This is home
Tatsiana Chypsanava | New Zealand
Photographer: Tatsiana Chypsanava
Exhibit Title: This is home
Location: New Zealand
Ngāi Tūhoe have always been staunchly independent. Despite the New Zealand government’s attempts to assimilate them and dispossess them of their land, Tūhoe retained their strong Māori identity, language, and some of their traditional lands, nestled in the steep, remote ranges of Aotearoa New Zealand’s North Island.
Like many Tūhoe, John Teepa spent years living in the city, away from his ancestral land. When he, his wife Carol Teepa, and his six children returned to his birthplace, a dairy farm in Ruatoki, they followed the customary adoption process of whāngai, eventually raising more than 20 adopted children alongside their own.
Teepa’s homestead has now sheltered more than six generations – and hundreds of tamariki. “This is home,” John tells his numerous descendants.His dairy farm is now part of the Tataiwhetu Trust farm, one of the most successful dairy farms in the country and fully organic. It is guided by the principle “Ka ora te whenua, ka ora te tāngata. When the land is in good health, so too are the people”.
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