All Black great Christian Cullen's eligibility for the New Zealand Maori rugby team became public knowledge this week - at precisely the moment his selection for the Maori team was announced.
While plenty of rugby followers seemed aware the Paekakariki Express had Samoan and German ancestry, few knew he was tangata whenua [literally "people of the land"].
It was not the first time questions have been raised about the Maori ancestry of a player selected for a Maori side.
Nor was Cullen's the only selection in this squad to raise eyebrows: blonde-haired Auckland flanker Daniel Braid was also named, as was Otago centre Ryan Nicholas, who has played sevens as a Cook Islander.
Bill Bush, an All Black from 1974-79 and NZ Maori player from 1973-82, says such selections made a mockery of the team.
"I think there's three or four that aren't Maoris that are playing for the Maori All Blacks," Bush told the Weekend Herald this week. "If you're going to have a New Zealand Maori team you've got to be Maori to play for it."
But Maori coach Matt Te Pou was in no doubt his line-up was legitimate.
"They're all Maori, the whole lot," he said.
"I've got a couple of guys in the team that are Fijian and Maori, Europeans and Maori, Irish, German, it's just the type of life we're in at the moment," Te Pou said.
"We say to the players you require Maori blood, you also need to know your genealogy in respect to that Maori blood, because in Maoridom you will be challenged."
Peter Potaka, manager of the Maori team, said the New Zealand Rugby Union was building a database of all Maori players and who was eligible starting with the Super 12 players and working down through NPC and national and provincial age-grade representatives.
Potaka said the managers of all the Super 12 teams were asked to supply a list of eligible players, but the system was not foolproof. This year it threw up Keith Lowen as Maori, not because the Rarotongan claimed to be, but because someone from the Chiefs incorrectly assumed he was.
Informal checks were made if there were any doubts. This was done by the team's kaumatua [respected elder], Whetu Tipiwai, from Hawkes Bay.
"The first question is what's his iwi [tribe]and what's his marae [a place/community within an Iwi - sort of like a parish within a wider church]. It's pretty powerful; it's really interesting how it operates."
Potaka said the Maori selectors had been aware of Cullen's eligibility for a couple of years "but up until now he's never really been available for selection. It wasn't our place to say that he was being considered or was eligible".
Cullen's father, Chris, said his father was Maori and his mother Samoan, so his son qualified. "You only need a little fingernail, don't you?"
Proof of that perhaps is Braid, whose father Gary, a 1983-84 All Black, said Daniel's mother, Sue, was Maori from Te Aroha [a particular marae, also the name of the town it is in].
"I think Sue is a 16th, so Dan's probably a 32nd. He can trace it back, he's got the family tree and everything. Dan's bona fide."
Bush and Braid both recalled past instances of non bona fide selections.
Bush was assistant coach of the Maori team that toured Europe and Argentina in 1988.
North Harbour lock Daryl Williams was selected for the tour but then dropped when it turned out he was not Maori but part- Fijian.
Bush recalls a similar mis-selection in his playing days.
"In about 1975 there was a guy by the name of Laurie Holmes, he was Fijian. He got into the New Zealand Maori team that Waka Nathan was coaching and we were just about to run out onto the paddock and Waka said, 'I just found out he's not Maori' and wouldn't let him run out."
Gary Braid said his Bay of Plenty team-mate Mark Basham, who played for the mostly Maori Te Puke club Rangiuru, was selected for the province's Maori team on the assumption he was Maori.
"But his old man went and dragged him off because he was actually middle or southern European and his dark skin came from there. In fact, his old man was adopted and he never actually knew what he was but he knew he wasn't Maori."
Basham himself said it was not as dramatic as that. His father did not have to stop him playing, he made his own decision.
"What it came down to was I had to stand up before a judge and swear I am a Maori.
"I didn't know. I still don't know. I just thought this is bullshit."
According to a story on the Rugby Museum website (
www.rugbymuseum.co.nz), All Black Frank Solomon made the 1927 Maori team despite being Samoan with no Maori blood. In those days there were so few Pacific Islanders in New Zealand it was assumed he must be Maori.
With other players the problem is the opposite. They know they're Maori but they look Pakeha.
When Bush coached the side he had Otago prop Steve Hotton chasing him round the country asking to be considered.
"I never thought he was Maori and he came up with his whakapapa [genealogy] and we put him in the side."
Former All Black lock Mark Cooksley, who played for the Maori side from 1992, said some people openly doubted whether he was Maori.
"There's always the odd comment but at the end of the day you're there playing the game representing New Zealand Maoris. I know my Maori heritage."
Maori broadcaster and former Alliance MP Willie Jackson said that if Cullen had Maori whakapapa "I'm quite comfortable with that".
"I don't want Maori rugby to be treated as a joke, mate," Jackson said.
"Really we're being used by the rugby union when it suits them and Christian is using us when it suits him - and we're happy to be used because Christian is so brilliant."
Maori educationalist Pita Sharples said being Maori was not as much about ancestry as a way of life.
"It doesn't bother me whether he's one- 32nd or one-half; what would interest me is whether he's a Maori when he walks into a nightclub or when he walks on the marae, and not just to get into a rugby team," Sharples said.
"When we define Maori in terms of culture it's a belonging thing rather than an exclusive thing.
"I don't applaud or condemn; as a Maori I want the strongest team we can have, but that's not the issue. The issue is when is a Maori a Maori and, I don't know, it's in the heart."
Bush said a positive aspect of the debate was it raised the international profile of Maori rugby.
"I can remember when we toured Samoa back in the early 1970s and the Samoans and Tongans used to look down at us Maori people because we sold all our land off to all the Pakehas [New Zealanders of British or European descent]. We were no good for doing that, but now they all want to play for the New Zealand Maori team."
