TAPU BROKEN

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21184, 3 November 1938, Page 4

TAPU BROKEN

Centennial Canoe Action of White Women Deep resentment and indignation has been expressed by the Maoris of the Waikato at what they call the desecration by pakehas of the hulls of some of their canoes which are being built for the Centenary. The hulls of four of these canoes, the last necessary to complete the fleet of seven which Te Puea Herangi. C.8.E.. is having built for the Centenary, are lying completed in the busfi near Taupo, ready to be transferred to Ngaruawahia, there to be finished. Te Puea said that she had seen a photograph of white women sitting on the hull of one of the canoes. She pointed out that though, doubtless, that act had been done in ignorance, it constituted a deep affront to Maori sentiment. She added that those canoes were tapu, and until the tapu was lifted they could not be touched by women. More than that, not even the site where they were being made could be visited by women. That was in accordance with ancient Maori custom—a custom which still survived strongly and which meant a very great deal to the Maori people. Evidence of Tapu In ancient days there was a very exact ritual connected with every part of the building of the Maori war canoe—the taua waka. Even the very tree, after selection, was sacred and | was never approached until the time came for the making of the canoe. The craft was intimately bound up with the conception of Tane, god of the forest, and any breaking of the tapu might have grievous consequences. Though these canoes were built in modern days, yet something of that sentiment has remained. A visitor was being shown the site where the hulls had been hewn from great totara trees. To approach one end of the hull it had been necessary to cross the carpet of chips left after building operations. The Maori who was building the canoe, and who was showing the visitor the site, would not even carry his bundle of lunch across the chips, so deep was his veneration for the ancient tapu. To bring food near to anything tapu was an act of desecration. For months, while the four canoe hulls were being shaped in the Taupo bush, the Maoris lived in a camp which they had built for themselves to house a party of 17 persons, men and women, who had gone from Ngaruawahia to do the work. Not a single woman from that camp, in all that time, had ever been near the site of the canoe making. This was furtner evidence of the inviolable law of tapu. Other Examples Given In March of this year, his Excellency the Governor-General, Lord Galway, rode in the war canoe Te Winika, down the river to the pa at Ngaruawahia to open the great carved house, Turongo, of the Maori King. Her Excellency was the first woman of either race to enter that house, but before even she could enter, tapu, by an exact ceremony of a form unaltered for centuries, had previously been lifted. Even Te Puea Herangi herself, the inspiration of that new house and of ”.e canoes alike, could not enter Turango until the tapu had been Iff 1 —!; and she had to watch the house taking shape for some two years before she was permitted to pass through the door. She, too, had visited the camp near Taupo, but she has never seen the hulls of the canoes. Scrupulous care was taken by the Maoris at the camp to prevent any strange foot from coming near the canoe-making area. Any stranger had to prove his bona tides before he was allowed near the camp, and even those who were not strangers had to show that they had the permission oi Te Puea before a near approach was allowed. This was possible only while there were guardians for the canoes. When they left, there was no one to keep watch, and so the desecration occurred. When these facts are put in their true perspective from the Maori point of view, it will be seen how deep an offence was given. Let it not be thought that what they have said is so many words It us a belief which has come down to them unchanged through the centuries.