My father is Maaka Heemi - his father is Maaka Heemi - His father was Wati James - I believe Hemi Maaka was Wati's father. To know that our whanau name is not Heemi but actually Maaka was a revelation My father told me when I was a young girl that when my grandfather first joined the army and went to serve in Korea and I think Vietnam - He changed his name - from Hemi Maaka to Maaka Heemi - He added an extra 'E' to Hemi to make it different - and I heard they had a habit of using their first names and swapping it around to be their last name so its always an interesting story when people ask me Heemi...are you from the bay? and I reply well actually I'm not a real Heemi...I'm a Maaka from Ahipara. That always seems to raise a few eyebrows as I explain it to them.