Source: Radio New Zealand
Indigenous educators from across the world reconnected with the knowledge of their tūpuna at WIPCE 2025 – guided by Māori kaihautū and two of the original Hōkūleʻa navigators whose first voyage helped revitalise Pacific wayfinding. RNZ / Layla Bailey-McDowell
‘If you’re on a canoe, you’re in the same space your ancestors were – just a different time.”
Those are the words of Billy Richards, an “OG sailor”, one of the original Hōkūleʻa navigators whose 1976 voyage helped reignite Pacific wayfinding.
On Monday, his presence – alongside fellow original navigator John Kruse – gave added weight to over a dozen Indigenous educators who stepped aboard Haunui, a double-hulled waka carrying the legacy of their tūpuna.
Guided by kaihautū from Te Toki Voyaging Trust, manuhiri (visitors) from Indigenous nations around the world spent the morning learning the whakapapa of waka hourua and the mātauranga that carried their tūpuna across the Pacific.
Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr (Tainui) founded Te Toki Voyaging over 30 years ago. He now trains navigators, maintains a fleet of waka hourua and paddling canoes, and runs environmental, leadership, and education programmes for rangatahi across the motu. RNZ / Layla Bailey-McDowell
The excursion is one of many offered at the World Indigenous Peoples’ Conference on Education (WIPCE), which has returned to Aotearoa for the first time in 20 years.
Leading the voyage was Kaihautū Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr (Tainui), who said the aim was not just to sail, but to reconnect with the knowledge of their tūpuna.
“Here we are today on board Haunui as part of the WIPCE conference,” he said, welcoming delegates.
“A living, breathing example of the kind of waka that our tūpuna sailed from Hawaiki to Aotearoa.”
He said it was important for not only Māori, but other nations to “recover, relearn and relive the wisdom of our ancestors”.
“That knowledge got them through centuries and it can guide us today, for people, for the planet … for all our resources.”
Haunui, a double-hulled voyaging canoe carrying the mana of Kāwhia Moana and the Tainui people, was restored in Aotearoa and blessed for open-ocean voyaging. RNZ / Layla Bailey-McDowell
Haunui carries the mana of Kāwhia Moana and the people of Tainui. The waka began its life as Va’atele, built under Te Mana o te Moana, a project to grow ocean literacy and revive Polynesian wayfinding.
Gifted to American Samoa, Va’atele returned to Aotearoa for repair after the 2009 tsunami.
That return allowed a new vision: a double-hulled canoe capable of open-ocean voyaging. It was restored and renamed Haunui, in honour of Barclay-Kerr’s uncle – tohunga Hone Haunui.
The vessel now sailed under Te Toki Voyaging Trust (TTVT), which was founded more than 30 years ago by Barclay-Kerr. Built around the values of aroha, whanaungatanga, manaakitanga and kaitiakitanga, the Trust trained navigators, maintained a fleet of waka hourua and paddling canoes, and ran environmental, leadership, and education programmes for rangatahi across the motu.
At WIPCE 2025, Indigenous educators were offered the opportunity to reconnect with their ancestors alongside OG Hōkūleʻa navigators Billy Richards and John Kruse aboard Haunui waka. RNZ / Layla Bailey-McDowell
For many on board, the biggest surprise was seeing Billy Richards and John Kruse – known as ‘Uncle Billy’ and ‘Uncle John’ – also on board the waka.
Known as kaitiaki in the voyaging world, the pair were part of the first Hōkūleʻa voyage in 1976, the journey widely credited with sparking a Pacific-wide cultural renaissance in ocean navigation.
“The only reason I’m standing here on this waka, and we can sail around on the waka, is because of things they did in the early 1970s,” Barclay-Kerr told RNZ.
“These are the original OG sailors of waka who revitalised and rejuvenated this whole thing in 1975 and 76.”
The Hawaiian waka Hōkūleʻa is returning to Aotearoa, 40 years after its maiden visit. Polynesian Voyaging Society
Barclay-Kerr said when Hōkūleʻa was built, it was the first canoe for over 600 years that could carry people and journey across vast distances without instruments.
“Uncle John and Uncle Billy helped build that waka, sailed it to Tahiti … and here we are 50 years later and they’re sitting here with us.”
He said, with only a few original crew members alive, their presence was “a great gift from our ancestors”.
“I can’t be more happy than that.”
Billy Richards (Oʻahu) is an original member of Hōkūleʻa, the Polynesian canoe whose voyage from Honolua Bay to Tahiti marked the first deep-sea journey of its kind in over 600 years. RNZ / Layla Bailey-McDowell
‘One foot in the present and one foot in the past’
Richards, now 77, first stepped onto Hōkūleʻa in 1975.
“I’ve been a voyager for … well, let’s put it this way,” he said.
“I first stepped aboard when I was 27. You can do the math.”
Half a century later, he describes voyaging as living with “one foot in the present and one foot in the past”.
“I like to think of our canoes as portals to the past,” he told RNZ.
“When you’re on a canoe and you’re sailing, you’re in the same space, doing the same thing as your ancestors … just a different time.”
Richards said the voyaging community had grown from one waka to 27 across the Pacific.
“We call ourselves the ‘ohana wa’a, the family of the canoe. At one time there was just Hōkūleʻa, but now there are 27 voyaging canoes in the ocean,” he said.
“It’s an extension of everything that happened the first time.”
Teaching the next generation was central to that growth.
“It’s okay that we move on, because you make room for the young to come up. Otherwise we might lose it again,” he said.
“A lot of what we do is, when the canoe is coming out to be fixed, you come down and volunteer. If you put your energy into the canoe, we have an obligation to invite you aboard.”
April Iwalani-Harris (left) travelled to Aotearoa from Hawai‘i and says she feels blessed to “learn from all nations about how we better support our keiki, our children.” RNZ / Layla Bailey-McDowell
That intergenerational thread is part of what drew WIPCE delegate April Iwalani-Harris (Moku o Keawe – Hawai’i Island) onto the waka.
“What brings me here? My DNA brings me here,” she told RNZ.
“I’ve worked in education for 35 years, and I was blessed with the opportunity to come and learn from all nations about how we better support our keiki, our children.”
She said stepping onto Haunui felt like reconnecting with something familiar.
“Everyone said it was like coming home. It was connecting with family members you have yet to meet.”
That feeling deepened when she recognised a cousin, a crew member from Makali’i and supporter of Hōkūleʻa, standing across the deck from her.
“My kūpuna (ancestors) say there are no coincidences.
“Being able to spend this time with him and with everyone else we were introduced to… that was really special.”
Iwalani-Harris hoped to take back to Hawai’i lessons on how to be a better ancestor.
“Oceans separate us, but there’s so much commonality,” she said.
“Where we come from, there’s a saying, nō nā keiki maua mau. It’s forever the children. We keep our eyes on them.
“So coming here and understanding strategies, understanding the journeys others have taken… it helps us be better stewards of our keiki, our aina, our oceans.”
Indigenous educators from across the world reconnect with the knowledge of their tūpuna at WIPCE 2025 – guided by Māori kaihautū and two of the original Hōkūleʻa navigators whose first voyage helped revitalise Pacific wayfinding. RNZ / Layla Bailey-McDowell
Barclay-Kerr said this was exactly what voyaging offered.
“When you bring young people on a waka like this, they’re learning stuff by default.
“On the waka, they’re doing maths and science without knowing that’s what they’re doing.
“The great thing about waka is that it becomes a secret agency to educate people. People come on board for fun, but they get off having had fun and being a bit enlightened as well.
“Ancient wisdom can’t be relegated to a museum or a textbook,” he said.
“It needs to be lived.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
