When do we develop an identity? Our identity starts right from the beginning. Our environment, our parents, our siblings, our cultural setting. But this process can be more difficult when you are adopted. It can be hard to grow up in a family where you do not look like your parents or siblings.
Maoris greet each other following a set format that identifies who they are, called pepeha. This greeting connects them to each other and where they belong. It is a common practice, and their pepeha links them to their ancestors. It is important to note that this introduction is to connect with others.
I listened to a talk this week by Andre Hippolite, the program director of social work at BYU Hawaii. He shared how vital his pepeha is to him as he never feels alone because of the generations that have passed on before him. He says he draws mana or strength from his pepeha.
The pepeha is like an Indigenous code and far too detailed for me to write about today, but I will explain it in a shorter version.
- Start with a greeting
- Where you are from
- Where your ancestors are from
- Place where you grew up
- Where your home is, where you are living
- Job Title
Maori’s have their pepeha memorized. Hippolite recited his in Maori and stressed how where one is from is their mountain, their waka, and their tribe, which provides a sense of belonging and strength.
Mason Drurie, A New Zealand professor of Maori Studies, said, “An individual cannot be healthy when there is a disconnect with one’s land, one’s mountain, and reefs because there is a spiritual significance.”
Those who are adopted need to feel loved and secure on their mountain. We are secure when we know our tribe and our mountain. Sometimes, those who are adopted, when they are with others like themselves, for instance, Tongan, they can feel like they are frauds because they did not fully grow up in that country with the language.
Simone Kaho writes about her feelings growing up with a white mother and a Tongan father in New Zealand: “It also occurred to me that I, too, am indigenous. I don’t have knowledge, and I don’t have language, but I have bloodlines and I can feel my ancestors when I go home, to Tonga.”
The first time she stepped off the plane in Tonga, she writes: “A deep knitting of something. I shut my eyes, and there was a sense of black waves moving, interlinking perfect design, like leaves on trees, the emergence of trees from the earth, the arrival of birds, and sparkling sunlight when you try to look up at them…when I stepped off the plane and smelled the air, which was like a convection heater blowing through a palm tree, something landed in me…Everything moved me. Walking through pools of perfume beneath frangipani trees moved me, warm salt breeze sweeping in over the sea, the way the night leaned close to my cheek. I felt like I was home.”
When one is adopted and surrounded by their parent’s stories and ancestors, these stories become part of themselves. Hopefully, they can feel a connection because of the love, but there can be something said of going back if one can visit their mountain.
People who are not adopted have written narratives while visiting the land where their ancestors came from and feel a great connection, a sense of feeling like they had been there before.
Eben Alexander, who wrote Proof of Heaven, met his birth family much later in his life. He writes: “This was my first real education in how profoundly knowledge of one’s origins can heal a person’s life in unexpected ways. Knowing where I came from, my biological origins, allowed me to see, and to accept, things in myself that I’d never dreamed I’d have been able to..I felt a wholeness I had never known before.”
I hope that Taylor and Lositika love their mountain and their land. Taylor visited his mountain in Tonga about ten years ago. He learned the Tongan language and met his birth mother. I hope he felt a connection to the land, the people, the air, the language.
Wishing us all connections to our mountains and people, and if we do not, try to figure out a way to do so. Surround yourself with people who do know their mountain, their pepeha.
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