Diverse spiritual beliefs and customs

Rihi: Oh yeah there’s ‘wai’ and ‘rua’ I mean it depends on, on your bringing up.

Ned: For non-Māori it’s deep for them to understand.

Rihi: Yeah well, the coming together of the two waters is the wairua which is about the life force and how we’re made. I mean that’s one teaching I’ve been taught. You know we are water, like cousin [name] said ‘we’re made from water’ so wairua can mean that in that sense. Some people it’s about a spirituality for want of a better word.

Ned: Oh yeah, yeah. I say to them, ‘you know the kindred spirit?’ They go, ‘yeah’ –wairua!

Rihi: [W]e try and help our staff understand… from our perspective what it means in their terms.

Ned: Because they are- they have a spirit, you know.

Rihi: They have a spirit; they have a wairua.

Ned: We call it a ‘wairua’, you’ve got a spirit. Some people have got a bad spirit, you know eh?’ And they go oh ‘yeah.’

Rihi: And they do know.

Ned: So, they get that, so we have a bit of fun with it. We don’t make it too heavy…We actually laugh about it and have jokes about it, but they actually understand it by the end of the day.

Well spirituality is more like their hāhi [religion] you know. For using Māori kupus it’s about… your wairua [spirit]… it’s about your feelings and that, the emotional stuff and what you really need to do in terms to get to that other end. Or you’ve got something you know… but you can’t [express that] because you might be, too whakamā [embarrassed] or something. Or you don’t know, or you haven’t got any knowledge or you’re just too whakamā… to get help and things like that. So, it’s about that wairua that need…

And so sometimes we can relate that to pōhara financially, but for Māori, it covers everything. It’s our wairua; it’s the lack of- so that lack of love and lack of direction or guidance perhaps from your own whānau. Where, you know, our people can feel that lack of support, whether it be spiritual support, that emotional support, mental support and that physical support. So, for us as a whānau hapu iwi, we can be lacking that. Hence why we have all those conditions around our chronic illnesses...

The wairuatanga, I find, is that in each of us, in everyone on this earth… at birth… we’re born with a spirit… and that gives us our wairuatanga. That gives us that feeling to do good. And sometimes we listen, and sometimes we ignore it. Now, I don’t know whether I’m, ex-explaining it right… I give you another example, [a] practical one. If I want to go to the marae… I believe I need to get into the right wairua for the marae. Ah because you got your wairua, but your wairua operates in different ways depending where you are, what you want. So, if I want to go to the marae, if I’m going to a tangi for instance, I prepare at home. I dress accordingly, I put on my pango [black] clothes for the marae. When I put on my pango clothes… I also say my prayers. And the prayers I say again is the whakawātea (cleansing prayers). That’s all part of spirituality. Spirituality is not, I don’t believe there’s one word for it. We’re not Pākehās.

But, you can, you can explain it… in your actions… it starts from dressing and preparation. You say your karakia, ‘whakawātea ia koe, ka haere koe. Because when you go to the marae it’s not about the living only; it’s about [the] living and those that have passed on. And so, you have to, I believe, prepare yourself for that… to accept what you’re going into and how you’re going to operate… and usually… I operate… as a kaikaranga. Or even if I’m not, you’re still… in that realm I call it. And, and then when you are operating it, then, you know your whole outlook is one of, and I’m talking about myself, not of others, is that you’re aware of the spirituality, you’re in there and, and for me the spirituality is about my Māoritanga. And so, I remain in that role while I’m there. It’s the Māoritanga, and I come back to my values; respect, manaakitangata, tiaki, whakawhanaungatanga, those sorts of things. That’s what I can tell you about wairua. It’s not one word…

Because one of the things I tell my colleagues, ‘Please do not go out into the community and ask people, the tūroro [patient] and their whānau, ‘what is your spirituality?’ Ask me the question? I’ve got no idea because actually; what does it mean? And what do you as a health professional think it actually means because it’s actually different for everybody.’ So, in other words, there’s no [exact] question and there’s no [exact] answer. And it’s the conversation that you’re going to derive the meaning from.

So, it’s about having a conversation with people. Yes, you might be pressured to ask 20 questions on the first visit, and I try to warn whānau that when the nurse comes she might want to ask you a number of questions, but she won’t need to ask you those questions again after that.’ But for me I said, ‘I don’t want the answer to anything. I might ask you something about, you know, ‘are you from name of iwi?’ or ‘are you from somewhere else? Are you from [name] because…? I’m from there… I’m so and so. And these are who my people were.’

Well I know with one of my kuia’s, I’ve been visiting her for quite some time and thought I knew everything about her. And then one day… she had just come out of hospital and so she hadn’t quite healed physically. And so, we were in her bedroom and then after we had talked about a number of things, I just happened to look up on the wall and I said, ‘Oh my goodness Nan, who’s that handsome man?’ And she said, ‘Oh that was my father, but he died a young man.’ And he was a handsome man, and as our men dressed in those days with their suit and their tie, their collar and tie. I say, ‘Wow! He’s handsome.’ She said, ‘Yes, he is.’ I said, ‘Where, where is he?’ So, she told me where he was and she said, ‘And my, my twin sister’s beside him.’ I said, ‘What? You’ve got a twin sister?’ So, yes, and it turned out she had a twin sister… I said to her, ‘I thought I knew everything about you Nan, but you’ve just told me a couple of really valuable things that are really important to you… and you’ve shared them with me.’

… at the hospital, you know, when she was really sick, on odd days- so her last three months was in and out of hospital, they gave her a private room. Because she got sick and was in the ward and it was a mixed ward. And didn’t like males around her because of her personal hygiene, you know, and you can pull the curtain but [the male patient’s] still there… [The hospital staff] found her a private room.

It was sufficient. You know we asked the nurses, ‘You know there’s going to be a lot of whānau that will want to come.’ And they say’s, and it’s like this, ‘We change the policy. You can fit, squeeze as many into this room as you can, and we’ve got the day room as well.’… [They can be flexible] when they need to be. And they actually just left us to our own devices. They came in and checked to make sure, you know, she had her pain relief ’cause by that time she was unconscious.

That one was part of my mahi… there were some whānau, especially elderly whānau, that- so they thought ‘Oh gee.’ And then of course… kōrero Māori. And, so I used to go in there and I used to kōrero with them and you know, waiata with them, karakia with them… because they would have preferred a Māori. You know because there was none of that ability within hospice itself. No one able to do that. So that was one of my things also… that I wanted to see [hospice]… But at times of the tikanga, wairua and all that stuff, te reo and all that hospice [doesn’t have that depth of cultural knowledge and tikanga] … Where you’re heavily populated with Māori, you need some people like that… in your hospice.

Yeah, you know… that cultural [wairua] aspect side… they’ve got good reo.