"New Night Sky": Renewing My Music Therapy Culture
Southern Cross by Moonlight @Christopher J. Picking
Haere mai, haere mai;
Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.
Introduction
Many a Māori speech of welcome at a powhiri or gathering of people on a marae (or meeting house) in Aotearoa, New Zealand will begin with these words, calling us together, creating a welcome for new visitors from the home iwi or ‘tribe’. On my fifth day after arrival in NZ to take up a new programme leader post at the New Zealand School of Music, on 28th February 2005, our new group of music therapy students were welcomed to the University. Following an invitation from Daphne Rickson my fellow lecturer, Dennis Kahui, the one Māori student from the Taranaki tribe (upper west side of the North Island) stood up and started with the welcome above and proceeded to outline his whakapapa, his background and heritage. Dennis told us in Māori about his canoe (waka), mountain (maunga), river (awa) and location of his meeting house (marae) and tribe (iwi); his parents, his whānau (extended family) his ancestors. The musicality of his inflected speaking was strongly in evidence (the rhythm of ‘tena koutou’ is shaped in 7/4, which was really lovely to listen to) and he gestured the shape of the mountain, paddle of canoe and so on to help us understand. Though I was a bit puzzled how to respond, it felt a really appropriate way to begin our New Zealand music therapy journey together.
With Dennis’ permission, here is the main part of his whakapapa with which he prefixes all pieces of writing for his music therapy degree:
‘Ko Aotea taku waka
Ko Taranaki taku maunga
Ko Waingongoro taku awa
Ko Aotearoa taku marae
Ko Arakuku taku ‘apu
Ko Ngati Ruanui me te Ngarua’inerangi aku iwi
Ko Mika Ka’ui raua ko Pansy Moea’u aku tipuna
Ko Carol Snooks/Ngatai raua ko Gary Ka’ui aku matua
Ko Dennis Jon Ka’ui taku ingoa.’
On a later occasion in class at the New Zealand School of Music, introduced again by Dennis, we all had a try at sharing our genealogy, and I realised what a sensitive introduction this made for a group of people. There are painful realisations (people in your whānau are a long way away or no longer alive), you may be distant from your home landscape, but these are things that are shaping you now – they affect how you are and how you feel. It takes time to get round everyone, but these things take time. (I notice how Māori people always give and take time.) We sang a waita (song) in Māori after this and the whole structure felt comfortably close to the process and values of a music therapy group. When I visited the UK in July last year, we tried a similar exercise (under Dennis’ guidance) with the current music therapy groups at Guildhall School and at the University of the West of England, Bristol. It was moving and interesting to share with students and staff about their heritage, seeing what natural mountains and rivers people felt attached to, and who was in their whānau. We agreed in those groups that the music therapy whānau round the world was a strong and precious one. And students and staff said that they saw each other with fresh eyes.
Here is My (English) Whakapapa:
Kia-ora. My name is Sarah.
My Waka (canoe)
This has usually been my bicycle, (though I now have to acknowledge Singapore Airlines and Air New Zealand in my travel repertoire). I remember how much I enjoyed cycling to work as a nursing auxiliary during my college holidays at 7am on summer holiday mornings along Essex lanes with no traffic, the gorgeous hedgerows and the birds singing frantically. Cycling in Wellington NZ is a bit more alarming following a tibia plateau fracture in 2004 - but here is my current model.
My Maunga (mountain)
I was raised in very flat East Anglia in the UK, so mountains were very scarce, not even many hills (hence the travel being easy by bicycle!). When I was at University I went walking quite a lot with my close friend Beryl in some beautiful parts of the UK, and considered claiming the Brecon Beacon Pen-y-fan as my mountain. However, since arriving in New Zealand mountains and hills are very plentiful so I realise that my local hill behind our house in Karori, Wellington - Johnson’s Hill - has to be my new adopted high point. Here is a view from the top of Johnson’s hill towards the Taurarua range…
My Awa (river)
The nearest river when I was growing up was the Stour in North-East Essex, UK and here is a picture of the river’s estuary from my parent’s current home in Essex. When I lived in Canterbury UK, the river through the centre of the town was called the Great Stour. I like that link.
My Marae (Māori meeting house)
This is the Massey University Marae Te Kuratini, on to which I have been privileged to be welcomed as a new member of staff, and where we have held powhiri for study days on Māori health and music therapy and as the introduction to our World Music and Music Therapy Course.
My Whānau
My parents are Benedict and Ann Hoskyns and they have lived and worked all my life (and are now retired) in North East Essex, UK.
This picture was taken at a family Christmas spent together in 2004. My sister and husband were away at that time and so here is my sister with some other Hoskyns relatives.
Here is some of my Raphael family living in Nelson New Zealand.
I would also consider my long term friends from Canterbury, my old colleagues at the Guildhall School, London and my music therapy friends at different places in the world to be my whānau.
Adjusting the Lens
Now, readers may be thinking that it is all very indulgent and probably unwisely exposing to share those sorts of things in a public way. I think I would not have considered it two years ago, certainly not in a music therapy forum. It is not professional or very proper and you may not be wanting to read this Voices column to find out where I am from. (I have to be respectful too. The Māori whakapapa is not mine to just use however I wish, out of context.) However, my new situation and role in Aotearoa has taught me to think a little differently, perhaps in part because my sense of place, security and culture has had to shift; and ‘where I am from’ is more sharply focussed and meaningful to me than before. Stige observes that our culture may be something often forgotten ‘because it is surrounding us all the time’ and, referring to other authors, allies us to ‘…fish in the water. We are not able to leave the river in order to take a distanced look at it.’(Stige 2002, p16). I have had an interesting opportunity to ‘leave my river’ and to re-evaluate what it looks and feels like. I’m also gradually adjusting to my new river, and realising how much the particular people and history and idiosyncrasies of opportunity and ‘landscape’ have affected how music therapy develops. Rather slow, I know, in this cultural wake-up but nevertheless profound learning for me!
Dennis’s introduction to us of an aspect of Māori custom, and its potential to influence music therapy practice in New Zealand, was a significant pointer to me about the ways in which I might need to keep my eyes and ears open (and perhaps mouth shut) as a new professional here. Experience from another country could be helpful and powerful as a guide but ultimately the way processes develop have to be relevant, practical and respectful to the country concerned. The development of bi-cultural politics in New Zealand and the significance of the Treaty of Waitangi for example are pertinent to all areas of health, education and social care here.
Practising New Zealand music therapists have developed many subtle ways to acknowledge the responsibility of our processes in this regard. My colleague Daphne Rickson answers the telephone ‘Kia-ora, Music Therapy, Daphne speaking….’ always with the words in that order. She and Millicent McIvor have gently reminded me at difference times to acknowledge that I am presenting something ‘from a pākehā perspective’ when considering Maori issues, and that local consultation with Māori is always needed (McIvor 1988). (A pākehā is a white European, a non-Māori). Morva Croxson, President of the New Zealand Society for Music Therapy has led the way in speaking fluently in Māori, consulting widely with local elders and ensuring Māori interests have been represented as the profession has developed. Morva noted to me in my first year here that improvisation with Māori songs should not be encouraged and I battled with this thought for some time (from my pākehā perspective!) about how music therapy and cultural practice might be developed if this were the case? I could understand about the importance of respect, but my music therapy needs and wishes were being really challenged.
Learning from the Literature
Of course a significant amount of knowledge about music therapy and culture has been developed in the past 10 years (in no small way by the editors Kenny and Stige, and the many international contributors to Voices) and I am ashamed that I have not made enough use of it - for myself or with students - until quite recently. It is suggested by Chase (2003) and others that a disproportionate number of therapists, including music therapists are of (white) European ethnicity mainly because mental health professions have emerged from a Western European or North American world view. I noted sometimes despairingly in the UK for example, how hard it was to encourage young black musicians of any culture to audition for music therapy training (too elitist perhaps), and Mercedes Pavlicevic shared with me the thought that it was perhaps an impossible prospect at the University of Pretoria, South Africa (Pavlicevic 2005). An ideal could be to have a much wider balance of ethnic origins amongst practitioners and trainees (to match our patient bases), but the reality might continue to be white-European dominated, without significant changes to recruitment and/or our approaches to training and practice.
Many writers therefore focus on the need for inter-cultural sensitivity and respect to be developed early in the work of all practitioners (for example, Stige and Kenny 2002, Chase 2003, Shapiro 2005) and for alert awareness of the impact of our own cultural roots and influences to be fostered (Stige 2002, Brown 2002). Tomalin (2006), describing the work of the Inca Project based at the National Centre for Languages UK, identifies key qualities that mark people out who work successfully across cultures. These include openness to others, curiosity about other cultures, tolerance of difference, flexibility and willingness to embrace change. Central to Inca’s project is the idea of interculturality. This means interplaying with other cultures creates changes in attitudes and ways of behaving. My own recent experience certainly feels in tune with this: in order to interact successfully, you have to shift your ideas and adjust what you do. Within music therapy, Brown and Chase and recommend similar steps in order to develop a culturally-centred approach to practice. Brown advocates alertness to one’s own worldview, openness to others, recognition of similarity and difference and recognising the need for change (Brown 2002). Chase recommends knowing yourself, engaging in new cultural experiences, being musically flexible and asking for help if you need it (Chase 2003).
This suggestion by Chase of the need for consultation is the foundation of Māori cultural practice, and New Zealand music therapy students have had some wonderful experience of the value of asking advice and checking out their questions with Māori and Pacific Island advisers and elders. The consultation builds communication and trust, and the community grows in understanding of music therapy practice; everyone benefits.
Different Models of Practice in Healthcare?
One of the very exciting discoveries made in considering how training might develop in New Zealand was to find that music therapy could fit very comfortably within Māori and Pacific Island health care traditions and practices. During the 1980’s and 90’s, Professor Mason Durie, a highly respected Māori psychiatrist, campaigned with other colleagues to bring healthcare practice into accordance with the Treaty of Waitangi. The Treaty (established in 1840) is an accord between Māori and the British Crown. It is a fundamental part of New Zealand life and politics. It recognises Māori people as the tangata whenua the ‘people of the land’ and seeks to establish proper rights and consultation at all levels. Health practitioners in a number of spheres have sought to translate healthcare into the terms of the Treaty. For example the Mental Health Foundation aims to (http://www.Māorihealth.govt.nz):
- Achieve Māori participation in all aspects of mental health promotion (priority to provide Māori participation at management level)
- Achieve the advancement of Māori health aspirations (as determined by Māori)
- Undertake mental health promotion, which improves Māori health outcomes
Whare Tapa Whā
Alongside the development of such aims, Mason Durie articulated a holistic model of healthcare that embraced the values of Māori culture. He called the model ‘Whare Tapa Whā’ (the four-cornered house), and identified the four cornerstones of Māori Health as being the following: Whānau (family health); Tinana (physical health); Hinengaro (mental health); Wairua (spiritual health) (Mason Durie 1998, p69-73). The four pillars are of equal importance to holding up the ‘house’ and all need to be considered when caring for the patient.
Dennis Kahui and a fellow Master of Music Therapy student Andrew Tutty have been working as an extended placement in a rangitahi (adolescent) unit on the North Island, New Zealand for young people with acute mental health problems. The unit is run on the principles of the four cornered house and the attention to the spiritual, physical, mental, and wider family cornerstones is central to the way the unit is run. Music therapy has been taking place as a student placement for the past 2 years, and the first employed session of music therapy has now developed there. The unit begins each day with singing and at particular times the whakapapa of each person there (patients and staff) is shared along with other aspects of cultural practice. Several of the young patients and staff have noted in some qualitative research recently conducted by Andrew, how smoothly music therapy fits into the programme and how valuable this non-verbal approach can be to young Māori patients. Dennis has also been working to extend the approach to be relevant for the non-Māori patients, consulting with elders, translating language, encouraging community participation and teaching new songs.
Te Pae Mahutonga (Southern Cross Star Constellation)
Another health model developed by Durie takes us back to the opening photo image of this article, the highly distinctive Southern Cross constellation (pictured by moonlight above a cabbage tree) that beguiles northern hemisphere migrants. (The Southern Cross cannot be seen in the northern hemisphere, and I was very excited to find it by myself on a clear night.) Māori people are deeply connected and responsive to the natural world and it is no accident that the stars, rivers, mountains are chosen as potent symbols for life and work. Durie’s later model brings together elements of modern health promotion and identifies the four key tasks as: Mauriora (cultural identity); Te Oranga (participation in society); Waiora (physical environs); Toiora (healthy lifestyles) represented as the four stars at the ends of the arms of the cross (Mason Durie 1998). Again, music therapy – with its holistic and wide-ranging focus – can easily find a valued place in the promotion of health from a Māori perspective and it has been inspiring to find that looking at our work through the ‘cultural lens’, as has happened for me here, has indicated great potential for growth and development.
Endnote
My ‘new night sky’ in music therapy has been often surprising, different, enlivening while at times also frustrating, foreign, lonely. The Southern Cross was exciting to discover but I am comforted that I can still see aspects of my familiar night sky - Orion’s Belt and The Plough - in the sky. I was used to thinking multi-culturally in London and that much of the challenge was meeting the wide array of different cultural origins of our clients and being perhaps flexible and prepared for anything. I think the biggest lesson here for me from bi-cultural teaching has been the fundamental need to consult and give respect, and that can take time. It is a typical white-European approach to wade in and take charge, and I noted with some shock in my favourite cultural comfort Guardian Weekly, that UK leaders (the Queen, Archbishop of Canterbury and Prime Minister) had been vigorously challenged recently in a service in Westminster Abbey to commemorate the bicentenary for the abolition of the slave trade by a protesting black African. Toyin Agbetu’s point was that the service was self-congratulatory, white people priding themselves for abolishing slavery, when black people’s resistance rebellion and revolution was ignored (Agbetu 2007). I have the distinct impression that, despite the many challenges in cultural understanding here, the New Zealand political establishment might have taken a different approach in planning such a commemorative event. Consultation and respect are fairly well established in bi-cultural practice at many levels. I felt some shame at British/Western arrogance and lack of ability to ask Africans what they might want for such an event. Also a sneaking relief to be living under different stars this month!
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Bronwyn Campbell, Māori Studies Lecturer, Massey University, and to Dennis Kahui, Daphne Rickson and Morva Croxson, NZSM Music Therapy student and staff members and to Millicent McIvor, music therapist and psychotherapist for their wise counsel on Māori matters.
Thanks are also due to Chris Picking for permission to use his beautiful photograph at the beginning of this article, and to my family (whānau) for sending me their photos.
References
Agbetu, T. (2007) Protest born of anger. Short Cuts Section. Guardian Weekly. April 13-19, 2007.
Brown, J.M. (2002) Towards a culturally centred music therapy practice. In C. Kenny & B. Stige (Eds.), Contemporary Voices in Music Therapy: communication, culture and community (pp. 83-93). Oslo: Unipub forlag.
Chase, K. (2003) Multi-cultural music therapy: a review of literature. Music Therapy Perspectives, 21, 84-88.
Durie, M. (1998) Whaiora: Māori health development. (2nd Ed.) Auckland: Oxford University Press.
Inca Project: National Centre for Languages (UK). www.incaproject.org
McIvor, M. (1988) New directions inspired by the old: a pakeha looks at Māori chant. Annual Journal of the New Zealand Society for Music Therapy, 2-9.
Pavlicevic, M. (2005). Personal communication.
Picking, C.J. (2005) Southern Cross by Moonlight. www.starrynightphotos.com Photo taken Jan 2005. Location Kaituna, Wairarapa, New Zealand.
Shapiro, N. (2005). Sounds in the world: multicultural influences in music therapy in clinical practice and training. Music Therapy Perspectives, 23, 29-35
Stige, B. (2002). Culture-Centred Music Therapy. Gilsum NH: Barcelona.
Stige, B. & Kenny, C. (2002). Introduction – the turn to culture. In C. Kenny and B. Stige (Eds.) Contemporary voices in music therapy: communication, culture and community (pp. 13-31). Oslo: Unipub forlag.
Tomalin, B. (2006) Understand a new culture ... yourself. Guardian Weekly. Friday March 10, 2006
How to cite this page
Hoskyns, Sarah (2007). "New Night Sky": Renewing My Music Therapy Culture. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 12, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=colhoskyns070507