Stand Up and Sing
In 1996 I sent some letters to my mother’s cousins seeking information about some family history and particularly a piece of greenstone, with a letter and feathers. That began a long journey for me personally, that in time brought together other members of my extended family. 26 years later, in 2022 we gathered as a family to learn about this family taonga (treasure) and take it home.
Emma Louise Pratt
2/1/20251 min read
I often think about this small pendant, that could almost be overlooked in a drawer. But ahakoa he iti, he pounamu – although it is small, it is greenstone. I think we who were involved and were there to help hand it to its home, all agree that the taonga grew within us from being a memory of a historic moment that most of us knew little about, to being a uniting and enriching present that brought all of us into its embrace and carried us forward. Life was speaking to all of us in its own way, whispering into our ears. These are videos that capture that time together.
This ongoing storytelling project, now my Ph.D, will include more videos and a body of written and visual work in the genre of creative non-fiction that will be published in book form.
The Return of Whitikau
October 2022
