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Story: Māori manners and social behaviour – Ngā mahi tika

Tūrangawaewae

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In this 2003 short film, Turangawaewae, Wi Kuki Kaa plays a traumatised Vietnam veteran. His family's solution to his distress is to return him to his ancestral marae. A community of origin, traditionally based around a marae, is known in Māori as a tūrangawaewae – the place to which a member of that community has the right to return. 

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Mark Derby, Māori manners and social behaviour – Ngā mahi tika – Kinship, families and marae, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/video/41182/turangawaewae (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Mark Derby, published 21 March 2013.