It was on the marae where I noted that, of the many fine orators, Uncle Aki was the one whom people were most attuned to. I could see how he amused, entertained and informed, how attentive people were to every word he spoke, how they exclaimed, laughed, and at times became completely silent. Though there was no boy with a held ear sitting at his elbow, Uncle Aki did have his protégés. These were the adult children, now in middle age, of his two sisters Aunty Mina and Aunty Ti. One of them, Uncle Toby, was planning to bring his family on to the land to live with Uncle Aki.

Anyway, I spent hours listening to the kōrero, days on end; went to sleep immersed in the language as the talk went back and forth. I would wake to it when one of the elders, draped in a blanket, tapped his walking stick against the pou in the early morning and recited the karakia before showers – usually cold by the time I got to them – and a hot breakfast. It didn’t matter to me that I understood little (at first). I was borne along on mood and emotion, laughing when everyone else laughed, silent among the silent, fascinated by the whispering and mutterings and body language, wracked by the wailings of sorrow.

I began to recognise patterns, understand words here and there, and eventually came to get the gist of the kōrero. I was able to augment learning by mulling over and comparing the recorded language with the translations my grandmother provided me with.

However, I couldn’t indulge completely in what took place out on the marae ātea or in the wharenui. I soon learned that the talking that continued throughout the hui belonged in the domain of the elders. That was their duty. For my age group, there were piles of dishes to be washed, watercress to be collected, potatoes to be peeled, meat and pumpkins to cut up, tables and chairs to be arranged, toilets to be cleaned. I got the idea, became part of the picture.

But as we worked, there was language also, sometimes Māori, sometimes English, sometimes a mix of the two – stories, small talk, conversation, gossip, argument, laughter. I’ll miss the laughter. It turns you inside out and gives a good clean. I’ll miss the heart of it all.

The talk, more than anything else, was of genealogy. Family connection to this one, that one, the other one from here and there, and it seemed I was a person of special interest when it came to whakapapa. Well, I was certainly treated as such, whether this was on the paepae or in the wharenui where my relationship was explained, or outside where I’d be taken by the elbow to be introduced to yet more people with whom I shared ancestry.