Since releasing their fifth album, Ko Au Te Awa, Ko Te Awa Ko Au, and the first season of this podcast, Everybody’s Trying To Find Their Way Home , Jen Cloher has packed up their life in Naarm, (Melbourne) and moved home to Aotearoa, New Zealand. They’ve enrolled in a year long Te Reo Māori rumaki (immersive) language course at Te Wānanga o Raukawa in Ōtaki. “Rumaki means to immerse or drown”, Jen explains, “and for a beginner like me, drowning in the Māori language definitely sums up the experience.” In this episode, Jen speaks with Anahera Neho-Cooper from Te Reo Maioha – a Māori language class based in Melbourne that utilises the well-loved Te Ataarangi method of learning. Jen also stops by Tauranga Moana to get some survival tips from their friend Ani Bennett, who has just completed a year long immersion.

Find out more about Jen Cloher:
https://www.jencloher.com/jen

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Narration: Jen: Tēnā koutou e te whānau. Nau mai, haere mai. Ki te wāhanga tuarua o taku konae ipurangi, Ka Kimi Tātou i te Huarahi i te Whare Kainga. He uri tēnei nō Ngāpuhi me Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaroa, ko Huriata tōku ingoa. Welcome to the second season of Everybody’s Trying to Find Their Way Home. My name is Jen Cloher and for the next 6 episodes I’m going to be speaking with Māori and First Nations songwriters who are writing and performing in their language.

[00:00:32] Narration: Jen: It’s been a couple of years between the first and second season. So if you’ll indulge me, I’d love to catch you up on a few things.

[00:00:41] Narration: Jen: In 2023, I released my fifth album, ‘Ko Au Te Awa, Ko Te Awa Ko Au’. It was my first time writing songs in both Māori and English. If you want the whole story, you can listen back to the very first episode of season one. But the short version is that in 2019, I [00:01:00] had an experience that changed the course of my life. I was near the end of a tour in Aotearoa, and the thought crossed my mind that I should head up north to my hapū’s marae in Matangirau.

[00:01:12] Narration: Jen: While I was standing in the Whare Tūpuna singing a waiata, I felt the presence of my Mother. I know this might sound obvious, but until this moment, I’d never really absorbed the fact that, like my Mother, my Grandmother, and my Great -Grandmother, I too was Māori. It planted a seed of longing to know more about them, our language, and our culture.

[00:01:43] Narration: Jen: Six years on, I’m living in Ōtaki, and I’ve literally just come in from swimming with Māui dolphins. Ōtaki is a coastal town, about an hour north of Te Whanganui -a-Tara Wellington, Aotearoa, New Zealand. But more on that [00:02:00] in a minute.

[00:02:01] Narration: Jen: (Guitar Music Strums)

[00:02:05] Narration: Jen: Writing, recording, releasing and touring this album was a huge challenge. I was really scared. Who was I to speak about being Māori? I’d been raised in so -called Australia. Aside from my mother’s stories of growing up on our lands, I had no real connection to my language and culture. But as I kept going, walking through that whakamā and challenging myself to bring Te Reo Māori into my songs, something shifted.

[00:02:35] Narration: Jen: Ko tōku reo tōku ohooho. Ko tōku reo tōku māpihi maurea. My language is my awakening. My language is the window to my soul.

[00:02:50] Narration: Jen: And there were some huge highs. I got to record and tour my album [00:03:00] with Naarm-based kapa haka, Te Hononga o Ngā Iwi. We played some epic stages, like the Sydney Opera House.

[00:03:12] Narration: Jen: I made a video clip for ‘Mana Takatāpui’ in Aotearoa with queer Māori icons including Tīwhanawhana, Whaea Elizabeth Kerekere and Tangaroa Paul. At our album show in London, we were joined by Ngāti Rānana Kapa Haka. And let me tell you, that was a big deal for me because that group has been running since 1958. And one of their founding members, Sir Tīmoti Kāretu, is known as the Godfather of the Māori Language Movement.

[00:03:53] Narration: Jen: Alongside my music job, I joined as many Māori kaupapa as I could, and found my people in Naarm. [00:04:00] I started going to Te Reo Māori classes to learn the basics. And I spent a couple of years training in Mau Rākau, Māori martial arts. And then every Tuesday night, I met with friends to learn waiata, our cultural songs.

[00:04:14] Friends: It’s really tiring! Breathing! It actually does sound like a really good workout.

[00:04:20] Narration: Jen: Making those connections with community in Naarm changed the way I saw the world. I started to feel that same feeling I had back in 2019, when I knew it was time to go home to my marae.

[00:04:43] Narration: Jen: People often speak of the call to come home. Both of my parents left the physical world in 2011, so I’ve been an orphan of sorts for a few years now. I say in the physical because they’re both very loud. The way they show up in my [00:05:00] life is so loud sometimes it’s a crack up. I know they’ve played a big part in helping me to find my way home.

[00:05:09] Narration: Jen: So, I left Te Whenua Moemoeā. I moved to Ōtaki to study Te Reo Māori in a year-long, full-time immersive language course. What’s it like? Well, it’s a bit like dying and going to Māori heaven. Te Wānanga o Raukawa is an architectural taonga. If I look east of the campus, the mighty Tararua Ranges loom over me.

[00:05:35] Narration: Jen: And if I glance west, Ōtaki Beach is just there. Every day is filled with beauty. What makes this university so special is that it grew out of a vision by Māori, and for Māori. In 1975, rangatira from Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Raukawa and Ngāti Toa gathered to create Whakatūpuranga Rua Mano, [00:06:00] a comprehensive language plan to be realised by the year 2000.

[00:06:05] Narration: Jen: With only one fluent speaker in their community under the age of 30, they knew a focus on Te Reo Māori was needed to keep the language alive.

[00:06:19] Narration: Jen: So in 1981, without assistance from the New Zealand Government, they established Te Wānanga o Raukawa, and the first two students began their learning journey. 44 years later in 2025, there are over 200 students enrolled in their full-time Te Reo Māori course. And just to a few years ago, Te Wānanga o Raukawa became a non-crown entity, Tino Rangatiratanga.

[00:06:53] Narration: Jen: It’s estimated that one Indigenous language is lost every two weeks. When a language is [00:07:00] gone, a significant part of that culture and its knowledge is lost as well. After all, language is the way we tell our story as a people. We are shaped by the lands we’re born from, and we sing our language back into the land.

[00:07:15] Narration: Jen: In Te Ao Māori, we call ourselves Tangata Whenua. Quite literally, people of the land.

[00:07:32] Narration: Jen: He taonga Te Reo Māori. Our kaumātua knew we could not afford to lose anything more. So this second season is dedicated to our old people, who put our language first so we would know who we are and where we come from. The desire to speak my language has brought me home. I’m very much at the start of my haerenga.

[00:07:54] Narration: Jen: I know a few words, I have a better feel for the vowel sounds and some simple sentence [00:08:00] structures, but aside from that, I’m a beginner. I accept that. Reawakening Te Reo Māori, the language that lay dormant throughout my mother’s life and for most of mine, isn’t going to be easy. I know this year is going to change me, but I have no idea how.

[00:08:16] Narration: Jen: I’ll let you know in season three.

[00:08:23] Narration: Jen: Meanwhile, back at Te Wānanga o Raukawa, we’re about to head into Rūmaki. Full immersion for the year. I’m sharing a house with two friends enrolled in the same course, and we’ve decided to create a whare reo. A home where we only kōrero Te Reo Māori.

[00:08:48] Narration: Jen: With my limited vocab, I have a feeling the next few months are going to feel a lot like a meditation retreat. But, you won’t learn how to ride a bike by reading a book. Language is [00:09:00] the same. If you want to learn how to have a conversation, you have to start speaking. Seeking out those places can be tricky, especially when you’re not living in Aotearoa.

[00:09:10] Narration: Jen: For me, the jumping off point was Te Reo Maioha, a Māori language class in Naarm. The school is part of Te Ataarangi, a language movement that was founded in 1979 by Dame Kāterina Te Heikōkō Mataira and Ngoingoi Pēwhairangi. Their method was Rumaki, full immersion teaching with an emphasis on listening and speaking rather than writing.

[00:09:36] Anahera: Kōrero mai.

[00:09:40] Class: Ka hīkoi

[00:09:43] Narration: Jen: Classes are relaxed. Singing waiata and reciting mōteatea are fun ways to loosen up the fear of stepping into the unknown.

[00:09:56] Narration: Jen: In fact, those oral ways of learning are given as much value as the modules [00:10:00] you work through in class. What I love most is that there’s no textbooks, and there’s no writing. And there’s a reason for that. We never had pens and paper. Our learning was by ear, and always with others. Instead, kaiko use coloured cuisenaire rods, also known as rākau, to teach. On a visit to Fiji, Dame Kāterina first encountered this method of teaching but it took a little while to convince Whaea Ngoi.

[00:10:27] Anahera: Whaea Kāterina Te Heikōkō Mataira went to her with this concept, I guess, of using, in that time, with cuisenaire rods to teach Te Reo Māori. She really had to fight hard to prove that this concept was going to be worthwhile in Kōkā Ngoi’s eyes. So then, once they got it over the line, they decided, well, Kōkā Ngoi already had this vision, ‘cause he matakite. She was this visionary that didn’t just think of what’s happening in today’s times, she saw [00:11:00] things in the future. And her vision was that Te Ataarangi was going to bridge the gap between the Kōhanga Reo Movement, which was just kicking off as well. It was going to walk hand in hand with that movement, like you said, so that our tamariki had someone to kōrero when they got back to their own whare.

[00:11:19] Anahera: You know, yeah. And we’ve seen the fruits of that, like, tenfold. You know, so many prominent Reo speakers, they’ve come out of the kaupapa. And, I mean, now we’re seeing that. I’m seeing all those rangatira that have gone through Kōhanga Reo, Kura Kaupapa, Whare Kura, all of those, you know, one could only dream.

[00:11:42] Narration: Jen: That’s Anahera Neho-Cooper, one of my teachers at  Te Reo Maioha in Naarm, Melbourne. Her decision to start a class came somewhat unexpectedly.

[00:11:53] Anahera: Um, it was 2016, November, I believe. And Aunty Mārie [00:12:00] Pēwhairangi, a very prominent kuia in our community here, sent through a panui that there was going to be an open day for a Te Ataarangi kaupapa coming to Melbourne, hopefully, what they would hope would be in 2017.

[00:12:16] Anahera: And at that point in my life, I wasn’t really on any journey in my tikanga Māori, reo Māori, ao Māori. I was just doing life. I was just doing life, trying to be a mama and a wife and whatnot. But I’m like most Māori, I’m really nosy. So I thought I’d just go along and have a, have a nohi and see what this kaupapa was about.

[00:12:46] Anahera: And I just felt it, I heard it straight away in the most beautiful way. I knew that very day Te Ataarangi was going to be the revitalisational [00:13:00] method of Te Reo Māori within our whānau.

[00:13:02] Narration: Jen: Watching her dad’s journey became her biggest source of inspiration.

[00:13:08] Anahera: So my dad definitely comes from that generation where don’t do Te Reo Māori in high school. Don’t do Kapa Haka. They’re going to get you nowhere. Like those were his words to me. I did do Te Reo Māori and I did do Kapa Haka. I hid it from him. My mum and I hid it from him. I mean, we never ever thought we would ever see our dad ever want to sit on the  paepae, let alone, you know, say, I think I might actually be able to kōrero this time, daughter.

[00:13:38] Anahera: Or, you know, give him those opportunities. It’s a full 360. It truly is. My dad is very rigid in terms of processes. That’s the way he, he learns. So a kaupapa like Te Ataarangi, where it’s very methodical, very in order, and we utilise the methods that we use to teach Te [00:14:00] Reo, allowed him to really take it all in.

[00:14:03] Anahera: So he started in Te Ataarangi. Then he decided that he would go and give kapa haka a go with a pakeke Kapa Haka group here in Melbourne. But, yeah, the dad we grew up with would never have been that person. To then performing the haka for the very first time, we were, yeah, we were all in tears at that moment. To then seeing him stand on the paepae when we went home for his brother’s, both of his brother’s tangihanga is a massive, not only to us, but to his sibling going, what just happened here? Who are you? And what have you done to our brother?

[00:14:48] Narration: Jen: He rongoā te reo. The reason I love kaupapa like Te Ataarangi [00:15:00] is that our communities always have the answers to our collective healing. No government initiative was ever going to understand how to teach traumatised adults their native language. A language that was literally beaten out of our parents’ and grandparents’ bodies.

[00:15:18] Narration: Jen: Over the years, Anahera has come to spot some of those taniwha. That keep us from learning our Reo.

[00:15:25] Anahera: The top one has to be te taniwha whakamā. The feeling of not being able to put yourself in a really vulnerable state, that you’re going to make a mistake and you’ll get it wrong, or I’m not sure what’s happening here.

[00:15:39] Anahera: It’s that shyness. That’s probably the biggest one. But right up there would be the disconnection to their culture. They kind of go hand in hand. It’s because of the disconnect that, you know, the whakamā sits there and probably more so there’s also also shame that sits there with [00:16:00] them and that’s really pōuri for us to see that’s that’s a lot of mamai that comes with that um however we understand why it’s there we get it we’ve been in that spot. Our job as kaiwhakākua reo Māori, especially in this particular kaupapa, but you’ll find it in all the reo Māori, these days, where our job is to nurture that and not to go, Oh, don’t be ashamed.

[00:16:27] Anahera: Don’t be the… That’s not going to work for anyone. You want to be like, in your own time, this is what we’re doing. When you’re ready, jump on the waka.

[00:16:37] Narration: Jen: But there are also the wins. Those little moments when all of the hard learning was worth it.

[00:16:43] Anahera: A lot of our whānau that have been born and bred, second, third generations here in Ahitereiria, go back and…

[00:16:50] Anahera: and people automatically put this assumption on them that, uh, you know, Oh yeah, here come the Māoris from Australia. Um, and when [00:17:00] we’re able to show up and show up well and educated, I guess you could say, it’s a big slap in the face for a lot of our whānau back home because a lot of our whānau back home are not doing the mahi.

[00:17:11] Anahera: I remember my own personal experience. I had to go home to do a Māori trustees course to remain as a trustee on our own whānau trust. I had to do a one day cause and they did a taku whakawhanaungatanga and again, I just used our process that I’d only just learnt not long before I got there and there was just like, wait, did you say you live in Melbourne?

[00:17:37] Anahera: And you know, just the feedback, that reaction was everything for me. I’m like, I want this so much more now.

[00:17:47] Narration: Jen: Ka rawe e hoa. Being able to show up for kaupapa Māori with something to give is life-affirming. The first time I stood to sing a waiata  because I actually knew the words, was a huge turning point for me. [00:18:00] The imposter syndrome is real. But putting my culture at the centre, has turned the volume down on that taniwha.

[00:18:08] Ani: Taha o tōku kuia no te Tairāwhiti, ko Whanakao te maunga, ko Motu te awa, ko Apanui te tangata, ko Te Kaha te marae, ko Te Whānau-ā-Apanui te iwi.

[00:18:19] Narration: Jen: This is my mate Ani Bennett. She’s just finished Te Tohu Paetahi, a year -long Te Reo Māori immersion at Waikato University in Tauranga Moana.

[00:18:31] Anahera: We’re sitting here in Tauranga Moana, my house in Wairoa, next to the Wairoa River. I hail from here, I grew up here in this house, which is my grandparents’ home, the old homestead. And I, so yeah, my grandfather’s from here, our marae’s next door, Wairoa Marae, but I’m also from down the east coast, from Te Kaha. So my grandmother moved here as a young woman, as a teacher, married into the family, and we always returned there on holidays back to Te Kaha.

[00:18:58] Narration: Jen: I [00:19:00] gotta say it’s pretty funny to sit with someone while they recite their pepehā and literally they’re pointing out into the backyard.

[00:19:08] Ani: Yeah, Te Tīrata awa, it’s just next door.

[00:19:12] Narration: Jen: I stopped by Ani’s to hear more about her own Te Reo Māori haerenga over the last year.

[00:19:23] Ani: The truth is Te Reo has been part of my journey for my entire life. So this house that we’re in now, my grandparents’ home, my grandmother was a native speaker. So, uh, so she grew up in Te Whānau a Apanui in, in Te Kaha, and so she, she was fluent in both languages, she was very proficient, she was a teacher.

[00:19:42] Ani: So therefore, excellent grammar. But she was of that generation where you didn’t teach your children to speak Māori. It was important that you did well at school, were proficient in English. So you have a good education and therefore a good life. So she didn’t teach my mother and she didn’t teach me, but [00:20:00] I was always around it.

[00:20:01] Ani: They were fluent speakers. When I would go to Te Kaha they would speak all the time. Here in Tauranga Moana than it was different. So when she moved here as a young woman in the 1950s, she was one of the few people of her generation that could speak to the old people here. A lot of her contemporaries, even then, were not speaking Māori, including my grandfather.

[00:20:20] Ani: I started learning Te Reo formally at high school. And my grandmother wrote my assignments so I got A’s, it was great.

[00:20:30] Ani: I would literally just memorise them and rewrite them and get great marks.

[00:20:36] Ani: How much did I really absorb? Not much. I could never speak really. And then I went to university, University of Waikato, back in early 90s.

[00:20:45] Ani: And I did Te Reo Māori papers there. Finally, the same papers I’m doing this year. I learnt some fundamentals of grammar, built up my knowledge of words and sentence structures, but didn’t learn how to speak [00:21:00] fluently. And at the end of my university degree, when I got my law degree and my BA, I went to Waikato Polytech for six months and then I did a total immersion reo rumaki course they were doing Te Atarangi back then.

[00:21:14] Ani: So I went Monday to Friday, nine till two, for six months. And at the end of that I could speak Māori. I was just flowing. Hei, my little oldie bit of myí. Um, whole and so… Instead of thinking in English, translating and speaking… Perform as a reo. I was just thinking in Maori. It was flowing, it was lovely. Not that I was matatau, fluent and proficient at a high level, but I could speak.

[00:21:38] Ani: And then I did very little with it for the next 15 years. It lost a lot of it. So, I’ve always had a, I guess a, basic understanding. But I always wanted to be fluent. I wanted it to be there, to flow. However, my priorities were raising my family, [00:22:00] keeping a roof over our head, pursuing those goals. As one of our kaumātua’s once said, the pursuit of health, wealth and happiness, you know?

[00:22:07] Ani: And those were my key responsibilities. And I felt quite a lot of guilt, that I should be speaking and I should be back learning. I would do night classes, I would do things like that. But the truth is, it just felt like the right time last year. You know, the cards aligned, things fell into place. And I just felt within myself, oh yeah, this is it, I’m gonna do it.

[00:22:33] Ani: So I closed the doors of my business, you know, I’m self -employed as a barrister. Shut up shop, told all my clients I’m off on sabbatical for the year, put a message on the website. But in doing that, I’d saved my money for about three years. Because, you know, there’s no one else paying the bills.

[00:22:52] Narration: Jen: I’m [00:23:00] humbled by Ani’s lifelong pursuit of Te Reo Māori. It’s shown me how much is involved, not just in acquiring our language, but keeping it. And if you can’t find environments where you can kōrero, you’re likely to lose it, and fast.

[00:23:18] Anahera: One of our teachers actually, just the day before yesterday, we were speaking about that. Because we’re coming to the end of this year. And so now the conversations are turning to, well, what’s your strategy? What next? Because as you have all discovered, this is but a beginning. He timatanga noiho. You thought when you turned up here, you’d come and do Te Reo. Total immersion for the end. You’d be fluent by the end of the year.

[00:23:40] Anahera: And you’re all discovering, kao. You’re a little better. You perhaps can have some conversations. Thank you for watching. But you’re far from matatau. And she likened it to, it’s not like riding a bicycle, learning language. It’s not like that. It’s more like going to the gym. [00:24:00] If you don’t put in that consistent work, regularly, all the time, it just ebbs away, you know, all your progress.

[00:24:09] Anahera: I mean, I’ve got the muscle memory. This year, I’ve just felt the kupu, you know, oh, it is there within me, the waiata, these things. It is there and it has come out. However, I very much know from experience, as well as what she’s told me, is if I don’t continue to have environments where I’m speaking Māori, where I’m extending myself, where I’m continuing to learn, it’ll all just be lost again.

[00:24:34] Anahera: And I don’t feel that I’m someone that Te Reo comes easily to. There are some people, they just listen to a waiata a couple of times and they know it. And, and there are some of those special ones that you see, it’s like they’re born with it within them, and they’re just having to remember it, get a reminder a couple of times, and I’m not one of those.

[00:24:52] Anahera: I don’t have a mind like that. So it’s a little harder for me. Yeah. That’s, that’s my focus as I [00:25:00] continue. It’s, it’s been quite a sacrifice. For me and my family, for me to come and do this, it’s been a lot of work, and I’ve been hungry for it, I’ve wanted it, I was happy to do the work. I do not want it to be a waste of time.

[00:25:16] Narration: Jen: Ani has worked so hard this year, and I’ve been really inspired by her commitment. She and her whānau have made huge sacrifices so she can be here. I can feel a real shift in her. There’s a calm and embodied quality to her kōrero. And I get the feeling she’ll continue to go deeper. So after the highs and lows this year, I’m wondering… what was the biggest gift?

[00:25:41] Anahera: Our teachers set up a traditional hautapu, where some of us learned these very long traditional karakia that have been gifted by Rangi Mataamua to te motu katoa. Yeah, so the same ones they recite in the Matariki celebration [00:26:00] on TV. Same, those, you know, we did the umu kohukohu. We did the hangi with the kai. We had an altar, a tūāhu. We were there at dawn, praying to the stars. I got to take my daughters with me so that they could be part of something really special, you know, full noise, Matariki, traditional Maori celebration. Here in Tauranga Moana on Moturiki, the side of Mauao, our maunga, looking out at the stars.

[00:26:30] Anahera: That’s something that you just feel deep in your spirit. Yeah, it was those experiences. So I learnt Te Reo, I learnt those karakia, and the kupu hou, all of that, but just experientially being part of Te Ao Māori in that moment, in a Māori world, Māori worldview context. You know, when I started this journey, one of my friends who’d been to Raukawa for a couple of years, she turned to me and she said, [00:27:00] He rongo a te reo. He rongoā te reo Ani. And I knew exactly what she meant. It’s a medicine, it’s a healing, it’s a balm, it’s a blessing this year has been that. And I feel it.

[00:27:38] Narration: Jen: ‘Everybody’s Trying To Find Their Way Home’ is made by me, Jen Cloher, with Bez Zewdie and Jon Tjhia. Ngā mihi nui to Anahera Neho -Cooper for our kōrero on Wurundjeri Land in Naarm. And to Ani Bennett for having me as a guest at her homestead in Tauranga. This show is made with support from Creative Australia and Three [00:28:00] Triple R 102.7FM.

[00:28:02] Narration: Jen: You can find more information about this episode and listen to season one at everybodys trying podcast dot com. And if you like this episode, share it with someone who needs to hear it.