"My Father Didn't Let Them have Me": Colonialism and the Extended Family, Whanau, In Patricia Grace's Cousins and Baby No-Eyes‪.‬

Whanau, the Maori term for extended family, is the basic unit in Maori society. It includes three generations: "at least one 'tipuna' [grandparent] with three or four generations of direct descendants and their spouses" (Pere 10). Whanau is an important Maori cultural structure with the main function traditionally being "the procreation and nurture of children" (Walker, Struggle 63). More generally, it is a structure that provides collective support and responsibility and invokes whanaungatanga--Maori values, practices and thinking (Smith, "Development" 471). Whanau differs from the mainstream Pakeha (that is, descendants of Europeans in New Zealand) notion of family in many ways. Umelo Ojinmah notes: "Although the extended family system is practiced by both Maori and Pakeha in differing guises, the Pakeha society's emphasis on individualism makes the nuclear family the focus. Conversely, the Maori family is all-encompassing" (31). Closely related to whanau, whakapapa or genealogy is another central concept in the Maori system of values. In Maori society, individual and collective rights and responsibilities are tied to knowing one's ancestry (Pere 9). This emphasis on ancestry is pointed out by one of the main characters in Patricia Grace's Cousins, Makareta: "Every Maori, especially if he came of a good family, knew his or her genealogy and exact relationship to every relative. This was most important to a Maori" (37). Through whakapapa, the Maori have a system of social stratification that is dependent on seniority of descent among various descent-lines (Pere 9). Further,