Maori Spirituality and the Environment

Maori man, moko, feathers in hair, with a feather cloak.

The regulation of daily activities in Maori communities was achieved through the rangatira (chiefs) using tohunga (ritual experts) to apply and manipulate Maori customary concepts. The concepts were underpinned by traditional Maori religion to comprise what we now call customary Maori law. Maori customary law was complex and varied between hapu (subtribe) and iwi (tribe) but was mainly comprised of traditional concepts such as tapu, noa, mana, and rahui, to name only a few.

Both the rangatira and the tohunga were central to the well-being of their community. The primary job of the rangatira was to ensure the well-being of the whole community, and it was recognized by the community that he needed a particular set of skills to do this. While a senior whakapapa (ancestry) was usually a requirement, other skills were also needed to go with it. For example, it was expected that the rangatira be a good orator, so that he could represent his hapu or iwi on formal occasions, and persuade the members of his group into particular courses of action. He was also expected to be able to produce some kind of food on a regular basis so that he could feed not only himself and his community but also feed manuhiri (guests). There was also an expectation that he was an expert in some kind of specialized economic activity, for example the ability to make canoes or stone tools. Fighting or warrior skills were also highly valued, as was general intelligence. If the most senior candidate to be the rangatira was found to be wanting in any of these skills it was not uncommon to replace him with a better candidate, even if the person's whakapapa was not considered to be as good as some other potential candidates. In the end what really mattered was the ability to lead the hapu or the iwi effectively.

There were various sorts of tohunga within Maori communities. Tohunga was originally a general term that applied to experts in most things that were considered to be important to the communities. Today, most of the different types of tohunga are no longer seen, except for the very important experts in religion and ritual. There is little doubt however that traditionally the tohunga associated with religion and its rituals were the most powerful of all the different types of tohunga, because of the integration of religious dimensions into most aspects of life. The tohunga were often called on to regulate and appease gods over most daily activities.

The most important, and perhaps most difficult customary concept to understand fully is tapu. The usual translation for tapu is "sacred" or "restricted" but neither of these really captures its full meaning. At one level tapu was something that applied to everything in the Maori world, because everything had whakapapa back to a particular atua (god). The trees in the forest, for example, had whakapapa back to Tane, the fish had whakapapa back to Tangaroa and so on. Everything therefore was considered to be at least partially tapu because of this association with an atua. This was the normal or "noa" state. At certain times however, anything could become especially tapu, either because people wanted it to be especially considered tapu for some reason, or because certain events might have inadvertently caused it to be considered tapu. When things were in this state, with this extra dimension of tapu associated with them, they had to be treated very carefully. Failure to do this, either deliberately or accidentally, was considered to be very foolish or unfortunate because people believed that they would at the very least become ill or perhaps even die as a result of "transgressing" the tapu.

Unidentified Rotorua meeting house (wharenui), North Island, Bay of Plenty

The ability to remove or apply tapu in this context was the domain of the tohunga. Tohunga used ritual to do this. The usual ritual involved karakia (incantation) to communicate with and appease atua. Tohunga were specially trained in the art of karakia and were held in very high esteem in communities as a result of this. Tohunga therefore had the ability to remove tapu when it had affected things or people accidentally, and as well, they could apply it when the rangatira requested that they do so. The ability to do this allowed the rangatira and the tohunga to exert huge influence over the daily lives of people who were essentially afraid of the potential that tapu had to affect them.

A practical example of the power of tapu to regulate group behavior was in relation to the management of food resources. When certain foods, such as shellfish were starting to run out, the rangatira would close off the resource to the community by asking the tohunga to place a tapu on the area of the beach where the shellfish were found. The name for this type of tapu is rahui. The tohunga would do this in a very public ceremony that was dominated by rituals and karakia in particular. He was in effect placing that part of the beach under the protection of the relevant atua. The whole community knew that the rahui was in place as a result of being present at the ceremony and often a marker post would also be placed in some prominent location as a sign that a rahui restriction had been imposed. The people of the community that were not present at the ceremony thus knew that a rahui restriction had been applied somewhere in the vicinity and they ought to make efforts to found out where it was. Failure to do so of course could mean an inadvertent brush with tapu and that was something that needed to be avoided.

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