Dr Phillipa Te Paea Pehi and Zena Nicholls (second and third from left) with their "hīkoi buddies" on the Rakiura (Stewart Island) track.
By Kelvin McDonald of Whakaata Maori
How many whānau can say they have walked the length of Aotearoa at least once in their lifetime, let alone four times?
Well, in six months’ time, clinical psychologist Dr Phillipa (Pip) Te Paea Pehi (Ngāpuhi) will be able to raise her hand and say “āe, I have”.
And she plans to add to her total, too.
“I’m going to do it every three years for the rest of my life,” says Pehi.
This hīkoi is extra special as Pehi plans to conduct postdoctoral research during her travels, attempting to shed light on indigenous wellbeing.
The 49-year-old set out before Christmas on her latest long-distance tramp, which she began in Rakiura (Stewart Island) on her way to Te Rerenga Wairua (Cape Reinga) midway through next year.
Te Ao News spoke with Pehi and one of “hīkoi buddies”, first-time tramper Zena Nicholls (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu, Ngāti Tamaterā), as they arrived in Bluff last Thursday.
Pehi’s first hīkoi, from Bluff to Cape Reinga, nine years ago with her sister, Hannah Irakau Pehi, was life-changing, she says.
“I credit that hīkoi with saving my life,” says Pehi.
“I was working with at-risk youth and whānau all around Tai Tokerau at the time and I was pretty burnt-out and upset about how heaps of our tamariki were growing up,” she says. “I was pretty jaded and cynical about the state of our whole country.
“But when I walked it, walked through communities, and we just met so many beautiful people, people doing all sorts of kaupapa that you don’t hear about in the news - and it just gave me hope,” she says.
“We waved [at people as we walked] the whole length of the country, too. It was so cool and it meant you got to a town and they’d go ‘hey, are you those crazy ladies on the road?’”
Three years ago, she completed her third hīkoi with her daughter, Maia, tramping Te Araroa, the 3000km trail that stretches from Bluff to Cape Reinga.
This latest adventure she’s describing as a “Hīkoi for Healing”, with its focus on indigenous wellbeing. She’s documenting her travels on the Facebook account, Kia manawanui.
“Like I said, I’m a clinical psychologist, for about 25 years now. I’ve done various things: worked in the prisons, worked with whānau, pretty much all sorts - and we’re failing our people,” she says.
“This is by far the best thing I’ve ever done for myself in terms of healing because for me - from an indigenous perspective, from a Māori perspective - it’s all about whakapapa, wairua, whenua - but they’re all together.
“When we talk about healing for people, we don’t really, meaningfully, include all of those things - not in the conventional practice.”
Pehi has a particular research focus on this hīkoi.
“This is the first hīkoi - all of the others I’ve quit my job and just gone walking - but this one I actually managed to get a post-doctoral fellowship through Auckland University. My kaupapa is hīkoi for healing. I’m actually doing research this time, so it’s a little bit different.”
She’s a strong advocate of the healing that derives from connection to whenua.
“I feel like there’s so many practices that we had back in the day and due to the process of colonisation, we don’t have access to them. For example, when we did the Te Araroa, me and my daughter, I think we only saw two other Māori on it.
“It’s kind of like, it’s so good to be with the whenua and all the healing that comes with that, and to go on a hīkoi - but now that’s just for the privileged, you know.
“So I’ve got this dream of connecting young people back to their whenua, walking the whenua, because there’s nothing more powerful than walking your own whenua and hearing the pūrākau. It actually means something and that connection that comes with that.”
Pehi says she and her hiking companion, Zena Nicholls, have already been moved by their experience and they are only just getting started.
“We’ve only been a week so far but it’s like walking with your ancestors too, walking with your tūpuna as well - and Zena’s already bumped into a couple of her whanaunga down here.
“For me, each time it’s like weaving that whāriki of connection. It’s the most powerful thing.”
Pehi says their hīkoi is taking a somewhat more varied path than the more direct Te Araroa route.
“We’re stopping off at different places to do some of the great walks. We started off with the Rakiura track and that was three days. That was Zena’s first-ever tramp. We just calculated it and in the last week, she’s done 106km. That’s probably more than she’s walked ever in her life.”
Fifty-nine-year-old Nicholls, who flew out of Bluff to attend an aunt’s tangi and will rejoin Pehi along the way, says her first tramping experience was a shock to the system but “beautiful” all the same.
“That’s the longest I’ve walked and that was like long, hard but Pip - she’s got lots of experience with hīkoi and with her background as well - she’s been really supportive with me.
“A few times, I just wanted to stop but she said ‘it’s all right, take your time’ - even when it’s supposed to be a six-hour walk and it turns out to be a 12-hour walk! And you’re up and down hills and steps, and you’re through the mud. But it’s beautiful,” says Nicholls.
Pehi says she’s hopeful her research will make a difference for Māori and other indigenous peoples.
“I feel like things are getting too hard for people, with this government as well, but we need to be sharing amongst us all that there’s been a better way to do this, there’s a better way to be in the world. So academia gives me a vehicle. I just came back from Canada and the tribal canoe journeys over there, so this is a very similar thing.
“My research is how do we as an indigenous people - and it’s beyond healing - how do we be ourselves in this world? And going back to that, rather than what we’ve been conditioned to think of ourselves and each other.”
Headquarters owner Leo Molloy has offered to compensate the young victim and her father.