Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has praised a 2015 talk by Ngai Tūhoe artist and activist Tāme Iti calling it a “beautiful perspective” on the theme of “mana”.

The Rock shared a clip of Iti’s Ted X Auckland talk with his 357 million Instagram followers on Saturday.

“You often hear me speak of mana and the power of our mana,” Johnson wrote in a caption to the clip.

“Give a listen to @tame_iti of New Zealand here and his beautiful perspective on what mana is… In mana we are all equal. Eye to eye. Kanohi ki te kanohi Tangata ki te tangata. Mana is humility and knowing that in life we are always learning every day.”

Iti (Ngai Tuhoe/Waikato/Te Arawa) replied, “Nga mihi” to the post, with a solidarity fist emoji.

The clip was taken from Iti’s 2015 Ted X Talk, Mana: The Power of Knowing who you are, in which Iti explores the traditional reo Māori saying, Te ka nohi ki te ka nohi (Dealing with it eye to eye), and the ways it has sustained his activism.

In his korero, Iti says this approach creates a fertile environment for discussing even the most sensitive or difficult issues.

Iti goes on to tell the story of how he was banned from speaking reo Māori at school. His response was to test the mana of the headmaster by disobeying.

“Te reo Māori comes from the sound of the birds. I speak the same language as the tui and the kiwi bird. Could the headmaster stop the birds from speaking the language too?

“Don’t be afraid to challenge someone trying to assert authority over you.”

SUPPLIEDTāme Iti delivering his talk at TedX Auckland in 2015.

The Rock lived in New Zealand as a teen, and has credited his Kiwi upbringing for making him tougher.

“New Zealand, you know I love you. I used to live there, did some of my growing up there, have a lot of aiga (family) there… it’s where I first learned to play rugby – got my ass kicked all over the field, but that’s OK because it made me tougher,” he wrote on a post not long after Jumanji II came out.

The Iti clip was first shared by The Kū Project, a US site which gathers indigenous Hawaiian health and wellbeing information.

The Rock’s mother is Samoan, and he has maintained strong ties to the Pacific and Polynesian culture.

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He signed off in the caption of Iti’s clip with the Hawaiian word for thanks or gratitude, “Mahalo”.

In September 2022, Iti was awarded the Burr/Tatham Trust Award for excellence in multidisciplinary art.

The artist, poet, actor and the most recognisable face of Māori resistance in Aotearoa, was one of just seven practising artists to be made Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi laureates in 2022.

In 2022, he was embroiled in controversy when he corrected the spelling of his name in a piece of art at the Museum Hotel. The owner of the artwork called it vandalism, however many – including the piece’s painter – consider the correction an elevation of the piece.

Iti also appeared in Tearepa Kahi’s film Muru, a cinematic response to the 2007 Te Urewera raids, playing himself.

Source: stuff.co.nz