Part C: The Body, Literally

10. The head

The head is the most tapu part of the body. Always, in every person — and especially in a chief.

The everyday rules

And they are not theoretical. They are observed today, and have been largely absorbed by non-Māori New Zealanders too:

Do not touch anyone’s head — not even playfully
Do not pass food over anyone’s head
Do not sit on a table — because the table is for food, and the backside does not go there
Do not put a hat on a table — because the hat was on the head
Do not sit on a pillow
Cut hair and combs were objects of care

Note the logic: the rules concern almost all the non-mixing of head with food — and this is fully explained in the next chapter.

The preserved heads

There was a practice of preserving tattooed heads — toi moko. Two completely different uses:

Of one’s own dead — kept with respect, brought out in ceremonies, mourned. They were present ancestors
Of enemies — kept as trophies, with the possibility of future return as an act of peace

And the trade

In the 1810s–1830s, Europeans began buying them.

The demand from collectors and museums, exchanged for muskets, had the predictable consequences: increase in deaths, and — documented — tattooing of slaves for the purpose of killing and sale.

The trade was banned in 1831 by the colonial authorities in Sydney.

And the return is in progress. The national museum of New Zealand has maintained a repatriation programme since 2003 for ancestral remains from overseas institutions; hundreds have been returned.

11. Food as the switch

And here the system shows its real mechanics.

The rule

Cooked food is the most powerful means of neutralising tapu.

Food is noa — and not just noa: it is an active agent that converts whatever comes into contact with it.

So separation is compulsory

And everything previous is explained:

Separate building for food (chapter 1) — because the house is an ancestor and is not to be neutralised
Do not sit on a table — you are moving your body onto a food surface
Do not put a hat there — bringing the most tapu to the most noa
Do not store food where people sleep
Do not eat in a tapu place — cemetery, ruin, place of death

It is not hygiene. It is state management.

And the positive use

The same tool works deliberately.

After contact with the dead, after mourning, after entering a restricted place, after a tapu work:

You wash your hands, and you eat.

And the state closes. Not symbolism; the prescribed procedure.

That is why every ceremony in New Zealand ends with food, and this is not social courtesy: it is the technical step that closes the procedure.

The structural conclusion

It is, perhaps, the most elegant element of the system:

A culture built a protocol of managing dangerous states with as its sole tool a thing that everyone does every day, for free, together.

No specialist required. No equipment required. The meal is the switch.

12. Tā moko

tā moko — and this is not “tattoo” in the decorative sense.

The technique

Traditionally done not with a needle but with a chisel — the uhi, from albatross bone, which cut grooves in the skin and placed pigment.

The result is not a flat drawing. It is in relief — grooves that are seen and felt.

The process was extremely painful, done in stages over years, accompanied by karakia, and the person was in heavy tapu throughout — with restrictions on food and contact.

The forms

mataora — the full male face
moko kauae — the female, on the chin and lips

And the content

The design is not decorative. It is text.

It encodes: whakapapa, tribe and sub-tribe, position, achievements, specialty. And different regions of the face carry different information — one side the paternal line, the other the maternal, other places the office and the occupation.

An informed viewer read the face.

The signature

And there is the definitive evidence:

When the chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, several “signed” by drawing part of their moko.

The same in land transfer deeds.

The face was the identity document. And its reproduction was the signature.

The suppression and the return

The practice nearly disappeared under colonial pressure. The moko kauae survived longer among elderly women.

From the 1990s there has been a strong revival. Today the moko kauae is again common, and is worn in public — including by women in high public office.

And the term the tradition itself gave

kirituhi — literally “writing on skin”.

It is the term that the practitioners themselves use for designs in Māori style on non-Māori: permissible, beautiful, but not moko — because they do not encode a whakapapa that does not exist.

It is, I think, one of the cleanest solutions any tradition has given to the question of appropriation: it does not forbid; it names the difference.

(And as with every such issue, not everyone agrees — chapter 23.)

13. Hongi

The act

Two people approach, press their noses together — and often their foreheads — and remain so a moment. Once or twice, depending on the tribe.

What happens

The hā is exchanged — the breath.

And the reference is explicit to chapter 4: Tāne gave life to the first woman by breathing. The hongi repeats that moment.

And the function — which is not greeting

It is a change of state.

Before the hongi, the visitor is manuhiri — stranger. And the stranger is, in the terms of chapter 5, potentially dangerous: unknown state, unknown tapu, unknown intention.

After the hongi, they become tangata whenua — one of the people of this place, for as long as they are there.

Not “hello”. Change of status.

And the whole sequence

The hongi is a step in a reception ceremony, the pōwhiri, which has a fixed order:

wero — the challenge. A warrior approaches and lays down an object. Whether you lift it correctly declares peaceful intent
karanga — the calling, by women, from both sides; high-pitched, drawn-out
whaikōrero — the speeches, with clear rules of sequence
waiata — the song that supports each speaker
koha — the offering of the visitors
hongi
And finally: food

The structure is perfect

Note what the sequence does:

It starts with controlled hostility in open space, passes through word and song, reaches physical contact, and closes with a meal.

That is: controlled transition from tapu to noa, with every step named, with order, with a responsible party, and with an explicit end.

It is chapter 5 and chapter 11, executed.

14. Tangihanga

The most resilient Māori institutional practice — and the one that has receded least of any.

What happens

The dead person — tūpāpaku — is brought to the marae and remains there, typically three days, in an open coffin.

And:

Is never left alone. Not for a moment, not at night
Elderly women sit beside continuously
The grieving family (whānau pani) sits to the side, visible
Groups of visitors arrive, one after another, each with a full pōwhiri

And the characteristic element

The speakers address the dead — in the second person.

They do not speak about him. They speak to him. They greet him, scold him for leaving, tease him, tell him what has happened since, give him messages for other dead.

And the weeping is loud and public. It is not restrained; it is expected.

The closing

At the end: hākari — great common meal.

And now you know what it does: whakanoa. The meal closes the tapu state of death (chapter 11). And washing follows.

A year later there is a second ceremony, with the unveiling of the headstone.

Why it matters

The body is not removed from the social space. It is not handed over to an institution, not hidden, not cosmeticised to look alive.

It stays, visible, at the centre of the community, three days, with people beside it the whole time.

And the transition from “member” to “ancestor” is done gradually, publicly and collectively — not privately and quickly.

And the institutional force today

The obligation to be present at a relative’s tangihanga is very strong and overrides nearly every other obligation.

And employers in New Zealand generally recognise it as grounds for leave — tangi leave is a understood category in the labour market.

It is the clearest sign that this is not a survival.