6 minute read
Tai-o-Rongo: Ngā tohu ki Tohunga
High on a wind-swept hill, ancestral knowledge systems and practices are being remembered. The tūpuna science connected with this ancient star-gazing site has been practised for generations and handed down to only a few, but a new kaupapa is working to re-connect whānau whānui with the natural world. Moana Ellis reports.
Ātihau-Whanganui Incorporation board director Che Wilson stands on a broad, flat-topped hill at the top of one of our stations. A herd of black cattle have inched their way to the fence, curious about the scores of shareholder whānau gathered to hear some of the secrets of this sacred site at Tohunga Station.
It is an ancient observation point and a natural observatory – a place of learning and ritual practices – offering unfettered views of the mountains and hills in every direction and opening up the night sky for astronomy.
It is a site being used today to revive traditional weather observation and prediction.
“This place is called Tohunga because of the tohu you can get from here,” Che says.
He also reveals a sophisticated complex of tūāhu (rocks) including “a star constellation in the ground” aligned with Māhutonga (the Southern Cross).
“There’s a whole landscape of special stones here. This is our version of Stonehenge. The role of these rocks is to help us to read the weather and make predictions for the season and the year ahead.”
Alongside Te Wiwini o Rongo, a tūāhu of thanksgiving for cultivated food, are tūāhu serving as guardians of the winds, a waiwhetu (reflection pool), pointer stones to Māhutonga, the in-ground constellation itself, and a series of cultivation terraces and food pits. The tūāhu have names such as Hinemarangai, Ohineari, Ranginui, Rangiroa, Kupu-ahi, Pua-ahi, Pauahi, Neha (also known as Newha) and Kautū-ki-te-rangi.
“The names are codes to our science,” Che says. “They’re also codes to our spirituality, all wrapped up in one.”
The existence of the complex has been “deliberately kept quiet” to protect it from western archaeology practices and to preserve the mātauranga for future generations.
Now, Che believes the time is right to share this kōrero tuku iho more widely among whānau. He is leading Tai-o-Rongo, a wānanga and kaupapa Māori programme of research centred on the tūāhu at Tohunga and aimed at reviving the systems, practices and ceremonies linked to it.
“Tai-o-Rongo is helping to give recognition to places and practices that are extremely important and have been left out of attention’s way,” he says.
“It is a wānanga to revive traditional weather observation and weather prediction.
“We’ve had a number of our navigators who have navigated the Pacific up here to check the features on these horizons and they align with their teachings on the ocean.”
Tai-o-Rongo considers how uri can reconnect to and look after their whenua, and how to foster and revive the knowledge connected with it.
“Some of the karakia talk about ‘kei te whakawiniwini te tai o te pō, kei te whakawanawana te tai o te ao’. That’s talking about the flow that’s part of creation and that is within us – invoking that tai, that flow, to enhance all our senses, our rongo, so that we are not just seeing and hearing, smelling and feeling, but we’re engaging our whole body to connect with te taiao.”
to be sharing more with ourselves. That’s going to be a challenge for some but we’ve got to open it up for those who wish to learn, because we’ve been bereft too long.
“There will still be some tohunga knowledge, but we need to be democratising a lot more.
“He wā anō ka hura ngā kura hunahuna, he wā anō ka mātau ki ērā kura hunahuna, he wā anō ka mārama ki ngā kura hei kura i te ao nei.”
The rōpū has grown to include practitioners in navigation, astronomy, gardening, hunting and gathering, carving and weaving, water science, geology and the maramataka.
Maramataka researcher and practitioner Meretini Bennett-Huxtable says Tai-o-Rongo will help people to re-engage with the practice of ceremony.
“We’re validating what our tūpuna already knew and that’s the most empowering part about it. We’re also engaging back in te taiao with the language that they remember, that the taiao remembers.”
“It will help inform and reinvigorate that relationship with the whenua and with our taiao, and the importance of that. Part of this is looking at how re-engaging with our kōrero tuku iho might help our farmers here in the central plateau region to make better-informed decisions on land.”
The research has included looking at how to apply this knowledge to the farms, in particular to help guide animal husbandry and planting.
Meretini has also been working with CEO Andrew Beijeman on how Atihau-Whanganui could incorporate the maramataka into a new framework for its business, operations and activities.
“Through the maramataka, we have the opportunity to look at the environment and make some forecasting to support farmers ahead of what might be coming. Tai-o-Rongo can take a scope of the land and give our feedback as a rōpū. You have 30 of us coming together to wānanga, bounce ideas around, understanding what the kōrero tuku iho is, and what waiata, what tātai, what karakia might be saying in response to some of those tohu that we’re seeing in different places ... and we can make a forecast.”
Meretini says re-engaging in ceremony will change how people interact with the whenua.
“It will help us as a people to engage with new waiata, new kōrero and new karakia that are in line with what we’re seeing and hearing in this day and age, as well as understanding what our tūpuna saw before us.
“Ceremony is really important for us and our kōrero with the whenua. What do we have to lose by going out and having a mihi to Papatūānuku or to the awa or to the maunga, and saying: this is what we’re doing, this is our intention, this is the reason we’re doing it.
“For me, that’s what ceremony means – purposeful intention in the work that we do, to ensure that the whenua understands what we’re doing so that it can respond in the same way.”
