AHORANGI STORY
Kia ora and welcome to Ahorangi. Our names are Chris Winitana and Tinamaree Kaipara-Winitana – Chris & Teen. We are the husband and wife creators of Ahorangi.
Ahorangi is an ancestral blueprint made over the past three decades as we found Hawaiki in the middle of the ocean of someone elses will.
We followed our ancients' best advice left on our best space the marae and decoded their encryption for living and thriving in any environment.
The marae is our old people's dedicated space for binding aroha.
This is their code for being holistic. Individual noa. Collective tapu. Sacred. Individual strand. Collective topknot. Happy. Well. Better. Natural. Māori. Hawaikiian.
Their code for survive, live, thrive is this.
Do your best aroha and survive. Repeat your best aroha and live. Grow your best aroha and thrive. Our best aroha is collective.
This is the intent of every tikanga and kawa we practise and philosophise. Its intent is to grow our best aroha.
It is the Hawaikiian way of living that produces holistic. Tahi. One.
So let's do it.
This is why the Ahorangi ancestral algorithm was created. To help us get better. Tangata indvidual. Atua collective. Getting sacred is the difference. Ancestral sacred.
Ancestral beauty ancestral mastery ancestral future.
Living in our ancestors' way with sacred intent delivers their worldview - holistic. Which is complete. Which is aroha. Which is sacred. Because it connects. All things.
So they made aroha their science. The science of aroha is the science of holistic. The whole.
It is the science of connection. Which joins dots. To make big pictures. Clearer. So we can be better.
Ahorangi uses this ancient understanding. It is our lifestyle. And it is done. Everything spoken of here is based on hands-on experience. Refined. Blueprinted. Copy and paste.
Not just of an individual but of a collective, a family.
It was done with the direct help of our ancients' best technology, their language - their sound. Their own words describe their pathway of fulfilment and completion - Hawaiki.
Sound makes word. Sound has light. Its light makes pictures. The more light the more picture. Words get fat. Bigger and clearer.
Growing aroha to reconnect is our ancestors' bottom line.
Aroha, connection fulfilment, is their legacy of transformation.
Bringing their legacy into our homes connects family to family, descendant to ancestor, to ancestral beauty, ancestral mastery, to ancestral future.
Descendants face the future with their best ancient knowledge going forward.
Individual-self intelligence transforms into collective-self intelligence. The Hawaikiian way of living and thriving across all environments.
'Collective self intelligence is the intelligence of Me Myself Us of everyone, everytime, everywhere. For the benefit of everyone, everytime, everywhere. Everything.
Our world needs a new story because the current one Me Myself I is broken.
Hawaiki is the new story.
Me Myself Us.
Old. Ancient.
Everywhere.'
Chris Winitana
AHORANGI QUICK HIGHLIGHTS
AHORANGI KŌHANGA & KURA AT HOME
We home-school most of our kids following the Ahorangi Way.
Round one 1984 as a kōhanga reo & kura in Hamilton.
Round two 1993 in Tauranga Taupō Tūwharetoa as a home school.
Round three 2006 as a Kura Kaupapa Māori in a horse-barn at home in Pūkawa south Tūwharetoa.
2015 as Pēpikura for our babies.
Tāreikura for our girls.
Rau for our boys.
Ahorangi for parents.
AHORANGI GENESIS MUSICAL STAGESHOW 1992
What a blast this is. About 18 months training mostly out at Pārāwera Marae near Kihikihi in the Waikato.
About 60 people on the road for four months, 50 marae, 52 venues tip to tip.
Telling our ancestors' creation narrative as a musical stageshow, where haka-boogie and other stuff meet theatre, about four hours long.
Pulling up our ancestors' creation story of where they come from. And putting it into the eyes of the next generation.
Whatu kanohi. Whatu manawa. Whatu moana. Eye of the face. Eye of the heart. Heart of the sea. Endurance.
TE AHO MATUA 1992
To coincide with our musical stageshow Ahorangi Genesis, we release Te Aho Matua - our version of the creation narrative of our ancestors.
We have been working to it since 1985 when we started our Kohanga Reo Ngā Tama a Rangi in Hamilton.
Katarina Mataira, grandmother of the Kura Kaupapa Māori includes our rendition as a resource for Te Aho Matua the overarching charter of the majority of KKM.
Putting the kaupapa of our ancestors in front of another generation.
TE AHUREWA PERFORMING ARTS TROUPE 1995
From 1995 to 1998 we tour around Aotearoa tip to tip coast to coast with Ahurewa our family performing arts troupe.
We perform shows about Māuipōtiki and Hinenuitepō - the other half of the creation narrative of our ancestors. His stories centre on the unique potential of the individual.
Ahurewa perform to almost 1500 schools in four years. Reconfirming the vision placed in the eyes through Ahorangi:Genesis. Ancestrals coming out of the woodwork!
RADIO STORIES 1999
In support of Māori radio in its earlier years, we produce over 150 drama stories in the Māori language.
Our kids, the youngest of whom is two, are the voice talent. We start with a science fantasy named Poutiriao for our rangatahi.
Then a series for the toddlers and little ones named Uimākihoi. Another series for girls following the adventures of Te Aho the girl from the future.
Then there is Horo a horror psycho thriller plus Te Rākau Matarua about a young man put through the trials of Tūmatauenga.
This is about making ancestral information available to the next generation in a form relevant to them. And having fun at the same time.
AHORANGI 2000 MUSICAL STAGESHOW
In the middle of this we decide to do another stage show Ahorangi 2000.
This story gets inside Māui Tikitiki a Taranga, breaks it open and puts another spin on it.
It tours up and down the country and eventually gets turned into an hour long television show.
This is another chance to put our ancients' story of their origination in the eyes of the upcoming generation.
TELEVISION STORIES 2001
With Māori television coming up on the horizon we decide to tell our stories in television format.
This kicks off with Tikitiki for kids presented by Whāea T and Tūpoutahi then eventually his younger brother Herea.
We produce our flagship programme for rangatahi named Koi. As well as Ngahau where we pull together young people from all over the country.
There is also Tomo Mai another programme for children. And Tūtepuehu with Tūpoutahi and others. Later we introduce our whānau story through Ahorangi Next Generation a reality series following our mahi.
WĀNANGA O TŪWHARETOA 2002
This tribal wānanga is about introducing our people to Te Whare Atua the house of nature.
Which is the house of our collective, the house where we are sacred.
It operates for seven years going from marae to marae, hapū to hapū through Ngāti Tūwharetoa in the central plateau of the North Island.
Its purpose is to setup the architecture for collective-self intelligence by immersing our people in the house of nature - te whare atua of our old people.
TE RAU O AHORANGI 2005
The Ahorangi rākau, te tūāhu o Tūmatauenga, teaches how to control one's environment starting with the self.
All action happens in the Matua where the individual is shaped by the spaces between.
We start with the koikoi then the pouwhenua, the taiaha, the tewhatewha, and onto the short weapons including mere pounamu, wahaika, kotiate, toki roa, toki poto.
The rākau is formally handed over to my eldest son Tūpoutahi at Waitetoko Marae. This is the rākau being taught to schools.
KURA IN A BARN 2006
After running our school at home. Then in a holiday home. Then in an office above a chinese restaurant. We move into our horse barn at home in Pūkawa, southern Taupō lake.
We open our doors to families interested in our ancestral way and off we go.
In time we become a satellite taina school to a loving kura kaupapa Māori. We continue teaching our ancestrally signposted pathway for the descendants of sky and earth.
TŪWHARETOA WAIATA TIRA 2007
Lot of fun this year training in a group to support the Kingitanga in its 150th anniversary.
With the special connection that exists between Tūwharetoa and Waikato, and their two surviving royal houses, it was a chance to revisit bonds, sing, dance and be merry.
So we did, singing about Taupiri and Tongariro, Waikato and Taupōmoana, Te Heuheu and Tūheitia and the history.
TE AHI TĀMAU 2009
This year we took Ahorangi Kura to the south island to follow the ahitāmou sacred fire sent there to Tamatea by Ngātoroirangi.
We were taken to Rāpaki at Whakaraupō to the hills known as Te Ahi a Tamatea and Te Poho o Tamatea where the fire of Te Pupu and Te Hoata landed.
This outing further cemented our connections with the people of the south.
MANU KŌRERO O TE MOTU
Four times we went into the national Manukōrero from 2007 onwards. And four times we won it - three brothers and a cousin.
Tūpoutahi won overall Pei Te Hurinui in Auckland, 2007. His younger cousin Kerei Paki won juniors Rawhiti Ihaka in 2009 in Rotorua.
Tūpoutahi's younger brother Herea won senior overall in Dunedin in 2010. And their baby brother Ahurei won juniors in Tauranga in 2011.
Ancestral oratorial arts feature bigtime in the Ahorangi approach because its our ancestors' way of passing on their information from the spirit to the flesh.
TŪWHARETOA TANGATA
Over two decades we bring our young people back to the marae to sing and dance in the way of our old people.
We teach our old song mōteatea to a new and eager group of waiting ears - young people wanting to learn about their ancestral roots and how they can sink their own further into the ground.
TŪWHARETOA WHENUA
Tūwharetoa in the central plateau the Stomach of the Fish of Māui Tikitiki a Taranga.
We climb to the top of our highest summits to see what our ancestor Ngātoroirangi saw.
We follow the river children of the mountains down into the valleys.
We swim in the pool of our ancestors, our lake.
AHORANGI MUSIC
Making music is an integral part of the Ahorangi way.
Without music how do we celebrate?
The 80s is about making music for our kōhanga aged children.
The 90s is about making music for our teenagers.
The 2000s is about teaching on the legacy.
The 2010s are about the legacy making their own music to tell their own story.
AHORANGI STORIES
Telling our stories let's us get to know each other.
Over the years, Ahorangi has told stories to 1000s of audiences across all mediums from text, sound and vision.
All of the stories we tell are ancestral because they contain our best knowledge going forward.
The story we love to tell is the creation narrative of our old people because it contains their greatest understanding - how to survive, live and thrive.
TĀREIKURA THE SACRED
Tāreikura is about the sacred of the female.
It's about bringing back the sacred into our spaces so we can get collective.
Which is where our beauty lies. If we can't see our beauty then we are un-beautiful.
Our sacred gives us our reverence to life. For all that it provides without reservation or question for the health and well-being of her descendants.
RAU MAURĀKAU THE MANA
Rau Maurākau is about the mana of the male.
Where it begins, where it ends, how, what, when, and why. This is taught within the ancestral framework of the Matua war party.
Rau under the helmsmanship of Tūpoutahi Winitana works in schools and communities teaching on this ancestral knowledge.
It's not about the rākau, it's about you. All of you. Ancestors included.
AHORANGI THE INTENT
Ahorangi is about explaining our ancestors' intent.
Our old people left it on their most sacred space, the marae. The marae is their dedicated space for binding aroha.
It is for our collective. Our collective is our atua. We can't get atua collective until we find our sacred.
To get sacred we have to find our intent. And bind it. Only in binding our individual is our sacred collective.
This entire process is called Te Kawa o Io the way of nature. This is what Ahorangi teaches. Welcome.