November 04, 2022
Oriori give clues to mental health fix
Māori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi says while he supports Mike King’s Gumboot Friday initiative to raise fund for youth mental health counselling, Maori must also look after their own.
He’d like to see Maori go back to traditional cultural systems, such as those revealed through oriori or lullabies.
“I te ao Maori, ko nga taonga o te iwi, ko nga mokopuna me nga pakeke and if we can go back to systems where the middle part starts to provide for mokopuna and pakeke. then we start to realign to what those oriori were saying,” Mr Waititi says.
He says rangatahi are still dealing with the trauma created by colonisation and war.