MEET THE MAKERS
IT WAS AN UNLIKELY premise for reality TV – the goings-on at a family-run Auckland funeral home with a strong commitment to tikanga Māori. But television producer Annabelle Lee-Mather sensed star quality (wise, kind-hearted and sometimes kooky star quality) in Tipene Funerals’ owners Francis and Kaiora Tipene, and The Casketeers became an almost-instant Kiwi classic.
As season three of the series unfolds, the Tipenes have released their memoir, Life as a Casketeer: What the Business of Death Can Teach the Living. It traces their personal story – poor Northland childhoods, love, marriage, then raising five sons – alongside their business story and dedication to honouring the dead, nurturing those left behind and showing people the warmer, funnier side of life’s only certainty.
The following extract, “A Future in Funerals”, picks up as Francis and Kaiora – not long married, both 21 and just graduated from Māori Teachers’ Training College in Auckland – moved back to Northland, where they’d found jobs and had their first child, Nikora.
IN KAITAIA with our new baby, I was still teaching tikanga, waiata and kapa haka in the schools, and Kaiora was working as a kaiako at a kohanga reo. I loved it. Part of the work involved attending tangi and helping with the tangihanga ceremonies. Whenever someone who was Māori died, we as a Māori organisation went along to support each other. After I’d done this a hundred or so times, my interest had grown to the point where I decided it was what I wanted to do with my life. “Baby, I really want to start my own business,” I told Kaiora.
“Okay, honey. Sweet as,” she said.
“I’m going to start my own funeral home.”
“Cool.”
I could tell she was stunned, but I didn’t let on. I knew she was hoping it was just talk and by the end of the week I would have decided there was something else I wanted to do. But I went ahead on my own and did some research.
I rang around companies to see if they’d be open to employing me and letting them know what I could bring to them in terms of my knowledge of tikanga. Obviously, I couldn’t just start my own firm with no experience, though I knew I wanted to be my own boss one day. First, I had to learn about being a
