photography: Tracey Scott.
Up until three years ago, Miraka Davies was Shelly. But after walking away from her family’s five-generation commitment to religion, she knew she had to change not just her beliefs but also her name. The motivational speaker, MC and writer, of Ngāti Rehua, Ngātiwai and Ngāti Porou descent, has adopted the moniker of her great-great-grandmother, whose full name was Raihi Miraka Kewene Ngawaka Davies.
As Miraka, she wears a moko kauae (facial tattoo) just like her tupuna (grandparent) did and has recently completed a full- immersion te reo Māori course.
“I always knew I was Māori, but without the language to be able to articulate that, you feel displaced,” says the 52-year-old from Rotorua.
“It was always the reo, tikanga [customs] and mātauranga [traditional knowledge] of being able to know our whakapapa and our stories that I deeply longed for.”
Widowed at 24, then divorced from her second marriage, the mother of three’s faith fractured when she found love outside of marriage. While Miraka won’t name the church she was raised in because she has no animosity towards it, her new relationship was at odds with her religion’s doctrine.
The moment Miraka chose herself
“I had a beautiful friend at work,” says Miraka.
“Marriage was not on the cards but being together was. I believed that if there is a god, why would I need to be in a position where I wasn’t able to receive love? It just opened this little crack.”
The decision to leave didn’t come easily.
She explains, “I spent about a month, maybe two, on the fence and tortured. I shaved my head and had a crisis trying to figure out what to do. Then I realised that if I live my life the way I think others expect me to, it’s going to eat me alive, so I need to honour myself.”
Telling her family and children was tough.
The hardest conversation
“I had to sit them down and say, ‘I know this is hard and different, but church doesn’t feel right for me, so I need to step away.’ I said, ‘If you want to go to church, I’ll take you there. I just can’t come with you because it hurts to sit there and hear that I’m not worthy.’”
Two of her children also freely left the church soon after Miraka, but one struggled with her decision.
“They felt very betrayed by me. They said, ‘Mum, you’re breaking all the rules. You taught us what’s right and wrong, and now you’re doing all the wrong things.’ All I could say was, ‘I have to be true to myself.’”
When she left, Miraka realised she’d never done things most take for granted – like tasting alcohol or coffee. Nor had she had the opportunity to make choices she had only dreamed of.
Honouring her tupuna
“My sisters and my girl cousins, we had these pictures of our tupuna Raihi Miraka with her moko kauae and we wished we could be like her.”
Often, Miraka says, she’d look in the mirror and see her grandmother’s face, with its moko kauae looking back.
“One day it dawned on me that I was the only one stopping me now.”
Consulting her kids and partner about getting the tattoo, she also warned her parents.
Building a new life
“If my children had reservations, that would have stopped me, but they didn’t. My dad cried and they had a lot of worries, but I’ve never felt more like me.”
With Aotea/Great Barrier Island a constant of her childhood, Miraka decided to spend more time there to reconnect with her whakapapa. She has since built a house on the island, been elected to the iwi trust board, and lives between Aotea and Rotorua with carver Michael Matchitt, the partner she left the church for.
“To come back and have this whenua [land] and moana [ocean] to ground me helped with my transition.”
Finding her way back to family
Her relationship with her family remains close.
“There were a couple of years of figuring out our footing again, but it didn’t take them very long to see that I was happy living a life that was bringing me joy.”
Three years ago, Miraka and her son Te Ara did a year of te reo immersion at the University of Waikato, leading to the establishment of the Rumaki Charitable Trust. The Trust is the catalyst behind Rotorua’s Rumaki Café, a place to practise te reo Māori, which Miraka and the team hope to open this year.
Immersed in te reo Māori
“Anyone on a language acquisition journey will tell you that you get to a point where if you can’t speak it regularly, you’re going to lose it again. Rumaki means to be immersed. It will be completely te reo-speaking. It’s primarily for those who can speak te reo and those who are learning.”
Miraka enthuses, “It will be very welcoming and inclusive of people who want to give it a go, and will have resources to support them. The only language you’ll hear in Rumaki Café will be te reo Māori and I’m thrilled about this.”
To learn more about Rumaki, go to rumaki.co.nz.
