MAOR214: Land and Water 1

Main Topic: The week focuses on the significance of land and water in Māori culture, including historical perspectives and contemporary implications.
Concepts of Ownership: Discussion will include reflections on ownership and relationships shaped by different world views.

Kaupapa: Refers to the broader concepts of land and water.
Relationships and Worldviews: How human relationships with the environment (land and water) vary across different cultural frameworks:
- Christian Perspective: Humanity's relationship with God establishes a hierarchy.
- Scientific Perspective: Denies the existence of a divine being.
- Māori Perspective: Humans descend from gods, embodying a divine essence, known as iiratua.

Hierarchies between genders, particularly in Christian thought versus Māori thought:
- Christian Thought: Male superiority reminiscent of the relationship between God and humans.
- Scientific Views: Similar echoes of gender hierarchy noted in the works of Darwin and Aristotle regarding women.
- Māori Thought: The first human, Hine Ahu One, is portrayed as female, highlighting gender balance and complementarity.'
  - Also provides direct relationship with the environment

Existential Threats: Discussion on climate change as a significant concern of present generations, compared to past fears like nuclear war.
- Examine how worldviews have brought us here
Potential Solutions: Exploring how Māori thought may offer alternatives to contemporary issues.

Mauri: A living essence that exists in all entities.
- Analogy with Star Wars: Compared to The Force.
- All entities (animals, plants, rocks, etc.) possess unique mauri.
  - Things Western thought consider inanimate
  - e.g. Mauri stone
- Mauri is dynamic; it can be enhanced or diminished through practices:
- Enhancement: Practices aimed at preserving or enhancing mauri.
- Diminishment: External factors that can reduce mauri.
Mana: Reflects authority and personal or collective power.
- Two types of mana:
- Intrinsic Mana: Inherent power inherited from creation, consistent throughout a person’s lineage.
- Extrinsic Mana: Depends on one’s actions and can be earned or lost through behavior.
- All entities (human and non-human) possess intrinsic mana.
- Can be diminished through things like acting out of line with values

Whakapapa: The genealogy or lineage connecting humans to the environment, emphasizing familial relationships.
Papatuanuku: Represents the Earth, with no hierarchical view over humanity, which contrasts sharply with many Western ideologies.
- Personification of land#
  - Literal relationship with land
Language Insight: The word whenua refers to both land and placenta, demonstrating deep interconnectedness and nurturing relationships between humans and the land.
- Nourishment

Papatuanuku and Ranginui: Co-primal parents of everything, reinforcing the connection between humanity and the natural world.
- Whakapapa creates direct links to the environment.
  - Matches the theory of evolution
    - However, entities like mountains are not considered to be alive
      - Nazi thinking also drew from Darwin’s thinking (eugenics)
        (British invented concentration camps)
        (Also forced sterilisation of indigenous peoples)
- Their children often embody aspects of the environment
  - By humanity descending from them, it relates the environment to them
- Wai was created through their gried at their separation
Depictions in Māori cosmology:
- The first human creation is from the Earth, emphasizing humanity’s intrinsic ties to the environment.
Discussions on artworks and cultural symbolism (such as Robin Kahuke’s Whakapapa of Water).
- Represents creation and interdependence of elements.

Tangaroa: Personifies the ocean, his offspring depict significant water origins.
- Connection between land and water is evident in genealogies.
- Different types of water has its own whakapapa (Parawhenuamea)
Spiritual Significance of Water:
- Linked to individual and communal identity, well-being, and spirituality.
- Bodies of water are seen as living entities with their own mauri, mana, and autonomy.
- Tears of Rangi and Papa
- Each body of water has its own identity

Water is crucial for rituals and balancing tapu (sacred) and noa (ordinary).
- Mitigating between the two was fundamental to Maori society
Seen as a medium for purification and spiritual transition.

Kaitiaki: Concept of guardianship extends to both humans and nature, emphasizing reciprocity in care for the environment.
Environmental practices include prohibitions against waste disposal into water bodies.
Distinctions between what is considered pollution versus natural interference.
Belief water is an indicator of, not only the well-being of the water, but the surrounding area
Taniwha are kaitiaki
- Decentres humans

Discussion of modern challenges related to land and water, including water rights and environmental laws in New Zealand.
- Reflections on the Waitangi Tribunal and its stance on water as a taonga (treasure).
- Tikanga also changes and adapts to change
Global perspective on environmental exploitation contrasts with Māori values regarding communal and environmental responsibility.

Māori worldview questions the assumption of ownership and domination over nature, suggesting instead a relationship of respect and stewardship.
The concept of water as a measure of well-being that is interconnected with the health of wildlife and ecosystems.

Examination of Māori terms for different types of water, each with implications:
- Wai: Water in general.
- Wai Māori: Freshwater. (does not emerge in traditions initially)
- Wai Keno: Polluted water.
- Wai Tai: Saltwater.
- Wai Araki: Therapeutic or curative waters, highlighting their value.
Places are often named in relation to their water e.g. Waikato, Aoraki, Waimakariri

Mihi and Pepeha: Introductions that establish identity through relationships to land and water, indicating how integral the natural world is to Māori identity.
- Structure and order: Land and water first, before identifying human relationships.
Rather than stating the mountain you own, it is the mountain you belong to

Emphasis on how these discussions about land and water in Māori thought offer alternative frameworks for understanding environmental interactions.
Preview of future lectures that will build on these themes.
In Maori thought, you cannot own land and water
- Selling is unheard of because you have a relationship with the land

Considerations on the nature of existence, interconnectedness, and the pools of knowledge that extend not only in theoretical discussions but also through direct relationships with the land and water.