I feel compelled to dig deeper into the language after every single tangi. Tangi are amazing but they can be stressful too. The thought of having to karanga scares the bejesus out of me and I know it goes back to the time I witnessed the most incredible volley when Te Arawa attended the opening of a wharenui in Auckland. It just went on and on, the most amazing exchange — and that wasn’t even a tangi.
The thing is that, when you rock up to tangihanga, there are expectations around profile, age, language. People make assumptions. You can never make assumptions about fluency.
My favoured tactic is to avoid eye contact with anyone who looks like they’re in charge and then I try to strategically position myself in the middle of a clutch of women a couple of rows back from the leaders, just to reduce my visibility.
Sure, I have a few prepared lines on my phone courtesy of my mates — that’s me sitting in the carpark trying to memorise them before I go on, just in case I get the call up. And most of the time, I’ve been lucky to be missed because, even if you’ve nailed the kupu, there’s always that fear that someone from the other side will hit you with a curveball and you’ll be left floundering. That’s the nature of the gig when you’re not a native speaker.
I remember some bloke reassuring me once: “Don’t be nervous. The words will pop into your head.” I gave him the evils. Pop into your head? How can they bloody pop into your head when they weren’t there in the first place? And a tangi is not the place you want to be waiting for anything to pop.
- Moana Maniapoto
Tāmaki Makaurau | Auckland | Auckland | 2020-29 | Story is by tangata whenua
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