Found in translation

The most exceptional gifts are those given freely. I’m sure you’ve experienced this.

At our house a dad and kids whom we had invited for lunch turned up with the most beautiful tarakihi fillet just off a fishing boat. We promptly fired up the barbecue! Then there was the mum, who, dropping off her two kids at the birthday party we were throwing for our four year old, brought along enough lemonade for everyone.

This is the true sense of ‘koha’, the Māori word and custom: a heartfelt gift, given freely, without conditions or expectation. It’s what you bring when you turn up. It’s fantastic.

Giving in this way is a part of our culture that, even if it didn’t come directly from tikanga Māori (customs), has certainly been heightened by it, and it’s something worth celebrating.

No strings

When I look at the koha I give these days, however, it can be a far cry from unconditional.

It’s almost as if I can see the strings attached to my outstretched hand as I make a gift. There are strings pulling at me out of obligation (I’m giving this because I have to). There are other strings of conditions I put on my gift (I’m giving this so you’ll do something for me). There are probably even strings of pride (I’m giving this to make myself feel good).

I’m sure I’m over-egging the whole thing, but if you look at the reasons why we hand things over these days, gift-giving is, well, a bit stringy to say the least. Why am I really giving this again?

It’s hard to keep all that other stuff out of it.

Lately I’ve come closer to hitting the mark by giving surprise gifts to the kids. This is just because no one expects them, no one demands them, and sometimes I even don’t know I’ll be giving them ahead of time. So the strings are out of the way.

And then money gets involved

Of course, as the word ‘koha’ gets used these days it can mean any of these things:

• Gift
• Present
• Offering
• Donation
• Contribution

Traditionally koha has taken many forms, like food or precious taonga (treasure). More recently, though, it has tended to be in the form of money. And so the word is typically used in a way that means ‘donation’ or ‘contribution’.

And little by little, with each gold coin ‘donation’ I hand over for the kids to take to school, the more I seem to get away from the truest sense of koha… a gift from the heart.

Which of course is fair – there need to be ‘expected’ donations and contributions. A marae can’t run on aroha alone and it’s not fair for those in the community to cover all the costs of a hui, for example.

Koha can be food, koha can be money. It can even be the money smarts you bring to others – like helping people manage their debt or showing them how to compare KiwiSaver funds.

This Māori Language Week, let’s celebrate all that koha can be: unconditional gifts given freely.

Te Kupu o te Wiki

Over the next year there will be a Word of the Week for everyone.  Looking ahead, how many do you already know?

July
āpōpō (tomorrow)
heihei (chicken)
August
poitarawhiti (netball)
nau mai (welcome)
engari (but)
waea (phone)
September
rangi (sky)
niho (tooth)
pahi (bus)
awa (river)
kaiako (teacher)
October
wahine (woman)
Tāwhirimātea (god of the wind)
marama (moon)
homai (pass to me)
November
inu (drink)
Ōtautahi (Christchurch)
āporo (apple)
pāremata (parliament)
December
ra whanau (birthday)
whare hākinakina (gym)
kaukau (swim)
whakatā (rest)
January
maranga (get up)
kura (school)
Poihākena (Sydney)
February
manuhiri (visitor)
īPapa (iPad)
rū (earthquake)
pirihimana (police officer)
March
Te Waipounamu (South Island)
ukurere (ukulele)
ngutu (lips)
taihoa (hang on/wait)
Aranga (Easter)
April
horoi (wash)
maumahara (remember)
Papatūānuku (Earth)
manu (bird)
May
ika (fish)
moana (sea)
tio (oyster)
taringa (ear)
June
Hāmoa (Samoa)
āe (yes)
whetu (star)
tohutō (macron)
tākuta (doctor)
July
whakaata (mirror)
Wīwī (France)