Maori have a wonderful, ritual way of introducing themselves, called pepeha. Aside from always noting their iwi (or tribe), they will say where they were born, and what was their mountain, and their river and/or coastline. If they know it, they will also mention their waka (waka means canoe, and it is said that nine major waka made the journey to New Zealand from Polynesia).
I was born in Waimate, South Canterbury, of Irish, Scottish and Welsh (to pick a few) descent. My mountain is Aoraki Mt Cook, the tallest mountain in NZ and visible from the other side of the island where I lived. My river is the tiny Hook River that ran past our farm, or perhaps the cold, fast, and much larger Waitaki, where my father and his brothers (and I think my mother’s brother too) went fishing all their lives. I don’t know my waka, but somewhere there are records detailing the ships that brought my ancestors.
How would you introduce yourself in this manner?
Very interesting! Let’s see: I was born in Emerson, Manitoba, Canada, on the Manitoba/Minnesota/North Dakota border, of Ukrainian-Canadian and Irish-Swedish-American descent. My mountain…. well, I’m not sure, because I grew up a LONG way from anything resembling a mountain!! lol Likewise, a long way from any coastline — but I was born in a tiny hospital on the banks of the Red River of the North, where my ancestors settled in the late 1870s. I have records of some (but not all) of the ships that brought the various branches of my family to North America. I don’t know the ship’s name, but the earliest North American ancestor I’ve found arrived in Quebec in 1825, and settled near what is now Ottawa. 🙂
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I was thinking of you when I thought that here, we all have a mountain, but maybe some people don’t!
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Well, there’s Turtle Mountain Provincial Park, about 250 km west of Emerson (also right on the border)… but I wouldn’t exactly call it a mountain. I Googled and it’s only about 800 feet/245 metres high! 🙂
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LOL! Nope, that’s no mountain!
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Let’s see…I was born in Blacksburg, Virginia (USA) of Scottish/English/French/Spanish descent. My mountain(s) are the Blue Ridge in the Appalachians and my river is the New River. I know that there are records of the ships, but I don’t know them off the top of my head :).
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