Re-tracing the footsteps of his ancestors has seen Scotty Morrison travel to some far-flung places – throughout the Pacific and to Asia, South America, and even Africa – but this latest season of TVNZ’s Origins takes place right here at home in Aotearoa.
The show returns with Morrison at the helm to look at the first 100 years in Aotearoa from the perspective of its first wave of settlers – ancestors who came from Hawaiki on traditional waka.
“[We focus on] some of those major waka that we still refer to today, the arrival of some of those ancestors here and how they adapted over the first hundred years, the culture they created, the spirituality they created, the system of transmission of knowledge that they created and what they found here.
“What the forest was like, what the ocean was like 800 to 1000 years ago, what they encountered and how they adapted. That’s pretty much the premise of this series of Origins.”
It feels like a fitting culmination to a series whose first season saw Morrison and crew fly half-way across the world to visit Ethiopia. The country known as the “cradle of humanity” featured as a fascinating exploration of Western perspective on the origin of humanity and how it threads into traditional Māori narratives on the origin of tangata whenua.
“The first series you kind of feel like you’re getting quite a distance away from our ancestral knowledge and our ancestral origin stories when you start heading off into Ethiopia… and the connections feel like they’re not as strong as they should be,” Morrison said.
“You come to a place like Raiatea in Tahiti and you go, ‘I can feel this, this is really strong here’. You can feel that connection it’s there. You feel like you’re in the footsteps of your ancestors. So when you get here, when you get to Aotearoa it’s like, well, this is it, you know? This is where we became tangata whenua. This is where our origin story really starts.”
Culture drives positive first encounters
The Māori-led production has filmed three seasons of Origins, spanning thousands of kilometres of land and sea, travelling through time to a past preserved in nature, culture and language.
The crew’s encounters with other indigenous peoples and places of significance were informed and led by tikanga Māori.
Morrison, an expert in te reo Māori and tikanga, said both cultural aspects played an important role when engaging with other indigenous cultures.
While visiting an ancient marae on the Marquesas Islands, Morrison conducted a wairea – a particular karakia used to clear the space in a spiritual sense to allow them to enter on to sacred ground.
“Hearing the locals say, ‘man, our marae hasn’t heard that language for so long’ – because our language of karakia is very archaic… they can feel that spirituality and they can feel that mana that’s emanating from those words, those archaic words of our ancestors, and you can just feel that the marae awakens, the place that we visit, it awakens, and the local people.”
Using te reo and tikanga made it comfortable for all involved, he said, leading to mutual respect.
“Wherever we go to different areas around the world, and because we know that there’s indigenous presence there, there’s ancestral presence there, and there’s spiritual presence there, we always make sure we show respect and that we show humility when we go to those places.”
Most of the tight-knit five-man crew were Māori and have been documenting the journey since the beginning. It’s an involvement they don’t take for granted.
“Everybody in the crew just thinks it’s such a privilege to be doing because when we get to go to places not many people have an opportunity to go to, we get to talk to the local people and we get to listen to their stories and their knowledge and then they share it with us.
“You can’t put a value on something like that. It’s just a huge privilege for all of us and I think the knowledge that it’s a privilege has really bonded us together and created a brotherhood amongst us.”
What we can expect in this latest season
Season two focused on exploring more of the Eastern Polynesian connections – the Marquesas Islands, Hawai’i and Rapanui – through tracing the movement of kūmara.
In much the same way, this latest season focuses on pounamu – used by first settlers as a valuable tool and prized possession.
“The whole pounamu story is a map of where you can source different stones across the country that helped them to make tools and that helped them to make whare, sort of [how to] adapt to life in Aotearoa,” said Morrison.
The show visits sites such as Motunui, Rangitoto and surrounding islands in Auckland’s Waitematā (Hauraki Gulf), as well as Kā Tiritiri o te Moana, or the Southern Alps.
“We cover right across the country but focusing in on some of those really well known areas that have got a really rich history around them and delving into that and who was there, what they did, what they encountered and how they consolidated their existence there and learnt how to sustain themselves in those environments where they ended up making their homes.”
The show also touches on the kinds of kākāhu, or clothing, they wore, and the climate and environment they lived in.
Morrison hopes audiences will be transported back a thousand years to get a sense of what these first settlers were faced with.
“What the forest was like, what the ocean was like, what the landscape was like, what the climate was like, and then how extraordinary and how amazing our ancestors were at being able to adapt, find food, create heat – do all of that kind of stuff.”
They created a system of knowledge that allowed them to adapt to the environment, and then to transmit that knowledge to coming generations to adapt ‘to the next level’, said Morrison.
“This one especially is for everyone that’s living in Aotearoa. It’s fascinating because you really get a look into our country’s history that I don’t think any other programme has done yet. If that’s not going to make you watch I don’t know what will because this is your country, this is where you’re living. Let’s have a look at what it was like when we weren’t here and when our ancestors were here and how did they create Aotearoa that we now live.”
The new season of Origins starts on Tuesday, February 3 at 7.30pm on TVNZ 1 and TVNZ+
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