RITES OF PASSAGE

How Tiaki Coates empowers young people during the chaotic time of adolescence

It was the final day of a five-day journey.

The boys had trekked through the woods as heavy rain clouds rolled over the hills. They had hiked, hunted and crossed a river with a makeshift rope bridge.

Now, on their final day, the six teenagers sat in the bush for what may have been the most difficult feat on their journey yet: engaging in an open conversation about sex.

Along with exploring the outdoors during the July 2016 school holidays, the boys tackled topics like masculinity and identity – topics young men often feel skittish speaking about openly.

But the boys approached this conversation with sincere engagement and maturity, posing dozens of curious questions to their 18-man mentor group and their leader Tiaki Coates. He knew the four days leading to this moment had been instrumental. “Because they had gone through this whole process, they felt safe,” says Coates.

This is Poutama Tāne, a rite of passage program grounded in Māori knowledge and designed to help Whaingaroa boys navigate the turbulence of adolescence. Enlightened by his own rite of passage, Coates leads young men through outdoor journeys to strengthen their sense of belonging to the community.

Finding solid ground

Growing up, Coates desired that sense of belonging himself. Many years past before he felt like an accepted member of his tribe.

One can see expressions of Coates’ Māori identity in certain aspects of his appearance. The muscular 34-year-old wears a hei matau necklace carved out of green pounamu stone. On his right forearm, he displays the intricate black markings of a traditional Māori tattoo on his light skin.

But standing on the deck of Karioi Lodge, an eco-retreat engulfed by the Whaingaroa bush, Coates feels a deeper connection to his Māori identity looking toward Whale Bay. In the crystal blue water, Coates sees another face of his Māori ancestors. He feels them in the forest and hears them in the bird song.

And when he speaks te reo in his calm and measured voice, one can sense the mana, the power and the respect, he feels from his ancestral connections.

Coates has found grounding in Whaingaroa’s environment. Having moved to Raglan in 2009, he feels at home whenever he sees the shallow green slopes of Mt. Karioi. “I feel very strongly about this place. It’s got a pull, like this magnetism,” he says.

But Coates struggled for years to find grounding in this identity. “It was difficult growing up, being fair-skinned, being called Tiaki,” Coates says.  He grew up in a bicultural house, raised in both a European and Māori way of life in Wellington, where the waters of the Cook Strait disconnected him from his tribal lands on the South Island. “It’s always felt quite edgy,

this Māori identity,” he says.

Searching for mentorship

Whaingaroa’s teenagers have struggled to find grounding too.

Coates could see young men searching for guidance as they navigated the chaotic world of adolescence, becoming more isolated. Suicide is the worst outcome of this disconnection, and Coates knows people in Whaingaroa have experienced this tragedy. It’s a nationwide issue too.

The country’s youth suicide rate increased significantly last year according a 2019 report from New Zealand’s Chief Coroner. The suicide rate for young people between the ages of 15 and 19 rose by 37 percent.

The Māori suicide rate rose by 19 percent.

Coates created Poutama Tāne, a community-led, rite-of-passage program, wanting to empower young people during this stressful time of transition.

Explaining rites of passage to people, however, posed a challenge. “It was like breaking in new ground,” says Coates. “There’s quite a bit of intergenerational amnesia about what our ancestors have done.” Speaking to Māori elders in Whaingaroa about the rites that have been practiced has been important in creating a program grounded in Māori knowledge.

Coates opened the program to local Māori and pākehā boys and wanted significant male figures in their lives to accompany them on their journey. Whether they be fathers, uncles, or brothers, Coates wanted the boys to have older men to look up to for guidance.

Poutama Tāne would not only provide a connection to the natural world, but also mentorship to boys on the cusp of adolescence.

Leaving parts behind

Coates, however, embarked on his own rite of passage midway through his university degree.

One day, a 20-year-old Coates received a phone call from his father who told him about a new program developed by Outward Bound in collaboration with Coates’ tribe, the Ngāi Tahu.

Aoraki Bound, named after the tallest mountain in Aotearoa – a mountain sacred to Coates’ tribe – was a 20-day journey guiding participants through the Ngāi Tahu’s ancestral lands.

Excited for adventure, Coates joined the inaugural Aoraki Bound experience in 2006, the youngest of 14 in the cohort.

On that experience, those 14 participants walked the paths of their Ngāi Tahu ancestors. They followed the Pounamu Trails up rivers along the west coast of the South Island, through the Southern Alps where the snow-topped peaks of Aoraki lie. They paddled through interior and glacial lakes on traditional outrigger canoes, and they raced to the base of their mountain in a half marathon.

But of all the activities, the nights of solitude challenged Coates the most.

The 20-year-old spent two nights alone in the heart of the Southern Alps, in the mountainous terrain of Arthur’s Pass. “Parts of me made it through,” says Coates. “Some parts I left behind on that journey.”

On the nineteenth day, Coates sat with his fellow participants for a feedback session, and everyone gave him the same message: he was an incredibly important member of their tribe.

“And that was a rite of passage for me into adulthood, and also into my tribalhood,” Coates says. Hearing this message from his peers and elders empowered the 20-year-old. “And you can see where that’s lead me my last 14 years.”

Feeling Māori

Nearly a decade after completing his Aoraki Bound journey, Coates launched the inaugural Poutama Tāne experience in 2015.

It was the morning of July 16, midwinter. Nine young boys ranging from the ages of 13 to 17, gathered at the Kokiri center, a Māori cultural space lying east of town and overlooking Whaingaroa harbor.

Families bid their boys farewell as they embarked from the center on their five-day journey. For two days, the boys, cladded in rain jackets and life vests, sailed a traditional voyage canoe, braving the winter gusts and downpours as they tended to the ship.

The boys practiced Māori rites like the pure and the tohi, cleansing rituals marking the start of each boy’s transition from childhood to adulthood. The boys also listened to traditional Māori narratives exploring the growth of young men.

Coates could see the journey’s impact. “I remember one boy saying, ‘I didn’t actually know what it meant to be Māori, but now spending this time out in the elements and getting to know the atua – the elemental forces – I feel Māori,’” recalls Coates.

Expanding Poutama

The kaupapa of Poutama expanded since the launch of the 2015 pilot program. Coates led the second journey in 2016 and in the following year helped establish the Poutama Rites of Passage Charitable Trust to support programs for both young men and woman in Whaingaroa.

The most recent Poutama program, developed in 2019, revitalizes stories of female Māori deities to empower young women.

Ngaire Pene is one of the facilitators for that program. As a young Māori woman growing up in a pākehā world, she has struggled herself to find solid grounding in her identity. “It’s been a journey of letting go some of my family’s ideas of who and what I should be,” says Pene. She believes Coates has created an empowering environment for her to continue that journey.

Both Coates and Pene believe rites of passage have the potential to strengthen communities. That’s why families and community members are present for both the start and end of the Poutama Tāne journey.

“There’s a bond that’s created, that is lifelong from that experience, and I’ve seen that,” says Coates.

At the end of the inaugural journey, the boys returned to the Kokiri center, where families gathered to celebrate the group’s achievements.

For their audience, the young men and mentors performed a Haka, a ceremonial Māori dance. Knees bent, arms spread, and eyes opened wide, the boys launched into a vigorous performance. They stomped the floors, smacked their chests and arms, flared their nostrils and contorted their faces into fearsome expressions, shouting at the top of their lungs.

And like their shouts, the stomps and the smacks were unified. The Haka requires performers to play as one. Nobody is out of place in this dance. Everyone belongs.