by Leonie Pihama, Ngaropi Cameron and Rihi Te Nana

Understanding both the impact of colonisation and historical trauma is critical to understanding the origins of family violence in Aotearoa.

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Key messages from this Issues Paper

• Prior to colonisation Māori people lived within whānau, hapü and iwi collectives that supported wellbeing, with whānau as the primary source of support within Māori society
• Traditional knowledge forms within tikanga, te reo and mātauranga Māori provide clear guidance for wellbeing and appropriate behaviours within relationships.
• It is well documented that acts of whānau violence were not accepted by our ancestors.
• Central to the colonisation of Aotearoa (New Zealand) is the dispossession of land and resources of whānau, hapü and iwi.
• The position, and wellbeing of Māori women and children is central to ensuring the wellbeing of whānau.
• In Aotearoa, colonisation is characterised by extensive acts of violence upon Māori.
• Colonial ideologies and practices of gender, race and class that have been imported to Aotearoa have impacted significantly in the undermining of Māori structures, beliefs and ways of living.
• Colonisation is both a series of events and an ongoing system of oppression that has disrupted may aspects of Māori social structures and ways of being.
• Understanding both the impact of colonisation and Historical trauma is critical to understanding the origins of family violence in Aotearoa.
• Historical trauma relates to the collective trauma experienced through "massive cataclysmic" historical events that have been perpetrated intentionally by one group of people upon another.
• Historical trauma is perpetrated through deliberate and intentional acts of violence and oppression upon one group of people by another group of people.
• Historical trauma can be viewed as a 'soul wound,' which sits at the core of generations of Indigenous suffering.
• Māori views of whānau violence recognise the need for political, cultural and spiritual understandings and explanations.
• A range of Māori concepts such as 'patu ngākau', 'pouri' and 'mamae' provide understandings of trauma and its impact upon Māori.
• Healing must take place on both individual and collective levels to prevent intergenerational transmission of trauma.
• Māori healing must be based on the restoration of the Māori cultural and healing paradigms that colonisation sought to destroy.
• Kaupapa Māori approaches to trauma and healing must be defined, controlled and undertaken by Māori for Māori.