Te Roopu Moana - Rangiwhanui Tangihanga Services
Pete talks with Te Roopu Moana, a funeral professional who brings a wealth of knowledge from both traditional Māori and contemporary funeral practices.
Te Roopu reflects on her formative experiences with death and dying, recounting how her childhood was steeped in the customs of Tangihanga, where she witnessed firsthand the intricate ways families grieve and celebrate their loved ones. This background ignited her curiosity about the funeral industry and the hidden practices that often go unspoken.
In this episode, Te Roopu describes the differences between Māori and Pākehā funeral practices and explains how traditional Maori tangihanga incorporated cultural values such as whānau (family) support, aroha (compassion), and manaakitanga (care for others). She advocates for a DIY approach to funerals, emphasizing the importance of empowering families to engage directly in the care of their loved ones. This empowerment is not just about financial savings; it is also about restoring dignity and personal connection to the process of mourning and remembrance, allowing families to celebrate lives authentically and in accordance with their cultural beliefs.
The episode takes a critical look at how the funeral industry in New Zealand evolved in the wake of collonisation and commercialization. Te Roopu shares insights from her academic research, revealing the detrimental effects of modern practices on traditional Māori values and the emotional well-being of families. She calls for a revival of traditional death care practices, urging listeners to educate themselves and their communities about their rights and options when it comes to funerals.
This episode serves as both a reflection on personal experiences and a rallying cry for change, encouraging families to reclaim their narratives around death and dying, fostering a culture of understanding, respect, and empowerment in the face of loss.
Takeaways:
- The funeral industry in New Zealand is increasingly commercialized, often neglecting traditional Maori practices.
- Te Roopu emphasizes the importance of DIY funerals to empower families in their grieving process.
- Many families are unaware they can take control of their loved one's death care.
- Traditional Maori funerals used natural resources and cultural practices for body preservation.
- Te Roopu's research highlights the loss of traditional knowledge due to colonisation and commercialisation.
Links referenced in this episode:
Contact Te Roopu admin@rangiwhanui.co.nz
Glossary
kaiārahi (noun) guide, escort, counsellor, conductor, escort, leader, mentor, pilot, usher.
kaumātua (noun) adult, elder, elderly man, elderly woman, old man - a person of status within the whānau.
tangihanga (noun) weeping, crying, funeral, rites for the dead, obsequies - one of the most important institutions in Māori society, with strong cultural imperatives and protocols. Most tangihanga are held on marae. The body is brought onto the marae by the whānau of the deceased and lies in state in an open coffin for about three days in a wharemate. During that time groups of visitors come onto the marae to farewell the deceased with speech making and song. Greenery is the traditional symbol of death, so the women and chief mourners often wear pare kawakawa on their heads. On the night before the burial visitors and locals gather to have a pō mihimihito celebrate the person's life with informal speeches and song. In modern times, on the final day the coffin is closed and a church service is held before the body is taken to the cemetery for burial. A takahi whare ritual is held at the decease's home and a hākari concludes the tangihanga.
tikanga (noun) correct procedure, custom, habit, lore, method, manner, rule, way, code, meaning, plan, practice, convention, protocol - the customary system of values and practices that have developed over time and are deeply embedded in the social context
tūpāpaku (noun) corpse, deceased, cadaver, deceased person's body.
whakapapa (noun) genealogy, genealogical table, lineage, descent - reciting whakapapa was, and is, an important skill and reflected the importance of genealogies in Māori society in terms of leadership, land and fishing rights, kinship and status. It is central to all Māori institutions. There are different terms for the types of whakapapaand the different ways of reciting them including: tāhū (recite a direct line of ancestry through only the senior line); whakamoe (recite a genealogy including males and their spouses); taotahi (recite genealogy in a single line of descent); hikohiko (recite genealogy in a selective way by not following a single line of descent); ure tārewa (male line of descent through the first-born male in each generation)
whānau (noun) extended family, family group, a familiar term of address to a number of people - the primary economic unit of traditional Māori society. In the modern context the term is sometimes used to include friends who may not have any kinship ties to other members.
whare (noun) house, building, residence, dwelling, shed, hut, habitation.
(From https://www.maoridictionary.co.nz/)
Transcript
Hello and welcome to Death Without Debt. I'm Pete.
In the first episode of Death Without Debt, Fergus Wheeler described how the funeral industry in New Zealand has become increasingly commercialised and dominated by two australian owned companies.
In this episode, we're going to hear from Te Roopu Moana, a funeral industry professional with extensive experience in both traditional Maori tangihanga and modern Pakeha funeral home practices.
During the episode, Te Roopu will discuss her journey from observing Tangihanga as a child, her career in the funeral industry and her academic research into the impact of modern funeral practices on traditional maori values.
Tirupu has her own funeral practice and offers a diy approach to funerals that empowers families to take control of the process and honour their loved ones in a way that aligns with their cultural beliefs and personal preferences. During our conversation today, Te Roopu will use a few words and phrases in Te Reo Maori
Many listeners in New Zealand will be familiar with these phrases and understand what they mean for international listeners or those who aren't familiar with Te Reo. I'll add a short glossary to the notes
Pete:for this episode. We're joined this morning by Te Roopu, who's calling from Masterton, which is north of Wellington. Te Roopu, welcome to Death Without Debt.
Te Roopu:Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Pete:You're very welcome.
I thought we might start with a little bit of background and history as to your role and your involvement in the funeral industry, if that's okay to do.
Te Roopu:Yeah. So I grew up surrounded by the dead and dying from a young age.
Whenever someone was nearing the end of their life, whether in hospital or hospice care, my parents would be called to go do whaka, Moimti or karakia with the whanau, and I was always dragged along with them. So much of my childhood was spent at Tangihanga, either on the marae or in Whanau homes.
And often my parents would leave me alone with the tepapaku and grieving family, people I didn't even know. So I spent a lot of time observing the different ways that whnau grieve the good, the bad and the ugly.
As I got older, my curiosity grew about what happens to tepapaku in a funeral home setting. I thought to myself, why do we engage with funeral homes? What do they do to tepapaku behind closed doors?
And why wouldn't they let me back there to see for myself what was happening? And for the longest time, my requests to enter those backrooms were denied.
And it took me ten years to finally get my foot in the door of the funeral industry, which, as you may know, is a very closed, close knit community. They don't let just anyone in. I do want to be clear, though, that my experience in the funeral homes are my own.
And I'm not speaking on behalf of all funeral directors and embalmers in Aotearoa.
But my first year working in the industry, I was lucky enough to be working in a maori owned and operated and a pakeha owned and operated funeral home at the same time. So I got to experience life as a funeral director and embalmer in both, and they couldn't be more different.
The maori owned and operated funeral homes naturally implement tikanga into their practices and do their best to practice maori values and principles such as aroha manaaki tanga, whanau tanga. It's a way of life. And so those things are embedded into the funeral home processes as much as possible.
On the other hand, a pakeha owned and operated funeral home typically requires more training and discussion about morals and ethics and how you should behave when dealing with maori whanau and how you should treat the tepapaku.
Pete:Were you kept out of the back rooms because you were younger?
Te Roopu:Yeah, because I was younger. I think I started asking in funeral homes from when I was a young kid and right through my teenage years and even into adulthood, I was still asking.
Pete:Fair enough.
Te Roopu:I think the most they let me do was to go in the back and watch them dress a casket, which I thought was pretty cool at the time.
Pete:If you've grown up in that environment and it's part of your culture and it's very much a part of who you are as a family, then I don't suppose that would have struck anybody as weird or strange.
Te Roopu:No, it was definitely not weird to me. I'm very comfortable around dead people. I don't know how to say it in a way that just doesn't label me as a weirdo.
Pete:No, I think that's perfectly normal that you've been exposed to that environment from a really early age and you've grown up understanding it and feeling a part of it would be my take.
Te Roopu:Yeah. There are many reasons why funeral homes don't let whnau in the mortuary.
One of the main reasons is that funeral homes are afraid that whnau will sue them for psychological harm, for example. And it happens.
Pete:And the embalming process or preparing the body is quite often, if you're not used to seeing that, quite a traumatic experience to see.
Te Roopu:Yeah, well, it can be. So the result of chemical embalming, in most cases, is really good.
However, the embalming process itself can be seen as demeaning and even humiliating. I've worked with embalmers who don't protect the dignity of the tapaku.
And by that, I mean they don't use a modesty cloth or something to cover the Tepapaku's private areas whilst they're not working on that part of the body. But most whnau don't know about the embalming process.
Pete:Well, hopefully that's something that we can talk about. Maybe not today, but at future stage.
On the podcast, one of the aims I discussed with Fergus and the team at Death Without Debt was to try and just dispel a lot of the myths and address the lack of knowledge that most people would, I think, freely admit that they've got around death and dying and funerals.
Te Roopu:Yeah, yeah. Well, the other day, Fergus and I attended the Aging With Attitude expo hosted by Age Concern here in the Wairarapa in Masterton.
And the way they set it up is Fergus and I had our stall and our sign, and we were directly across from a funeral home with their flash casket and their beautiful big display and everything. And so the looks that we were getting weren't very good. It was like they were trying to sell people on their products and services.
Their men focus were next in line after they come around to where we were telling them the opposite, like, no, you don't have to do that. But there were many Kaumatua, many of our old elderly people who went to the funeral home stall.
And then by the time they got around to us, they said, no. They told us that they had to register the death. They told us that they had to do the paperwork, and we're telling them, no, that's just not true.
That's not the case. You have every right to do everything that a funeral director does. Anybody can be a funeral director.
Pete:Hopefully, that will be a message and a theme that comes out strongly and clearly as we get through further episodes of the show. If we go back to your journey, you started your work in the funeral homes on both the Maori side and the puckerhouse side.
Where did that journey take you? And how did you end up becoming involved in Death Without Debt?
Te Roopu:So I started in the funeral industry around Covid, and I had just finished a Bachelor of applied management. So I was keen to just get in there and utilize everything that I had just learned in my degree in the industry.
But I didn't get the opportunity to do that, because the funeral industry is very comfortable with doing what they're doing and how they're doing it right now. They don't see a need to change. They're benefiting from everybody using their products and services. I mean, they're not missing out on anything.
Whilst I was working for a funeral home, I enrolled into a master's degree. That's called a master of technological futures. And for those two years, I focused all of my study on Tangihanga.
I thought it was a great opportunity for me to write a really good report from having experience and working in the industry and learning more about the history of tikanga and funerals and how it can help. So my research question was, how can Matau Ranga Mori support the funeral industry to help restore Kaitiakitanga? And that wasn't the case.
At the beginning of my studies, I was thinking more like, what can the funeral industry do to help these whnau, to put them in a better place financially, emotionally, mentally, and all of that. After my research and talking to lots of different people in the industry, I realized that they just don't care.
They don't care enough to do anything about it. They don't care enough to change because.
Pete:They'Re very comfortable as they are, and they're making good profits, I imagine.
Te Roopu:Yeah, that's right. And so my question changed from what can the funeral industry do to help whnau or support whnau?
It changed to what can te ao mori do to support whnau, to influence the funeral industry to change.
Pete:So you swung that around 180 degrees.
Te Roopu:Yeah. To give the power back to the family through DIY and all of this.
I've completed my studies, and the first year was all about the theory and looking at traditional methods of preservation and how our ancestors or how Tpuna did things back in the day and trying to figure out, can we use technology to revitalize? Like, how can we do that? I wasn't sure. And so the second year, my final year, I actually had the opportunity to put all of my theory into practice.
I had a young boy, and I did the traditional preservation thing with him in his whnau. And it was a beautiful experience for me and for the whnau. But what I found is that I loved that part of Tangihanga or funerals more.
More than the funeral home. And then I started to feel that the funeral home was becoming less relevant to what I wanted to do.
I went looking for support and eventually found Ferguson.
Pete:When you did your literature search, did you find many other academic works where anybody had looked at the relationship between modern funeral practices and married them and the effects of each other on both.
Te Roopu:I actually had a hell of a time trying to find this information. A lot of the knowledge from our ancestors, from our tpuna, has just been lost.
And even still being lost now with our old people dying, many of them are taking those traditions or that knowledge with them. We were more of an oral language and held all of that knowledge in our songs and our artwork and everything like that. It wasn't a written language.
And so the information that I was looking for, I couldn't find it online. I couldn't find it in books.
I found it through having discussions with Kaumatua, with our old people, and just random people that I bumped into along my journey. I just asked them, hey, do you know about this?
And I got really sad that the most common response I got, oh, is no, no, I don't know what you're talking about. That makes me quite sad that that part of our tradition was lost. Not completely lost, but from an anthropological.
Pete:Point of view, I imagine that it doesn't take too many generations before you lose that history and that knowledge in an oral context, especially when the majority of people nowadays work through a funeral home and a very structured process, that's not part of their history.
Te Roopu:Yeah, yeah. And it's to the point where people, particularly Mori people, they're afraid. They're afraid to provide their own death care.
Pete:If we all of a sudden start eating beetles and we stop farming cows and eating beef in 50 years time, people won't remember that we used to eat beef, will they? You know, I'm saddened, but I'm not overly shocked that it was difficult to find that information because it's becoming less familiar to everybody.
Te Roopu:So I'm trying to do what I can just to have those discussions with people. It requires a mindset change.
Pete:So from your research and your conversations and all of the work that you did towards your master's degree, could you describe in a couple of paragraphs, the traditional approach to a maori funeral?
Te Roopu:I just feel like I need to go into embalming a little bit just to help explain that. Embalming is a westernised concept. The purpose of it is presentation and preservation.
And it can cost the whnau anywhere between six hundred dollars to one thousand two hundred dollars. Plus whnau are not required to have their t paku embalmed by law.
However, many funeral homes have policies that state that your T Paku may not leave the funeral home without being embalmed. And unfortunately, most whnau have become accustomed to embalming. And the skills of natural and traditional appearance and preservation.
Have gone lost through generations. So most whnau now have never been taught how to take care of a two paku.
What can we do well, for our whnau mori, we can use our whakapapa to guide us. Now, when I refer to whakapapa, yes, I'm talking about parents, grandparents, great grandparents.
But I'm also referring to the origins of our whakapapa. Ranginui, sky father, Papatua, Naku, earth mother, as well as their children, Tangarua, God of the sea. Tanema, Huta, God of the forest.
Just to name a couple. That's our whakapapa. That's our connection to our world, our natural world and our natural resources. Our tpu na, our ancestors back in the day.
Didn't have funeral directors and embalmers. They had to those Tohunga held the knowledge and had the skills. To provide traditional death care.
So instead of embalming chemically, they used our natural resources. For example, whnau, who lived near the sea. Would use the seawater to help preserve the body.
And whnau, who lived more inland, would use lake water, river water. And if they were near the bush, they would use kawakawa and bark from our native trees. To make bunghua, for example.
And that nungwa would be massaged onto the body, onto the two papaku. But it's important to note that each iwi or tribe. Did things differently. Based on their own tikanga.
And what natural resources were available within their geographical location.
Pete:So that all makes perfect sense. Very much an iwi based approach. Using natural resources and the environment around us. To preserve the body for presentation.
Before, my next question is, was it traditional for Maori to cremate or to bury their loved ones?
Te Roopu:There are many traditions, depending on the iwi. Using what natural resources were available in the geographical location. We didn't have, you know, just burial or cremation.
Because some iwi were enemies or didn't like each other. What would happen is that if your enemy died. Or if you killed your enemy, you would cut your enemy's head off, put it on a stick.
And place it in the ground out front of your path. So for everybody to see. Because that's you taking the mana of that person. And so to prevent that.
Mori were quite creative in how they disposed of the bodies.
If they were near the ocean, they would use the sand dunes, quicksand, they put them in the quicksand so the enemies couldn't come and take them in other places.
Several people would take the two papu in the bush, hang them upside from a tree, cut their neck open, let the blood drain out, let nature come and do its thing and eat the body, all the bugs and animals. And then those people would come back later on to collect the bones.
Now, those were placed in many places, including trees or caves, places like that.
Pete:It's quite common as you drive around New Zealand to see married funeral grounds. When did that practice start to evolve?
Te Roopu:That all come after colonisation, everything to do with death. And tangihanga impacted our people only after colonization.
Pete:From your research, then you looked back at the traditional practice amongst Maori and then did you then take a snapshot of what currently happens today?
Te Roopu:Yeah.
So what I did is I looked at what we did traditionally and I also looked at the transition from traditional tangihanga, the impact of colonisation and what tangihanga looked like now and what it might look like in the future.
Pete:So three parts to your study. What does the landscape look like now in terms of Maori funeral care?
Te Roopu:What I use to measure the impact on whnau and the environment was a concept or model that was developed by Sir Mason Durie. And you may be familiar with it. It's called teferi tapafa.
Pete:I said in the very first episode, my knowledge around the entire funeral industry and the issues that I discussed with Ferg in the first episode is really minimal.
And I took the point of view that actually makes me quite a good host to ask the questions because I'm guessing a lot of other people in the audience will be in the same position as me and they won't know very much about any of it.
Te Roopu:Yeah, all good. The te whari tapo wh model is the health model that was designed by Sir Mason Jury.
And it looks at the Tahine Ngaro, which is your mental health and emotions, your tah wairua, which is your spiritual health, your tah tinana, your physical health and your tahafano, your family. And also there's another one that we use, which is the whenua or our environment, referring to our environment.
So if you can imagine each part of that. So your mental health is a wall, a wall of your house. Your spiritual health is another wall of the house.
Your physical health can be one half of the roof and your family is another half of the roof. And then we have the floor, the foundation, which is our environment, our whenua. If any part of your whare is not strong.
If any part of your whare is struggling, then the rest will collapse. Your whare will collapse. And so what I do is I use that model to help me measure the impact of traditional and current tangihanga practices.
And what I found is that what we're doing currently, how we currently do tangihanga, and when I say tangihanga, mostly referring to from the time of death to when the t papaku arrives to the marae or the whnau whare. So in that period is usually when we engage with a funeral director or funeral home.
Pete:So use the taari tapafar model to assess the impact of current funeral practices on the family. And was it on the deceased as well?
Te Roopu:No, not so much for the deceased, but more for the whnau. So if I can give an example.
When a whnau engages with a funeral home, they give their tupaku to the funeral home to look after, to do whatever they need to do with their tapaku. To me, that's an opportunity taken away from the whnau.
And then when we start looking at cost, that impacts a whnau's health and wellbeing, that impacts their whnau, the wall of their whnau on their whari tapaf. When we talk about the level of participation that a whnau can have at a funeral home is very limited. And so that impacts the whare tapafa.
Sometimes there are too many rules and regulations, not from legislation, but from the funeral home's own policies, that have a negative impact or actually a devastating impact on the Whittapa wha, of the next livkin and of the whnau as a.
Pete:Whole, because it turns it into a process that's done to you rather than by you or with you.
When you hand your loved one over to the funeral home, you give all control and direction for the celebration of life is handed over to them as well, isn't it?
Te Roopu:Yeah. Well, here's the thing.
Grieving families are incredibly trusting to funeral directors, and that scares me because of what I've seen, what I've experienced behind those closed doors. Yeah.
I've experienced funeral directors and embalmers making fun of t Papuku, making fun of the whnau, just doing things that they shouldn't be doing to Rupau.
Pete:Are there any regulations that force people into using a funeral home or a structured funeral program?
Te Roopu:No, the funeral industry is not regulated. I mean, it'd be scary to say, but I'm gonna say it. You could just about get away with anything. I'll put it this way.
If any whnau saw what happened in the funeral homes that I was in, if they saw what was happening behind closed doors, we'd start a war. That's how bad it is. I don't believe that any whnau would be okay with what I've seen.
And so it's important for me to try and share that without upsetting everybody. But, I mean, it's a bit of a topic where you just. You're gonna upset someone.
Pete:Yeah.
And because we've handed over the funeral process, or the funeral process has been taken from families, we don't see those things and we don't get to talk about them. And that's just wrong, isn't it?
You know, we should be able to take care of our loved ones and we should be able to have these conversations without fear that we're going to upset a corporate body or without fear that we're going to get ourselves in trouble with whoever and be lambasted for our views.
Te Roopu:Yeah.
We're just doing everything that we can to try and spread that awareness so that more people can think for themselves and just do what they want to do. I mean, there are definitely risks, and I do talk about the risks.
For example, if Whnau doesn't want to embalm their two papaku, there are some very real risks that you can experience in your tangihanga. Like your two papaku could go off, they can change colour and they could purge. That's not nice for anybody.
But again, people haven't been taught about that kind of thing, what to expect, what can happen, what we can do about it. We just got fear drilled into us.
Pete:We've spoken about the historical practice in marydom. We've spoken about what happens now with the funeral homes taking the lead. What would your ideal solution be? Or what is the alternative approach?
And what do we need to do to help people take more of a lead role in the care of their loved ones?
Te Roopu:Well, the issue is that whnau don't know that they can do it themselves. They have no idea, and that's the majority.
So there needs to be more options and we need to increase the accessibility of these traditional practices. But the issue is that not many people know about those traditional practices.
Pete:Yeah, that's a huge challenge, isn't it? I think I said in the first episode and the pre notes, most people don't encounter this until a loved one dies.
Te Roopu:Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Pete:The learning curve is pretty steep.
So, you know, on one level, I do completely understand why people are comfortable with using funeral directors, but where do people go to learn the knowledge and the skills if they felt they wanted to take more of a direct role themselves?
Te Roopu:Well, their best bet is to go to the malai, speak to Kaumatua if you can. That's not always possible.
A big issue or a big barrier to acquiring the information or learning about that, and I'll use myself as an example, is I've disconnected from my family, I've disconnected from my hap, my iwi, my marae and my family. And so for me, I feel completely disconnected. So if I was to die, I wouldn't go back to where I'm from. I'd most likely get cremated.
And I know that with the urban shift, with most of our whnau moving into the city and that they too have experienced that they've lost that connection to where they're from.
And so, as easier said than done, but if I was in a position where I needed to go and learn from my queer and kaumatua, I would rather just not, and I'd rather go somewhere else than ask a different kuiya and kaumatua who I'm not related to.
I guess that's talking more about intergenerational trauma, like, yes, everything that we need to know all the answers that we are looking for to all the problems that we experience with tangihanga, the answers are in our whakapapa. Our families have the answers.
Our hap, our iwi, our marae, they all have the answers, but just all these other things get in the way and, you know, we just can't quite get there. And that's been the case for so many whnau who I've looked after. And I said, you know, are you going to go for burial or cremation?
They're like, oh, I really want to go back to where I'm from, but I haven't kept that connection with my whnau, so I can't go there now. I have to get buried at a public cemetery or get cremated.
Pete:There'll be a similar situation there for a lot of non married listeners who won't have a connection by birth or blood. With iwi, I'm a european migrant, I'm from the UK originally. Been here 20 years, and I've not got a network to fall back on.
If anybody in my family dies, it'd be very much me, my wife. I've got three kids.
We'll get railroaded into using a funeral director unless we're brave enough to make a stand and take a position that actually, we want to do this ourselves in a much more holistic way than perhaps we'll get if we end up being pushed through a commercial process.
Te Roopu:Yeah.
So what I do, just to compare me to other funeral directors, I guess, is when you engage with a funeral home and the funeral director helps guide you through the process, they're only with you for so long before they go back to the funeral home or they leave you to it. What I do, because I don't, you know, I encourage people to DIy and use natural alternatives.
Chemical embalming is because if the whnau chooses not to embalm and they use natural resources instead, then, you know, those risks could happen.
But I'm very present, and it's important for me to be present just in case something happens to the tu papa coup, then I'm right there to help reassure the whnau that it's okay. It'll be great if funeral homes could do that, just be more present in the process, instead of it just being, like, a one off service.
Thank you for your money. Now we're out of here.
Pete:The process is about the clock, isn't it?
Te Roopu:There'd be so many cases where whnau have been rushed through that whole process so they can make room for the next one coming.
Pete:So we've spoken about historical practices, traditional values based practices. We've spoken about the current industry. What would you like to see happen in the future? Terupu?
Te Roopu:I would like to see every whnau feeling empowered to take control of their own death care practices and, you know, not have to rely on funeral homes to help them with anything on a practical level.
Pete:And what might that look like?
Te Roopu:Well, if we use the al Kingi's tangihanga recently, I watched it, and I just felt what I thought to myself, how much more beautiful would it have been to see our kingi in a wee tara kiki casket or flaxen casket instead of one that was bought from a funeral home? And how much more meaningful it would have been to have the whnau.
Or there are enough people at the tangi to perhaps take turns at carrying the casket from the marae to the awa instead of putting it in the hearse. And I did wonder why they engaged with the funeral home.
But, yeah, if they had done things in a more traditional way, I believe that would have had massive impact on Tewi Mori.
Pete:And I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. Tarupa.
But if there was one family that you would have thought would have used a more traditional based approach to a funeral, it would have been the Mary.
Te Roopu:King's family as an example to help answer that. I can't remember his name though, but he was a profound leader in South Africa. I believe when he died, he was cremated using the water cremation.
And that was done intentionally for the whnau who was organizing that, to take the lead and say, we're going to do things a bit differently. And so they used that very predominant figure to help initiate that change.
He was cremated with water cremation and then they publicised it on the media.
Pete:Sending very clear signals about the alternative options. And perhaps this was an opportunity that Marydom could have sent a very clear signal about the options for more traditionally based funeral practice.
We need to have these conversations because there's a very strong sense that you have very little choice, that the funeral industry is set up in such a robust way and the knowledge is hidden in a lot of respects. Fergus said this in the first episode. The knowledge is just not commonly held anymore.
And I think that's what you proved in your research also, I understand that you've been helping Fergus with some of the deaf without debt workshops.
Te Roopu:Yeah. So Fergus asked for us to co host or co present a workshop here in Masterton, which we did in August.
And we got a great response and so much good feedback from the participants. The people who attended were mostly from community services and from GP clinics. We had just a huge range of different people.
Some were retired nurses and retired paramedics who also came to share their experiences.
Pete:I went to the Christchurch workshop and I was really impressed with the depth and the calibre of the contributions made by people in the audience. My wife booked the tickets. I didn't know very much, if anything about it before we got there, and I was captivated. I was instantly engaged.
It was just such a good day. And that sounds really strange to say when you're talking about death and dying.
Te Roopu:I don't think that's strange.
Pete:I'm guessing that was the same everywhere else. I know Fergus has said that that's a very common experience for people attending the workshops.
Te Roopu:Yeah, there are people coming up to us afterwards and saying, you know, we had a great time, we learned so much and we just said, yeah, we're glad. Like that was, yeah, yeah.
Pete:The next step, I suppose, in a journey for anybody who's listening in and sadly might be in a position where they have to arrange a funeral or a cremation in the not too distant future. It's okay listening to all of this, but, you know, how do you then convert that into action?
And I suppose the key to it all is arming yourself with the knowledge to make the right decisions for you and your family.
Te Roopu:So I've recently just started my small business. It's called rangi whnaui Tangihanga services, based here in Masterton.
And I've just started a Facebook page, and on there, I've just started putting information out there that I believe whnau need to know.
A list of my services are on there, and I go into a little bit of detail about what each service includes or, you know, a description of each service. One of my services are DIY funerals or DIY tangihangas.
So, unlike engaging with a funeral home, if you want to diy your funeral or tangihanga, then you can contact me and I'll come and guide you through the whole process. It's whnau lead or family lead. So you take the lead, you tell me what you want and then I'll help you do it.
Pete:And what's the best way for people to find out about that? Is there a website?
Te Roopu:So I've got my Facebook page, Rangi Whitangihanga services, so I can be reached by email, which is edmundangifanui dot co dot nZ.
Pete:If you send those through to me, I'll embed those in the notes for the episode so that people can just click on the link from the podcast page.
Te Roopu:Yeah. Okay, cool.
Pete:Was your decision to set up your own practice a direct result of your experience through your academic research?
Te Roopu:Yes. So, from my experience as a funeral director and embalmer working in a funeral home, my experience was enough to make me leave.
And so I won't work for another funeral home again. And that's why I've started my own thing.
Pete:And I said this with Fergus. I made the point. We're not at war with the funeral industry here. We just want people to know that they can make different decisions.
Te Roopu:Right now, I don't have any bones to pick with the funeral homes or other funeral directors and embalmers. I just don't want to be a part of it.
As I mentioned earlier, I was having a tough time trying to find this information, and I don't really want anyone else to struggle to find that information. So I've started sharing that with everyone. There's no gatekeeping here. If anyone sends me a message to ask me a question, I'll give you the answer.
I'm not going to tell you no, you have to go to a funeral home. I'm not going to do that.
Pete:If a non married person gets in touch with you, can you still offer those services to them?
Te Roopu:Absolutely. The way that I do it, all of my processes is there, far no lead, but from a teal mori view, and it suits everybody.
My services can be tailored to any culture, just like many other funeral services. But just because I have a mori way of doing things doesn't mean that I don't help non mori whnau.
I have helped a whnau who was a mixture of pkeh and Jewish. And so I applied kaupapa mori concepts to their funeral process. And it was a beautiful thing.
When we talk about the te whare tapa wh model, weaving that whakapapa through their funeral process helped their whare tapa wh as an individual with the Mexican and as the whnau as a whole, as a collective.
So I've experienced the benefits of bringing tikanga back into these processes, or bringing more tikanga into these processes is beneficial to everyone.
Pete:Will you be present at any more workshops?
Te Roopu:Yes, I'm looking at doing more workshops, having at least one here in the Wairarapa before the end of the year. But I'll also be doing presentations around different organizations and different community groups before the end of the year.
And then next year we're looking at touring the country with Fergus Terupu.
Pete:I've really enjoyed the conversation today. I'm so grateful that you're able to join us on the podcast. Thank you for your time.
Lovely to talk to you and I hope that we'll meet you again on Death Without Debt.
Te Roopu:Thank you so much. The pleasure is all mine. Kaki Tea.
Pete:The south african leader that.
Pete:Tarupa referred to was Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Pete:I'd like to thank Todupu for taking time to record this episode today. If you'd like to know more about her work or get in touch, please visit her website by following the link in the notes.
If you haven't already done so, please visit the Death Without Debt website deathwithoutdebt.org dot nz, or look up Death Without Debt on Facebook. You'll find lots of information, regular posts about the campaign, and news about the next workshops.
Pete:Thank you for your time.
Pete:I've been Pete and you've been listening to Death Without Debt.
