Māori culture is rich and complex, and contains many concepts not found in western cultures. In order to begin to understand Māori society, in contemporary and historical contexts, one must have and understanding of the concepts that constitute the Māori world-view. Although there are many important concepts, the interconnected concepts of mana, tapu, and whakapapa are central to the Māori world-view and are thus crucial to understanding Māori society.
Perhaps the single most important concept in understanding Māori history is whakapapa. Whakapapa usually describes geneology. According to Māori creation narratives, all things have common ancestors – Rangi and Papa – and new things descend from either those ancestors or descendants of those ancestors (PDF). In this way, all things are connected. Additionally, these connections enable the past to influence the present. However, whakapapa is not just about genealogy, as it broadly concerns the connections between people and atua (gods), nature, other people, and society. (text) These connections are represented by tātai (descent lines) which are often describes as threads in the web that is whakapapa.
Whakapapa is a part of all Māori creation narratives. The origin of the world is found in the separation of Rangi and Papa, whose children are the ancestors of people, the elements, and various plants and animals. These stories of how the world came to be are a description of the whakapapa of the world.
The concept of whakapapa is crucial to understanding Māori society. Many other cultural concepts that underlie Māori social structure, interactions, and customs cannot be understood without whakapapa. Ancestry in its simple form of family relations is important in all cultures, and thus whakapapa is a starting point for westerners to understand Māori culture. Power, authority, and class structure in Māori society are almost entirely rooted in whakapapa. Additionally, the relationships humans have with atua and nature determine concepts behind tikanga (customs) and tapu (restrictions).
One concept that results from the relationships that constitute whakapapa is the important concept of mana. Mana is a concept that does not have a clear or direct translation into English, but roughly describes power, authority, or status (Ka’ai & Higgins 2004: 17). Mana does not originally come from people, rather it comes from atua. This type of mana is known as mana atua. Additional types of mana are mana tupuna or power that comes through one’s ancestry, and mana tangata, influence derived from an individual’s characteristics or actions (Gallagher 2008).
The concept of mana can be seen in many narratives, as it is a concept that related to everything from authority over a region to social status and relationships. One example is a story that concerns a fight between two atua (gods) Tane and Tumatauenga. The gods fight to see who should be allowed to occupy the earth, during which Tane defeats Tumatauenga with his mana, or power. In a subsequent fight, Tu obtains mana, or authority, over the earth by defeating Tane (Samuel 2005:32). The concept of mana is present in another narrative, Hinemoa and Tutanekai. In this story, Hinemoa, the daughter of a great chief falls in love with Tutanekai. Although he is “of good birth,” Hinemoa’s father does not want her to marry him because he carries a lower social status, and attempts to stop her from seeing him. This is an example of mana tupuna: Hinemoa has greater mana than Tutanekai since her father is a great chief, making her closer to atua than Tutanekai.
Mana is an important concept in Māori culture, as it underlies Māori social structure. Ariki (paramount chiefs) are closest to the tuakana line, or senior line. Thus, they are closest to the atua and have the most mana. Lower “classes” in Māori society have less mana than those that rank above them, all the way down to taurekareka (war slaves) who have no mana (Ka’ai & Higgins 2004: 17). However, mana tangata is also important, as it breaks the absolute relationship between whakapapa and mana. Through one’s behaviors in life such as heroic acts, one can change the amount of mana one has. This allows for “class mobility” (Gallagher 2008).
A cultural concept related to mana is tapu. Tapu has various meanings, but generally describes the concept of sacredness, consecration, or restriction. Places, items, or people can be tapu, reflecting their association with the sacred (Beattie 2004:73-74). This association means that things that are tapu contain the spiritual essence of atua (gods).
Locations such as tuahu (sacred places) are places sometimes marked by stones in a pile or embedded in the ground where tapu food is discarded or made into an offering, or simply where religious ceremonies are performed (Best 1976:272). Upon discovering new lands, exploring Māori people would perform ceremonies make the land noa, for fear that they were previously tapu and and exploration would be trespassing on sacred ground (Shortland). With the sacredness of tapu come restrictions. Tapu restrictions are evident in many traditional Māori stories. In one such story, Maui decides to trap a sea monster called Tuna-roa by digging a trench. In order to make the trap more effective, Maui makes the work of digging the trench tapu and recites incantations. By doing this, Maui made the trench tapu, restricting anyone from being near it as it had the sole purpose of catching Tuna-roa (Samuel 2005:53).
Tapu can be removed or restored. Tapu (restriction) can be lifted from a person or location through ceremony and recitation of karakia (prayer). Tapu can similarly be restored, such as in the story of the baptism of Maui. Maui returns home after being thrown into the sea by his mother, thinking he was sickly after being born prematurely. Maui’s father exclaims that his tapu must be put back, so as to correct his mana. Maui is then reborn in the household, with his father reciting birth karakia that he had not performed at Maui’s actual birth. After this ceremony, Maui has his tapu restored (Samuel 2005:43-44).
Tapu is an important concept for understanding Māori culture, as it describes one aspect of how the spiritual interacts with the physical. The spiritual world and its influences on the physical world are ubiquitous in Māori society, from ancient creation narratives to modern tikanga (customs). Tapu determines many aspects of how people can act: where they may go, what they may touch, and what they may eat. Violating tapu, depending on the severity of the infringement, could mean anything form punishment from one’s tribe such as loss of property to punishment from the gods, such as death (Mitira 1972:37-38).