RECOVERING MAU RĀKAU ANNETTE PEREIRA PHOTOGRAPHY BY MILLY DU TOIT The river flows, the seasons turn, The sparrow and starling have no time to waste. If men do not build How shall they live? “Chorus From The Rock” by T.S. Eliot
26 | Recovering Mau Rākau
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n July this year, news sites around the world reported the story of schoolboys, 1,700 strong in number, performing a haka outside Palmerston Boy’s High School to greet the coffin of their teacher who had passed away. The Telegraph in London and TIME magazine placed the video on their websites. In a world weighted with ethnic conflict and still licking wounds from colonialism, clearly this is newsworthy. And yet, just a generation or two ago, that news could not have appeared. While the unfolding story of the Māori Renaissance is still relatively short, to the outside eye it has already produced astounding fruit. The rekindling of Māori culture has not happened by chance but rather through work and vision, adaptation and preservation.
Sustaining and rebuilding Māori culture has involved wrestling with complex questions: What does it mean to sustain a culture and identity when so much has already been lost? What does it take to rebuild in the dark? One context in which answers to these questions have unfolded is in the revival of mau rākau—the use of Māori weaponry—through urban marae. The revival of mau rākau is a rarely told story that has played a key part in reacquainting many Māori with their heritage and identity. Mau rākau is a type of martial art. It involves wielding the taiaha (spear) and patu (club). But its significance lies beyond art or sport. For Māori, taiaha and patu are gifts of the gods, woven into Māori identity from the earliest days. According to the Hon. Sir Pita Sharples, Tohunga Ahurewa and Te Tumuwhakarae founder of Te Whare Tū Taua o Aotearoa: The House of Warfare and Māori Weaponry, the taiaha “encompasses our deepest customs and is our identity.” Mau rākau indicates more than battle. Language, maturity, traditional lore, and tribal custom are all attached to it. The implications of its erosion during much of the twentieth century therefore also extend beyond the loss of an activity or sport. With the suppression of mau rākau, keys to Māori identity were hidden. The Tohunga Suppression Act which came into force in 1907 was intended to direct Māori away from traditional healers and towards Western medicine. However, it was also instrumental in putting pressure on the already fragile roots of Māori identity, making it illegal for tohunga—spiritual healers and cultural leaders—to pass on their knowledge. Mau rākau was largely buried along with carvings and Te Reo during this period. The Tohunga Suppression Act did not achieve all it intended. Māori fears of Western medicine were not alleviated and few people were prosecuted under it. Tohunga continued to hand down their knowledge in secret. But while the Act in some senses failed, it nonetheless had significant implications. It damaged the bonds that many had with their whakapapa and made Tohunga marginal figures.
Some Māori internalised a belief that their culture was inferior and dangerous. When the Act was lifted in 1962 it left a long shadow. “Our proverbs say the land and sea and us grew up together. To have that taken away from you, you are left without your spiritual encasement,” says Hon. Sir Pita Sharples. Without the tools for retaining history and culture, identity stretches thin and frays. For the best part of the twentieth century, most Māori children were raised by whānau who spoke to them in English and hid their culture. “I was told that Te Reo and Kapahaka would get me nowhere” says Tat Stanley, one of the first female students to master mau rākau and obtain the title Tohunga Kairangi of Te Whare Tū Taua O Aotearoa. Tat is from Taranaki but when she was eight she moved with cousins to Auckland. Like many Māori of her era, she was raised away from her traditional tribe, in an urban context, not a rural one. The Hoani Waititi Marae in West Auckland, one of the key sites for the regeneration of mau rākau, has been the site for Tat’s own self-regeneration too.
For many Māori of her era, cultural identity is an improvised affair, and reconnecting with it is a source of life and pride. “I came here [to Hoani Waititi Marae] when I was fifteen and it has been very important to me. It was here that I started to learn mau rākau. Without mau rākau I wouldn’t be who I am today,” says Tat. Urban marae have become key initiatives to allow people like Tat to adapt to a changing environment while retaining their cultural identity. With many Māori now living in urban centres these marae were built to bring people together from different iwi. Māori recognised the need to move forward and sustain their culture in a new context. “When urban marae were established it was a huge mindset shift for people. Marae used to belong to just one iwi. To build a marae like Hoani Waititi was a big change,” says Paora Sharples, son of Sir Pita, and one of the first generation of students to have mastered mau rākau. “If you go into our marae it is full of carvings from every tribe, all the wakas, so anyone who comes here, they can be related,” says Paora. The walls of the marae even feature carved reliefs of the Endeavour and Abel Tasman’s ship; the wakas that brought Pākehā to Aotearoa, New Zealand. “That is all part of our history too,” Paora explains. So what were the watershed moments that allowed an eroding culture to find its feet again? What brought mau rākau and other aspects of Māori culture out from the dark? According to Paora, it began with the protest movements of the 1960s and 70s which broke open a doorway that allowed the broader renaissance of Māori culture that would follow. In 1975, five thousand people walked the length of the North
Annette Pereira | 27