Kahokaho: ‘Ufi from the God/s; its future in the hands of people

Abstract

For people like the Tonga, planting the seeds and harvesting signifies being in harmony with nature and the gods who regulate the process with sufficient rains at the right time and measured amounts of sunshine that helps the plants prosper, in a cycle of life that repeats itself from year to year. Failing rains show that the harmony between men and the gods has been disturbed, and people are often able to appease the gods and restore the harmony of nature. But now that nature seems to be off-balance all the time people are bewildered, and Adult Education has to find new roads to help them understand the changed conditions and cope with them. Timote Masima Vaioleti, chairman of the Indigenous Maori and Pacific Education Charitable Trust (IMPAECT) in New Zealand, describes the challenge.