakau-nui or Tangaroa-a-roto, and in the rhythms of everyday life. As Professor Rangi Matamua (2021) reminds us, “When you impose on someone else’s timekeeping system it completely changes the way they interact with their environment, it completely changes the way they understand their culture, identity, and way of being, even their language changes.” Today, many of our systems still operate in ways that overlook the richness and relationality of our Indigenous worldviews.

But the return is already underway.

At Te Reo Hawaiki, Jade will join others in reactivating and reclaiming the wisdom that sits within our languages, skies, waters, and whakapapa. As a Rautaki Māori and researcher, Jade explains, “My role is to be a bridge, to hold space between academia and community, between past and future, between what was disrupted and what can be restored.”

If we are serious about decolonising wellbeing, then wānanga like Te Reo Hawaiki must be recognised for what they are: not side quests, but central strategies. They are blueprints, not just for language survival, but for the thriving of our people and planet.

This wānanga is a continuation of Healthy Families East Cape’s commitment to re-indigenising health prevention systems by embedding mātauranga Māori at their core.

Let’s not wait for permission to do what our tīpuna already gave us the right to reclaim. We look forward to the insights Jade will bring home to share with our networks, people, and incorporate into our systems change mahi.

“E kore au e ngaro, he kākano i ruia mai i Rangiātea.”

I will never be lost, for I am a seed sown from Rangiātea.

To learn more or stay connected with this kaupapa, follow Healthy Families East Cape on our social platforms and keep an eye out for reflections shared in the weeks following the wānanga.