My cousin Donald (one of the many that I have from the East Coast) wished me a Maori Christmas on my Facebook today! Earlier, I sent him a message of Christmas Greetings and New Years Cheer, I wasn’t focusing properly and ended up with a type error because my mind was elsewhere! instead of saying ‘Happy New Year’ I said ‘Happy New Zealand’! This little blunder awarded me a response from his wife saying ‘Happy New Zealand’! back. And then of course he wrote another message saying ‘Maori Christmas’ meaning ‘Merry Christmas’! Now at this very moment I really wish I was having a ‘Maori Christmas’! But living in Cambodia a world far apart from Happy New Zealand being the only Maori among the group I hang out with does cause me to have the Maori blues!
During my last vacation home I spent it with my mother and whanau back at Waipiro. It was so nice to be home give or take a few whanau issues! (oh for the none Maori speakers whanau means family, and not in the nuclear sense but in the extended way). But I couldn’t help but think of where I was holistically with this set up! When I was home I feel happy and when I am in Cambodia I feel happy too! Being home enabled me to be close to my mother! And being in Cambodia enabled me to have a job and a sense of direction career wise and enjoy what I am doing. Torn between the two worlds I’ve had to learn with the decisions in life that I make! Having a Maori Christmas in a Maori (less) environment has put me on this path to seeking nirvana and so I have to deal with it!
But what is a Maori Christmas? a clear comment made by Donald! It does deserve some theological, matauranga Maori discourse! I wonder what Maori thought about this when the Church Missionary Society brought Christianity to our shores! At that time there was no doubt an abundance of Maori and Maori conceptual frame works alive and active! So the birth of Christ on December must have brought a foreign God to come into clash with Maori beliefs and the Maori calendar that was going at the time. Having a Maori Christmas might have been more meaningful and contextual when the missionaries first started working among Maori.
But alas having a Maori Christmas has got me thinking! Its the bringing together of Christianity and Maori, Christian Tradition with Maori values, Maori and contemporary society! and believe it or not I’m sure the Maori purist would be celebrating it in their own way, more so because its the commercial thing to do rather than the Christian practice of it. Nonetheless having a Maori Christmas for me (and yes with all the God discourse, liturgy, and Eucharistic practices, and the Maori hangi with heaps of kai (food) ) I would still go for it! I want my Maori Christmas and my Merry Christmas! I want my hangi and eat it at the same time!
So anyway Maori Christmas right? I will have a Maori Christmas! I will be celebrating my Christmas with a New Zealand Pakeha family whom I have also adopted as my cousin (its a long story but my cousin married her cousin). And although we won’t have a hangi we will be feasting on foods from New Zealand, Australia and the US at the Intercontinental Hotel Christmas Lunch in Phnom Penh.
When I was a theology student having a ‘Maori Christma
s’ would definitely be a platform for theological discourse! I can just imagine both students and lecturers tearing this concept apart and raping it of its virtue! But thanks for my cousin Donald Tamihere from the Tuparoa Clan, several bays around the bend from my home in Waipiro Bay, without any theological apology, discourse and academic jargon, yes lets have a Maori Christmas! and a Happy New Zealand!
