First Person - At a hui about the Ngāpuhi settlement, Eden More reflects on what it means to be urban Māori.
Eden More outside her marae Photo: supplied
I'm sitting in a hui in the Ngāpuhi heartland - Korokota marae at Titoki.
I am listening to a whare full of people debating the Ngāpuhi settlement.
The words I keep hearing are 'urban Māori'. Some sound angry.
"The urbans have had all the money for years," says one kuia, looking fierce. "Now it's our turn."
I'm feeling uncomfortable and confused. I turn to my (Pākehā) colleague and ask, "Am I an urban Māori?"
The questions came tumbling into my mind. Is that me they're talking about? Why are they not happy with me? Can I represent my hapū if I live in Auckland? Do they want me to drop my career and move home?
I'm from Te Ngāere Bay though I've never lived there. My hapu is Ngāitupango. My dad's dad, Archie More, still lives up the hill in Matauri Bay and we visit him.
But I grew up in Turangi and now I live in Tāmaki Makaurau. Mission Bay. Pretty urban.
So, what does that make me? What does it mean to be urban Māori? Where do we fit in to the iwi's Treaty settlement?
At morning tea, I am claimed by a relative I've never met who knows exactly who I am. Anaru Kira tells me he knows my papa and keeps a kindly eye on me for the rest of the day.
A kuia tells me she can tell by my face exactly who I belong to. I have the More face, she says.
So I guess they're not angry at me, the urban Māori in their midst.
But next week the urban question will be a hot topic when Treaty Negotiations Minister Andrew Little heads North to tell the hapū where he's at with the path to negotiating a settlement for Ngāpuhi.
He's been having talks in Wellington since March with four Ngāpuhi men - two on each side of the mandate dispute: Sonny Raniera Tau and Hone Sadler from Tuhoronuku (set up by the runanga) and Pita Tipene and Rudy Taylor from Te Kotahitanga, the hapū alliance.
How to represent the interests of urban Māori at the negotiations and in the settlement?
The hapū say their relatives in the cities all link to hapū and they will be represented through their hapū.
Tuhoronuku has, until now, wanted separate seats at the table for urban Māori, for kaumatua and kuia and for the Ngāpuhi runanga.
This week's Kotahitanga hui heard they may be prepared to give on the runanga and kaumatua/kuia seats. But not the urban (ones).
Ngāpuhi is the largest iwi in Aotearoa by far - with more than 125,000 people and 100 plus hapū.
More than 69 percent of Ngāpuhi live in main urban areas. The majority live in Auckland. About 20 percent live in Northland.
How should the urban interests be represented at the table?
Ngāti Hine chair, Waihoroi Shortland told the hui that treating urban Māori as a form of affliction was wrong.
"They're not aliens from Mars! They're my whanaunga who live in town. That's the only difference between them and me - the distance they live away from home.
"Because you live in an urban environment or community doesn't mean that you're suddenly outside the purview of your hapū.
"No hapū can afford to be unaware of the rich resources of the people we have in communities all over the country," Mr Shortland says.
Huhana Lyndon lives just up the road in Whangārei. She doesn't see herself as urban Māori, though her old people do.
"As urban Māori it's about being connected, visible and plugging into what's happening locally," she says.
"It's also utilising skills and experience to advance things that are relevant for home."
Ms Lyndon says that although urban whānau are valid and valued they don't need their own separate seats at the settlement table.
"We don't believe that urban or kaumatua/kuia need separate representation; rather we believe that it all just goes back through the hapū.
"Whether you're urban or living in the haukāinga, if you want to represent your people, you must be chosen through a hapū process."
Tasha Hohaia, who lives in Auckland, says that there's definitely a need to have a separate conversation for city-dwelling Ngāpuhi.
"I'm a big fan of us coming under the iwi - because we are the iwi, but at the same time I have concerns about whether our 50,000 voices of Ngāpuhi living in Auckland will speak and be heard," she says.
"It sometimes feels like there's a hierarchy, like they don't see us as Ngāpuhi-an or as valuable as them.
"Ngāpuhi is Ngāpuhi wherever we are, whether it's up north, in an urban setting like the city, or anywhere else around the world."