[Sound of wind and waves]  [Music] Chris Conybeare:   This is Hōkūleʻa, a kind of time  machine.

Although its design is ancient,   it's crafted with modern materials.

This  replica of 1,000-year-old Polynesian vessel   has helped our modern world better understand  and respect the first explorers of the Pacific.

As a symbol.

Hōkūleʻa speaks to the  future and the struggle by Polynesians   to affirm their unique cultural identity and  participate in the world on their own terms.

Our voyage with Hōkūleʻa takes us to French  Polynesia, the Cook Islands and New Zealand,   or roughly the first half of the canoes,  historic two-year, 16,000-mile journey,   which traced ancient migration routes and  rediscovered way finding skills that allowed   Polynesians to travel the vast Pacific without  navigational instruments or written language.

As with ancient canoes, sailing of Hōkūleʻa  requires the commitment and hard work of   an entire community.

(blessing in Hawaiian)  Chris Conybeare: Polynesian, Voyaging Society  members are motivated by many factors,   romance of sea adventure, love of history  and pride of heritage.

Crew member Tai crouch  Crewmember Tai Crouch: Hōkūleʻa is bringing  part of a lost culture back, and the people of   the South Pacific may even feel a little bit more  intense about it than the people here, since they   still can retrace their roots a little bit better.

This is a living culture, so the culture is not   completely dead, but there are elements that are  gone that can be recreated and Hōkūleʻa, as part   of an educational venture, can not only teach us,  but also inspire children and keep this alive.

[Ocean sounds]  [Polynesian drumming] Chris Conybeare:   French Polynesia of the 1980s is a far cry  from the images of tranquility once captured by   Gauguin.

The island of Tahiti has become a major  population center and its natural beauty is often   in conflict with the realities of modern life.

Questions of French colonial policy, including   an active nuclear testing program and increasing  pressure for full economic participation, provide   issues for Polynesian political debate.

Gaston  Flosse is a former president of French Polynesia,   and now serves the Metropolitan Government  as Minister for South Pacific Affairs.

[Gaston Flosse speaking French] Oscar Temaru/Mayor of Faaʻa: In 1963, after the   independence of Algeria, the French government  has decided to experiment the bomb here in Tahiti   and lot of private enterprises came here and  they got good wages.

So, the Tahitian people   have quitted fishing, planting.

They came here  in Faaʻa.

You know, in 1963, we were about 2,500   people living in Faaʻa.

Now, now we are nearly  23,000 people.

They came here to find out jobs,   easy jobs, good wages, and they are renting  a parcel of land, and now they are living in   a very precarious situation, because they are  still renting land, renting house, and most of   them are jobless.

All those people are starting  now, you know, to think about returning to the   outer islands, living off of you know, fishing,  planting.

We still know how to go fishing, how to   plant and all those things.

But if we disappear,  the new generation will lost everything,  [Polynesian drumming] Chris Conybeare: No matter whose   vision prevails for the political future of French  Polynesia, the tiny island of Ana in the Tuamotus   illustrates some practical problems.

Like other  low islands, Ana is vulnerable to wind and wave.

Storms completely destroyed the island in  1983.

All 450 residents were left homeless.

The decision was made to rebuild a model,  storm proof solar community.

Every one of   Ana's 97 houses was relocated for protection from  the sea and designed to withstand hurricane wind.

Photovoltaic cells and storage batteries make this  an electric village.

Life will still depend on a   combination of fishing, subsistence farming,  periodic copra harvest and sale of handcrafts.

It is hoped that solar electrification and a  lifestyle complete with domestic appliances   will reduce desires to migrate to the already  overextended urban wage economy of Tahiti.

Island residents are proud of their new high-tech  existence, and it's unclear what impact this new   environment might have on perpetuation of customs  traditionally handed down from parent to child.

[Woman speaking native language of Ana] Chris Conybeare:   However, this Italian film about  the American West, dubbed in French,   is also part of Ana's changing reality, and  may pose a bigger threat than wind or wave.

Maco Tevane: All the people of this area,  Pacific, South Pacific, improve their   identity, their cultural identity and cultural  heritage, some of them less problems than others,   because their culture is still abonita in  good shape, some of them, for some of them,   it's more difficult because they have  lost a big part of their culture.

John Mairai: Every year, about four or five  groups go in and through the world making   promotion touristic promotion have nothing  to do with it, right?

That's dancing only   just showing a pair of tits or showing a bump,  okay?

And say that Tahitian okay, it's pleases,   it's not my purpose.

When I was a kid, 8 years  or 9 years old, it was formally prohibited to   speak to Tahitian at school, formally and the kids  were punished for that.

We have these stories of   shells.

Remember the story of the shells?

Like  I caught you speaking Tahitian, I give you the   shell.

So, you have to make somebody else speak  Tahitian, give him the shell, and the one that   comes back in the classroom with your shell gets  punished.

You see, all kind of structures that   can be developed around that.

But for about  15 years now, Tahitian is back to school.

[Classroom sounds] John Mairai:   So, I imagine, even though somebody told me  terrible thing that within 50 or 60 years,   your language is going to die, I don't  agree with that.

I think that more and   more people are able to understand  and think through their own language.

[Singing in church] Chris Conybeare:   The churches played an interesting role in  perpetuation of Tahitian language.

Polynesians   had no forms of writing.

It was early 19th  century English missionaries that first fixed   Tahitian words on paper.

they produced a Tahitian  grammar, Bible and later a dictionary that are   still used by scholars for clues to words  and meaning.

Missionaries also changed the   language, introducing English, Latin, French and  discouraging words thought to be pagan.

However,   recruitment of indigenous clergy and celebration  of worship in Tahitian were an affirmation of   its worth, providing a place for native speakers  and language appreciation even while Tahitian was   discouraged and banished from school, Maco Tevane:   When the former government in 1975 decided  to protect our language, it created our   academy of Tahitian language.

And from that  time, we work with the Bible of missionary,   English missionary.

It is for us reverence for our  language, because this Bible has been written in   1835 and nowadays, we have finished  complete grammar of Tahitian language,   and when we finished this grammar, we have  now plain a dictionary, a complete dictionary.

[Teacher leading class] George Estall:   The people here who have been invaded by the  Western Civilization and culture, pop music and   so on, they don't feel happy and at home.

So,  the there's always this urge to switch back,   to go back to your native roots and every day we  speak the language because it refers to our way of   life, our food, our way of dressing, our climate,  our way of pleasures and enjoying.

So, it's very,   very deeply, deeply rooted in our everyday life, Noeata Galenon: Because we are too French.

We learn too much French since  we are born, we, we, used to,   to, being in the French culture.

Chris Conybeare: Do young people   like yourselves try to speak Tahitian?

Noeata Galenon: Yes, we all want to,   to know our language and our culture.

Chris Conybeare: Why is that important?

Noeata Galenon: Because it's our country  and we proud, we are proud of it.

[Marketplace sounds] Maco Tevane:   If we French Polynesian people in our  corner, if the Hawaiian on the north   corner.

If the Māori in the south corner  work together and help each other for   that resurrection of our language, I think  we can.

I. Hope something very interesting   and very important.

[Tranquil ocean sound]  [Nightclub dancing music] George Estall:   If we don't organize, if we are not well  conscious of the fact that people are   losing more and more of their traditions, and we  don't do anything to offset that, you're right,   we may be, we may be lost.

We may be  without any, any identity and just   go adrift in this western civilization, Maco Tevane: And the whole Polynesian   people working in the same way for  language and for culture in general.

[Tahitian music] Maco Tevane: The Hōkūleʻa is   really a symbol for our Tahitian people,  and I think for the whole Polynesian people,   because it's a canoe.

The canoe is really common  value in our Polynesian culture.

And in my mind,   the canoe is really the only thing to  really near to unify the Polynesian people,   and Hōkūleʻa is really that symbol.

[Tahitians welcoming Hōkūleʻa crew]  [Ocean waves] Nainoa Thompson: My   job is to point the canoe, but if the crew  can't keep it pointed in direction I want,   we're not going to make a landfall.

They come  from all walks of life.

We got lawyers.

We have   a lawyer and number of doctors and construction  workers and an architect and fishermen,   and a lot of them are not really associated with  the ocean very closely.

There's no real failure,   as long as everybody survives it safely.

The only real failure is not to go and try.

[Children singing] Chris Conybeare:   If you think that a small group of islands in  the middle of the South Pacific can somehow   escape the problems of the 20th century, a visit  here to the Cook Islands would prove you wrong.

It would also be wrong to assume that this tiny  nation of 17,000 could not stand up to the forces   of change.

Cook Islanders have struggled  both to maintain their unique Polynesian   identity and to participate fully in the modern  world.

The Cook Islands rely on New Zealand for   matters of defense and some financing, but are  self-governing in most aspects of national life.

Cook Islanders are proud of having hosted the  historic gathering of Pacific leaders that   drafted the Treaty of Rarotonga, an agreement that  seeks to establish a nuclear free zone and limit   the proliferation of nuclear weapons and waste.

Former Secretary of Foreign Affairs John Johansson   recalls negotiations leading to the treaty.

John Johansson: There is a range of views   ranging from movement of nuclear ships, to even  write up to the movement of spaceships.

So,   it's a very wide range of problems, and various  countries have different opinions.

And I think   basically after some tremendous efforts by various  countries, all of the officials representing the   various countries, we do have something  that is on paper that we think looks good.

Chris Conybeare: Member of parliament,  Geoffrey Henry, sees no reason why traditional   culture cannot coexist with modern technology.

Geoffrey Henry: Well, I don't think for one moment   that there is any conflict at all between the  importation of advanced technology and retention   of those things which make us Cook Islanders,  which make us special people, which make us   different from others.

I don't need advanced  technology, for example, to teach me how to   dance the Cook Islands way, nor to beat the drums  that the way that only Cook Islanders can, nor to   indeed make the canoes that we make ourselves,  or to fish in our own way of fishing.

But I need   a computer to help me be more productive in my  work.

I think it is important that we don't lose   our culture.

I think it's important that Cook  Islanders be Cook Islanders.

And I don't think   a computer is going to change that.

John Johansson:   I think this is where the education process within  the system becomes very important.

And I think   at large, the Cook Islanders have a very broad  perspective.

They take things as they come.

[Teacher speaking Cook Islands language] Tiraa Anguna: If you do not know your language,   I don't think it's you will know the second  language.

You have to know yourself first, know   what your culture, your customs and everything,  before you learn other language.

Well, Māori is   our basic language.

The first day the child comes  to school, there'll be everything will be Māori in   the classroom, just maybe a little bit of English  when we started off.

Well, Māori is all right   through the classes.

Some people think that they  send their children to school to learn English.

Now, if we did teach them Māori,  they said, no, we want English,   but they didn't understand.

But you know,  through the teacher and the parents,   you know, and we tell them that they have  to know their own culture, they have to   know their own language before we learn other  people.

What's the use of learning the culture   of New Zealand?

They don't even know their own.

John Johansson: This is Tu Oro, which translated   means stand and run.

In fact, Tu Oro is not only  this place, but the areas within the vicinity of   Tu Oro itself.

But most locals today refer to this  place as Black Rock.

Now, it is believed that this   particular spot is the spot in which, when you  die, your spirit comes here and you cast off   saying your farewell to Raroton and head back to  Awaiki, as we call it.

Now, this particular place   is, has a lot of relationships as well to a lot of  our legends and it's also believed by many of the   locals to be haunted, that the spirits are still  very much alive.

In this spot?

In this very spot,   right here.

And very interestingly, a lot of  incidences have occurred right up to recent   times.

Many of the accidents, very fatal  ones, have occurred here.

People swimming,   fishermen out in the ocean, accidents on the  road, which is just in as you know, about   four or five yards just past beyond the trees.

And it's it scares a lot of people.

My own view   is that it's so much better when you tell stories  about your own folklore to your children rather   than telling them about Cinderella Snow White.

I mean, it's good to tell them about Cinderella   and Snow White, but we have our own versions,  which they can identify with so much easier.

And   I think, you know, gives them the personality  that they probably ought to, ought to have.

[Cook Islanders dancing and singing] Chris Conybeare:   In addition to a strong, culturally oriented   school curriculum, an annual national  competition involving music, dance,   legends and oratory is kind of a World Series  of culture that helps stimulate national pride.

[Cook Islanders dancing and singing] Chris Conybeare:   Some critics fear that standardized choreography  and regimentation will kill natural elements,   but proponents point to standards of excellence as  a result of competition and the public recognition   received by contestants as important factors  in maintaining interest in Cook Island culture.

[Dancing and singing] Chris Conybeare: These competitors hail from   tiny Attu Island, 130 miles from Rarotonga.

[Dancing and singing]  Tangata Vainerere: If they want to win, they got  to start way back in January, and that's looking   at six months.

Every island is doing the same  and it's our major competition in the form of   culture festivals and it's the only prestigious  one, if you want to win it, you have a name.

So,   everybody tries very hard.

We are used to  living in a much more extended family style,   and everybody is together.

But if the western  lifestyle appeals the young people, then it's   very hard to keep them in and they start to move  away, drift apart, and that's not very good to us.

[Drumming and dancing] Chris Conybeare:   Attu Island leaders have sought economic  diversification, introducing pineapple cultivation   and a coffee industry in attempts to create  jobs and stem the flow of out migration,   which has reduced the population to 1200 In recent years, Attuans have organized   efforts to collect and preserve their culture  and tradition in written form, a recognition   that cultural awareness shares importance with  economic concerns in creating quality of life.

Akita Ili was a powerful woman, leader of  Attu.

This chant is an incantation calling   on her God to weaken her husband so that  he could not make love to another woman.

[Tatuava Tanga reciting chant] Chris Conybeare:   Legends and genealogies serve  to link today's population with   both their ancestors and the land.

The  sacred marae orongo was the place that   chiefly leaders once came to consult their  gods.

Attuans call themselves the worms of   the land in recognition that they are  born of the soil and return at death.

The bones of great ancestors are visible and  respected in burial caves where they've been   placed in canoes with favorite possessions.

Tatuava Tanga: We are aware of legends that   have that are disappearing.

In the villages  or in gatherings in the villages, the oral   way of passing or imparting the old stories are  still going on.

We have to collect it by taking   recordings and taking notes from our old people.

[Singing at kava ceremony]  Chris Conybeare: The tumunu or bush beer school  is both old and new.

Brewing of beer only began   in the 1850s but the social institution has its  origins in the ancient kava ceremony, which was   stamped out by the early missionaries.

[Singing at kava ceremony]  Chris Conybeare: Give given the missionary  attitude to both kava and alcoholic spirits,   it is somehow fitting that drinking  sessions begin with prayer.

[Resident recites prayer] Chris Conybeare:   Even though home brew is Illegal, these  institutions based on indigenous ritual   have survived and flourished.

A respected elder  called the pu kava or kava chief is responsible   for maintaining discipline.

Membership is  open only to men and there are elements   of both the village pub and the classroom, Michael Toki: Not only drinking, there are other   things, you know, learn from drinking, sharing  ideas, skills, of course.

One man would say,   hey, this is a time.

Very good first of the  moon, good for fishing that sort of fish,   that sort of fish.

And if there is about  something else about growing and planting,   well, they talk about that too.

Chris Conybeare:   A women's organization has been formed to  provide mutual support and cultural instruction.

Miimetua Rupaiona: Their culture will  help them to get food for themselves,   to plant the land, to make their own  meds for the children, for the family.

[Singing] Geoffrey Henry:   I left Aitutaki when I was 12 years old, and at  12, you're just beginning to understand some of   your local customs, and you're beginning to learn  from your, your parents and from your elders,   the phases of the moon, the nights to go fishing,  the nights to plant the days to plant, kumra,   when, what time and so forth.

I never  got to learn these things.

Instead,   I learned how to speak English, how to  count and so forth.

In Mauna in New Zealand.

[Aitutaki orator reciting ancient story] Chris Conybeare:   Papa Tanui recalls that the explorer  Ru needed help from Tongaroa,   who calmed the seas and permitted his landing on  Aitutaki.

The oral culture depended on memory,   aided by chants and dances to preserve history.

Aitutaki orators of today can still trace their   genealogies back to the discoverer Ru  and the first settlers of their island.

Geoffrey Henry: I had always made a commitment to  come back to the Cook Islands, so I had to read,   learn and listen very carefully to people like  me when they make speeches at the ceremonial   functions which occur on the island.

I observe  very carefully, and I listen very carefully to   the chants and so forth.

And that's really  how I've learned to become a Cook Islander.

[Aitutaki orator chanting] Chris Conybeare:   Maunga Pu, Aitutaki’s highest hill, is  linked in legend to Rarotonga’s Black   Rock and the mountain Raemaru.

John Johansson: Legend has it,   or at least this version of the story Aitutaki or  araura ennua, as was the old name of the island,   had no mountains at all, so they decided to come  to Rarotonga and borrow one of the mountains   here.

And it happened one long dark night, they  chipped away at the mountain and they carried it   and parts of the mountain fell along the way.

And it is said that this Tu Oro here, is where   some of the parts of the mountain fell in as they  were carrying it.

And very interestingly, if you   go to Aitutaki today, they have one hill there,  which they call the top of the mountain, Maunga Pu  [Native Rarotongan sharing story of the mountain] Chris Conybeare:   It's not surprising that Rarotongans, living  in the shadow of Raemaru, have a different   version of their lost mountaintop.

They say the mountain was too tall,   blocking the sun, bringing constant  rain and misery to their district.

The villagers’ prayer to chop it  was answered and the God Tangaroa   dumped the mountain top debris on Aitutaki.

Geoffrey Henry: You are best known in your   community by how much you know of your own people  and by how much you recognize your relatives.

By   being able to relate yourself to everybody else  around you, your knowledge of your district's   history, the legends that are the ones which  make your district proud, you've got to know   those legends.

That's how you identify yourself.

Turepu: In a Polynesian setting, belonging to a   family, belonging to a clan around the family,  belonging to a tribe, belonging to a district.

These things are drummed into us.

It becomes an  inborn aspect of our lifestyle.

We belong, we   also share.

I know in New Zealand, because I was  brought up there too, and I see the ones.

You have   to save your money.

You have to work according to  time.

You have to know when to spin and when not   to spin.

Over here is a different lifestyle again,  because being a small island and possessing all   these natural gifts from the sea and from the  land that we don't really need to, to extend.

Chris Conybeare: The Ngati Uri Taua  tribe prepare to welcome Hōkūleʻa.

[Tribal member giving welcome chant] Teariki Anautoa Tutara:   This Hōkūleʻa trip is one of tuatau  enua.

It's a historical moment for us,   down in as a Polynesian.

[Singing]  Teariki Anautoa Tutara: Everybody works together.

It's just like it's a custom for us down here.

If I the chief, go around my people, my child  will say, look, I want you to give me a pork,   a plate chicken, but we got to share equally.

Everybody will cooperate.

Function like this.

That's when the young ones comes in.

When  there's no function, the young ones will   nobody come in.

But now the young ones, the,  our children, will come and say, Oh, Father,   what's that for?

What you preparing this for?

That's when they hear all the traditional way of   whatever custom we are doing.

[Ceremony welcoming Hōkūleʻa]  Turepu Turepu: Hōkūleʻa is very much alive the  it's, history.

It's a living from a museum.

It's,   it's another story.

It's a path that's been  relived again, according to the ancients,   the roots.

Hōkūleʻa is Polynesia.

Hōkūleʻa  is Moananui o kehua.

Hōkūleʻa is the Papa,   the foundation, Hōkūleʻa terangiti, the  high heavens, the wiseness, hopefully,   it's all encompassed around these because  you see with your own eyes, it's living.

[Singing in New Zealand] Nainoa Thompson: Yeah,   the sun is that time of the year is really ideal  for holding bearings for long periods of time,   in the day, then in the middle of day when  the sun's too high, that it's not you can't   practically use it for a bearing anymore.

We use  the swells pretty much certain clouds.

You can   use real high ones, very far away.

You can use  the rough bearings.

It's more like you sail in   a general direction.

Just get through that  portion of the day, the hard steering.

Then   use the sun in the afternoon and stars at night.

Paki Harrison: The navigator was usually called   a whale.

The implication being, of course, that  he was not only big, like the whale, but that he   traversed great expanses of ocean.

The carving  has many aspects, as I said, the mythological,   the traditional aspect, the stories about  the people, their voyages to New Zealand,   their battles, their loves, their hates, their  joys, fear, pain, all those sorts of things.

Pat Hohepa, PhD: What you're seeing here  is the beginnings of a traditionally styled   Māori Marae in the heart of an academic  institution, the University of Auckland.

We felt that there was a need to teach Māori  in an authentic setting, a Te Rongo Wai, built   on traditional lines.

Chris Conybeare:   The concept of Te Rongo Wai, or place to stand,  predates the arrival of the Pakeha, or European   in Aotearoa as New Zealand is known by the first  people of the land.

The Marae proper consists of   an open space of ground in front of an ancestral  meeting house.

Together, they were the focal   point of village life.

Rituals and protocols of  challenge and welcome were developed to identify   enemies and embrace tribal relatives and friends.

The Marae is also the place for observance of the   important life cycle passages providing tribal  continuity and linkages between present and past.

It is an institution for the airing of ideas,  a place of oratory and tribal decision making,   that has become increasingly important in  modern life.

Māori are now a minority in their   own land and the marae, with its traditions,  a place of strength and security, where Māori,   not Pakeha values are dominant.

Urban Māori  have created new marae, in order to recapture   the sense of community important to Māori life.

Paki Harrison: Our people had, had universities.

This house has the canoe ancestors and the priests  representing what we call a wana, or the houses of   learning, where the principal method of learning  of education was through rote, rote learning, and   this developed into a series of, of, incantations,  chants, prayers our people had a genius for,   for personification, even abstract things were  personified, areas of learning, areas of nature,   The sea, everything.

And so, they carve them.

Pat Hohepa, PhD: Our carvings and weaving would   be our form of video.

Books, unfortunately, do not  capture the wairua, the spirit of what has been   woven and what has been carved.

And you can only  capture the spirit when you see it actually on the   walls of the house, just in the same way a camera  can give you an idea of the depth of feeling of   people or the way things are that books cannot.

Merata Mita: It's extremely difficult for oral   tradition to survive in what has become very  literary, westernized type of Aotearoa that we   live in now.

And I saw a way through it.

I saw  that film is a very visual medium.

It doesn't   necessarily have to be literary.

You mainly have  to watch.

You observe and you see images.

Now,   in the Polynesian mind, in the imagination, and  in that collective consciousness that we have,   the image conjures up a memory from the past  that speaks to the future.

This is what we   believe.

I have a right to stand here.

I have a  right to use whatever technology or methodology   there is for the benefit of the Māori people.

Archive footage: We want this house to stand,   because this the basis of our  pleas.

Give our land back.

Pauline Kingi: The special relationship that Māori  people have to the land is the same relationship   they have to their own mother.

The analogy is of a  person with their mother.

The link is essentially   a spiritual umbilical cord that Māori people  recognize.

In other words, we are not divorced   from the land.

We are part and parcel of the land.

Joe Hawke: In 1950, I was 10 years of age when we   became the only tribe in this land to be landless  in our own country.

The national government at   that time confiscated the last remaining burial  grounds of our people and systematically went   around burning our houses and bulldozing our  marae down.

I saw our old people die of not   physical causes, but of spiritual causes.

Pauline Kingi: The spiritual values   directly cement the relationship of people  to land.

If that is off kilter, shall we say,   then everything else will be off kilter.

Joe Hawke: January 1975, bulldozers were   planned to planned and ready to come and invade,  once again, the ancestral land of our tupunas.

It was a subdivision planned only for those who  are rich, and consequently we saw it as a threat   to us as a people, that once again we will see  what happened in 1950 where we would be bulldozed   and burnt and extinguished again.

We decided that  we will fight this plan, and we have succeeded.

Chris Conybeare: The Ngati Whatua tribe of the  Auckland area have been dispossessed of virtually   all traditional land by urban development.

The  eviction scenes from the Bastion Point documentary   have been seen around the world and have helped  mobilize public opinion.

Subdivision plans   have been halted and renewed legal challenges  seeking redress for Ngati.

Whatua land claims   are in progress.

While tribal custom may have  restricted a woman's role as orator or carver,   no such strictures apply to filmmaking.

Pauline Kingi: Now, the area of film was   there was a definite opening there for women,  because it wasn't so restricted by tradition.

It didn't have to be a man behind the camera.

And so, I have found that to my advantage,   that I could use the same devices that they  use on the marae, you know, which are tapu to   for women, but I could get behind the camera  and address the nation as a man would.

[Māori language newscast] Chris Conybeare: The Māori fight to   maintain a toehold on their own land has resulted  in special Māori Television programs, including a   daily 10 Minute Māori language newscast.

Whai Ngata: The Māori language is heard   in New Zealand.

It's the only place in the  world that it belongs to so it has a place in,   in television and radio in this country, it  has a right.

And secondly, things that happen   in Māori them which would not normally  make the news bulletins.

The network news   bulletins are being seen, and there's an active  interest by other members of the community.

Tuku Morgan: At least 50% of Māori women who  live in Auckland do not know who they are,   where they're from, or they don't understand  Māori, nor do they speak Māori and have   cut themselves off.

They've disconnected  themselves off from the strength of tribal   kinship or family kinship, and so, you know,  we have a situation that is very, very grim.

[Teacher singing with students] Pauline Kingi:   If you look closely at what's happening  with the Te Kohanga Reo Language Nest,   you see that Māori people are beginning to wake up   and to wipe the sleep from the eyes  and to raise their sights again.

Chris Conybeare: The Language Nest preschool  or Kohanga Reo is a key ingredient in the   struggle of modern Māori dom.

It is based on  the traditional extended family concept whereby   tribal elders or tupuna care for the young and  provide instruction in Māori language and values.

This community-based program has spread the  length and breadth of Aotearoa.

In seven years,   800 Kohanga now serve 6,000 children in a  process that restores dignity to the elderly,   promotes healing for the alienated and  equips children with a positive Māori   self-image.

Arai Makaiver explains  the basis for Kohanga Reo knowledge.

[Resident speaking Māori] Pauline Kingi:   You can't isolate to Kohanga Reo from the strong  political movement of the people.

And to me,   it is also doubly rewarding to see the recognition  of the role of Māori women in the society.

Māori   women, of course, have always been the authors  and the repositories of our culture and through   the culture that essentially, we are talking  about the language that has been their role,   to have that recognized, to have our  children speaking the language again,  [Resident speaking Māori] Chris Conybeare:   The success of Kohanga Reo has challenged  officials to establish language programs in   the school system.

Richmond school represents  a major experiment in bilingual education both   Māori and Pacific Island children are encouraged  to speak their native tongue and are taught   English as a second language.

[Teacher speaking to children]  Wiora Port: But even the first day I started a  little Māori school up north.

My first name is a   Mao name.

It's Rao Mori, and they couldn't, they  wouldn't, they just can't pronounce it.

And it   was called a native school in those days, so it  was a Māori school, you see.

And the headmaster,   and I can remember and it's quite a long  time ago, him saying can't pronounce it,   called her by her second name, which is Viola.

And  my grandmother, who couldn't say the V's, called   me way ora, which is a lovely name.

It means  living water and all you know, really good.

So,   I call my, and I know now I like Wiora, because  I can hear someone calling, but it just shows   you how you know from the first day, I realized  that as a Māori, my name wasn't worth anything.

Jim Laughton: Well, my own inadequacy really in  Māori, because, like many people in my generation,   we came through school not having learned Māori  because our parents were persuaded not to speak   Māori.

However, my youngest daughter qualifies  this year for the bilingual class we had.

She   came home last night speaking Māori to me, and  that's I hope, how I'm going to do something about   my inadequacy, because I'll have a developing  resource.

It's one of the big effects of the   Kohanga Reo movement, the Māori language preschool  movement, that non-Māori speaking adults are   learning to speak Māori.

It's one of the powerful  grassroots things that is catching up with adults.

Pauline Kingi: That's all part of the challenges  of being a Māori in a changing world.

Māori   people are a traveling people.

We've taken  many journeys and this is probably the most   significant journey that we could ever take, is  the realization that our own future is destined   by ourselves, not by a paddle, but by our minds.

Chris Conybeare: As the Tai Toka Rao people of   the north land gather at the Waitangi Marae on the  Bay of Islands to welcome Hōkūleʻa, the historic   event is documented for future generations.

Bina Peita: The old people have gone to   their graveyard.

They have taken the  language, they have taken the history,   they have taken everything and left us in this  generation with nothing.

We have people in TV   areas.

We have people in the newspaper,  we have people in radio, like myself,   and I believe that it will, it will, it will help  preserve a lot of my Māori history, my heritage.

[Paddlers chanting in vocal rhythm] Ray Waru:   We're trying to show New Zealanders on  television something of the beauty and   complexity and richness of what it is to be  Māori.

One of the things that the series has   in common with the Hōkūleʻa voyage is  that it's a voyage of self-discovery.

[Paddlers chanting in vocal rhythm] Scene from film:   This is the Māori war canoe now talking about  the Matawhaorua of Waitangi.

It's going out to   meet the Hōkūleʻa a replica of an ancient canoe  of Polynesia.

Here, the past meets the present.

The meeting of Nga Toki Matawhaorua and  Hōkūleʻa is historic.

A Māori tohunga of   the oceans is on board the big visitor.

He  and the Māori paddlers and the Hawaiians   who sailed Hōkūleʻa are distant kin,  descendants of the same ancestors who,   over 2000 years ago, left their Hawaiki and  sailed to the most northern and southern   islands of Polynesia.

Tupi Puriri:   They’re now looking at themselves and asking the  question, who am I?

What am I?

Where are my roots?

And just now, they are starting to find their  roots.

They're coming back to the rural areas,   to their tribal areas.

They're now starting to  learn about genealogy, their association with the   land.

And it's only through this that they will be  able to re-establish and find their what we call   the Turanga Wai, or a place where one could stand.

Ray Waru:   A lot of people who don't look at anything other  than Western culture, for whom the idea of culture   is the Renaissance.

It's written literature, it  may be films, but it's probably sculpture and   painting.

Culture is much, much more than that.

Culture's success.

People who have successful   cultures survive.

They thrive.

They create arts  and they create ways of living together.

They   adapt to the environment.

And that's what Māoris  did.

That's what Eastern Polynesian people did.

That's what Polynesians all over the Pacific did.

And I think if I've come to understand anything,   it's to appreciate the beauty of that survival  strategy, their skills.

They were sophisticated,   intelligent, clever people.

They learnt  about the land, they learnt to understand it,   they learnt eventually to protect it and they  learnt to survive and create a culture that   had as much philosophy as much understanding of  human relations as any culture you could name.

[Māori ceremonial chanting] [Drumming]