November 21, 2019
Alien whakapapa in tobacco story
Māori public health organization Hāpai Te Hauora is taking a long view on stop smoking messages.
It is launching a series of video clips titled Tobacco is not our whakapapa.
Chief executive Selah Hart says while the plant has spiritual and cultural significance to many indigenous people of North & South America, that’s not its whakapapa here.
The first encounter with smoking for Māori was with the arrival of colonisation and it became part of that process.
She says it’s important to move away from quit-smoking narratives that do not empower whānau.
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