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Ko ngā tauira e kitea ana mō te mana wahine ki te hapori Māori o mua?

I whakamahi ngā wāhine i te mana, te mana whakahaere, me te whakaaweawe puta noa i ngā tūmomo āhuatanga o te ao ōkiko me te ao wairua i roto i te pāpori Māori tuku iho – e tūtohua ana i roto i ngā tauira huhua i tukuna e ngā kaikōrero i roto i ngā nohoanga tūāpapa. Ka kōrero ngā kaikōrero mō ngā wāhine e whakaatu ana i te mana i roto i ō rātou tūnga hei rangatira i roto i ngā whānau, ngā hapū, me ngā iwi; mā ngā mahi whakahirahira, me ngā mahi hanga noa; mā te huhua o te mātauranga i whiwhi rātou, ā, i tuku iho ki ngā whakatupuranga e whai ake ana; mā te whakapūmau me te tārai i te whakapapa; mā te tū hei kaitiaki o te whenua; mā te moe i te tāne, ā, i te ao wairua anō hoki; ā, mā te whakawhānau me te whakatupu i ngā whakatupuranga e heke mai nei.

Ka kī hoki ngā kaikōrero:

Blanket made by witnesses who appeared at hearing one, Turner Centre, Kerikeri, February 2021

Ngā kaiwhakaatu matua i tuku i te taunakitanga

Ka miramira a Te Kahautu Maxwell (tuhinga A46) kei te iho o ana tātai whakapapa katoa te mana o te wāhine – i roto o Ngāi Tai, o Tūhoe, o Ngāti Awa, o Ngāti Porou, o Ngāti Maniapoto anō hoki.

Te Kahautu Maxwell giving evidence at Tūrangawaewae Marae, Ngāruawāhia

Ka kī a Dr Ani Mikaere (tuhinga A17) e kitea whānuitia ana ngā kaupapa o te whakaira, te hāputanga, me te whānautanga i roto i ngā kōrero huhua o ngā iwi mō te waihangatanga, ā, e kawe ana ērā i te hiranga o te wahine mō ana tūpuna. Ka kōrero ia i ngā tauira o ēnei kaupapa i roto i ngā kōrero mō Hineteiwaiwa, me tana tipuna Waitohi, i whakamahi i te mana whakahaere tōrangapū ina tohutohu ana i tana tūngane, i a Te Rauparaha.

Dr Ani Mikaere giving evidence at Turner Centre, Kerikeri

Ka hoatu taunakitanga a Hinemoa Ranginui-Mansell (tuhinga A129) mō ngā whakaaturanga o te mana wāhine i roto i te whakapapa o Whanganui / Haunui-a-Pāpārangi, tae atu ki ētahi hapū, whare tūpuna, kaitiaki hoki e tapaina ana mō ngā wāhine, me ngā waiata, kōrero tawhito, pūrākau, whakataukī, whare whakairo huhua hoki e kōrero ana mō ngā wāhine. Ka whakamārama ia he tūnga whakahirahira tō ngā wāhine i roto i te hautūtanga tōrangapū i roto i te pāpori o Whanganui i mua i te tāmitanga, tae atu ki te whai wāhi ki ngā whakamataaratanga tauā me te maungārongo.

Ka whakaatu a Tina Ngata (tuhinga A88) i ngā taunakitanga mō te hiranga o ngā wāhine i roto i ngā whakapapa o Ngāti Porou, otirā Matakaoa. Ka kī a Ngata ahakoa i pōhēhē ngā kaimātai mātāwaka tōmua he tāmarutāne te pāpori Māori tuku iho – me te whaimōhio ki ā rātou tirohanga Pākehā – ka kite tonu rātou i te maha o te hautūtanga wāhine i te Tairāwhiti. Ka tautuhi hoki a Ngata i te horanaku puta noa i Ngāti Porou hei hāpono ki te tūnga whakahirahira o ngā wāhine, ā, ka kōrero mō ngā hapū me ngā whare maha i tapaina ai mō ngā wāhine puta noa i te Tairāwhiti.

Tina Ngata giving evidence at Te Mānuka Tūtahi Marae, Whakatāne, pictured with Mereana Pitman (left)

Ka tukua a Ripeka Hudson (tuhinga A128) i te taunakitanga mō ētahi wāhine hira i roto i ngā kōrero tuku iho me te whakapapa o tōna hapū, o Ngāruahinerangi. Kei roto i ēnei ko Rongorongo, tamāhine a tohunga rongonui o Rangiātea, a Toto; me Ruaputahanga, i te ora i te mutunga o te rautau tekau mā ono, ā, ko te tino pūtake i whakakotahitia ngā tātai o Aotea me Tainui.

Ripeka Hudson giving evidence at Waiwhetū Marae, Lower Hutt

Ka whakaatu a Tiaho Mary Pillot (tuhinga A91)  i te taunakitanga mō ngā wāhine hira o Ngāti Hotu, e hāngai ana ki ngā kōrero a tana kuia, a Tiahuia Ruby Te Ahuru (1895-1971). I kōrerotia a Hinekapa, Hinemihi (e tata ana ki te 1650 te whānautanga), Rangikowaea Te Wharerangi (e tata ana ki te 1798 – 1886), me Te Maari II (1817-1829). Merle Maata Ormsby rāua ko Daniel Whetu Ormsby i te taunakitanga mō te tupuna kotahi.

I tautuhi a Dennis Ngawhare (tuhinga A117) i te ihotanga o ngā wāhine ki te whakapapa o Taranaki. I āta kōrero ia i 'Te Ara Tamawahine', e kōrero ana mō ngā tātai whakaheke wāhine o te whakapapa, me ngā ao o ētahi wāhine tīpuna hira nō Taranaki Rauhoto Tapairu, te tohunga Rahiri-mihia, te kuia Ueroa, me te kaihautū Raumahora.

Dennis Ngawhare Pounamu giving evidence at Waiwhetū Marae, Lower Hutt

Ka tuku taunakitanga a Hana Maxwell (tuhinga A69) mō ētahi wāhine rangatira o Ngātihau i tūtohua ō rātou mana e ētahi tohu whenua puta noa i te rohe o Ngātihau, pērā i te wairere i runga i Pukepoto (Te Rere a Matamoe) e whakamaumahara ana i te whānautanga mai o Matamoe. I kōrero hoki ia mō ētahi wāhine i taunaki mō ngā poraka whenua huhua tae atu ki Hirana Paraha, i noho ki Huiarau, te wāhi o te pā site ki Ruapekapeka, ā, i kōrero mō te poraka o Huiarau i roto i ngā whakahaerenga ā-ture.

Hana Maxwell giving evidence at Terenga Parāoa Marae, Whangārei

Ngā kōrero a ngā kaiwhakaatu

  • “Apirana Mahuika opens his thesis on the female leaders of Ngati Porou by asking the question why so many hapū and so many marae and whare tipuna are named after women. The answer lay in their whakapapa which followed the principle of primogeniture, however, unlike the reports of other iwi in which the male line is followed – in Ngati Porou the female primogeniture line is also followed.” (Donna Awatere-Huata, tuhinga A20, p 9)

  • “There are tribal herstories of women who are remembered for their mana and deeds to their iwi and humankind. Women such as Waimirirangi, Maieke, Reitu and Reipae from the North and Wairaka from the Eastern Bay and wider Mataatua wielded immense influence, power and control.” (Ripeka Evans, tuhinga A21, p 12)

  • “In fact if you look across Ngāti Porou you will see that across our entire landscape, our people identify themselves through their female ancestors, and it is our female ancestors who have carried the mana whenua of our iwi. This is reflected in the numerous hapu, landmarks, wharenui and wharekai named after tipuna wahine.” (Tina Ngata, tuhinga A88, p 5)

  • “Our Wāhine were expected to develop roles beyond being mothers. We were strategists, military leaders, mediators, gatherers and hunters, midwives, warriors, healers, composers, political, weavers, landowners, mediators, gardeners, and balanced all of this within their spiritual domains.” (Paula Ormsby, tuhinga A55, p 18)

  • “In raupatu times due to the loss of the men, and two epidemics, four wāhine were recorded as leaders of the defenders of the whenua. These wāhine were Matarena, Te Reita, Wikitoria and Tiria. These wāhine were defenders of their whānau and hapu and their whenua and [this] is a reflection of the roles that wāhine held in precolonial times.” (Tracy Hillier, tuhinga A92, p 18)

  • “Women were politically active and played important roles in Māori political life, but cultural assumptions about politics as a male endeavour erased women from the archival record.” (Professor Angela Wanhalla, tuhinga A82, p 2)

  • “Māori women’s writing and testimonies from the post-1840 period often refer to their traditional roles as political and community leaders in earlier eras, and to female ancestors as exemplars. For these reasons, letters, petitions and testimonies created after 1840 are valuable measures for interpreting Māori women’s political and community leadership, their mana and authority, pre-1840.” (Professor Angela Wanhalla, tuhinga A82, p 5)

  • “Hundreds of petitions were sent to the government, many led by Māori women, over the nineteenth century. These also provide evidence of women’s political and community leadership. Women who possessed mana through illustrious whakapapa felt no qualms about speaking for their people: it was their responsibility to use this mana for the benefit of their people and often on a wider Māori stage and one way they did this was through collective petitions. The majority of these petitions emphasised that women had the ability to own land, direct its future, and to control it. Women were used to exerting authority in communities and over land.” (Professor Angela Wanhalla, tuhinga A82, p 16)

  • “Wāhine were crucial to the formation of the inter-hapu assemblies, known as Te Wakaminenga, that helped drive the unification of those who joined in declaring Māori tino rangatiratanga to the world.” (Titewhai Harawira, tuhinga A68, p 5)

  • “These tūpuna kuia of Taranaki demonstrate mana wahine in the traditional society of Te Ao Kohatu. Their examples show how important wahine were to maintaining and growing rangatiratanga over the whenua, of resources, of ceremony, of making war and for negotiating peace. They were exemplars of behaviour for their descendants.” (Dennis Ngawhare, tuhinga A117, pp 3-4)


He mea nui ake te mana i te ira

  • “The status of rangatira was based upon merit not gender. The mana that it brought was not the authority to control, but the power and deep responsibility to protect.” (Titewhai Harawira, tuhinga A68, p 3)

  • “Leadership is not defined or circumscribed by gender in te ao Māori but can be inherited or achieved. There were female ariki, such as Ngāti Porou’s Hinematioro. Ngāti Porou scholar Api Mahuika says such women are assumed to be the exception to the rule of male leadership, but he argued that evidence from tribal whakapapa and traditions show this is not the case. He gives the example of hapū named for female ancestors: Ngāti Hinepare, for instance, derive their mana through tracing descent from this female ancestor and Ngāti Hinerupe are named for a woman who displayed personal qualities of leadership.” (Professor Angela Wanhalla, tuhinga A82, p 4)

  • “When studying whakapapa lines, without scrutiny, it is easy to get genders confused because the language is non-gendered and difficult to know whether the names are male or female, unlike western naming which operates along different lines. Western genealogical records invariably invisibilise and silence women (undertaken as a norm in Western history) and that practice of invisibilising through silencing has culminated in women’s exclusion from power. But roles were much more fluid and less gendered in Māori societies.” (Mere Skerrett, tuhinga A137, pp 8-9)

  • “A great deal has been written about Māori leadership, and much of that has implied a quite distinct gender qualification. That is, Māori leadership, in terms of day-to-day control and authority, has been defined as a primarily male domain. … However, if we look at other works we are offered alternative perspectives. For example, Mahuika has written about the Ngati Porou experience. He points out that early writers focused attention on primogeniture through male lines as a precursor for leadership, and presents the case of his own tribe, where leadership is both inherited through senior female lines, and leadership by women has been achieved.” (Dr Ella Henry, tuhinga A63, p 28)

  • “Unlike the colonised treatment of history where patriarchy has (and continues to have) paramountcy, in pre-colonial Taranaki Māori society gender was not a determinative feature of mana or status. Rather, the distinctive roles of tāne and wāhine each contributed to the wellbeing of their whānau, hapū and iwi. There is little evidence that mana was solely centred around a hierarchical concept of leadership, that is, via a single autocratic leader model. Mana was way more varied and complex that that and was also determined by what Taranaki Māori communities prioritised and valued.” (Aroaro Tamati, tuhinga A131, p 2)

  • “Women were accorded mana through their actions and behaviours in addition to their inherited mana, in much the same way as men were.” (Tina Ngata, tuhinga A88, p 6)


Moko kauae: he whakaaturanga o te mana wāhine

I tuarihia e ētahi kaikōrero ko ngā moko kauae he whakaaturanga e kitea ana o te mana me tūnga o ngā wāhine i roto i ō rātou whānau, hapū, hapori hoki. Hei tauira, ka kī ētahi he tāmoko tō Muriwai e whakaata ana i tana tūnga hei rangatira. Heoi anō, ka kī hoki ngā kaikōrero kua iti haere te mātauranga me te māramatanga ki te tikanga o te moko kauae hei putanga o te tāmitanga.

Ngā kaiwhakaatu matua i tuku i te taunakitanga

Ko Christine Harvey rāua ko Rangi Kipa (tuhinga A147) he kaimahi moko kauae i whakarato i te taunakitanga ngātahi mō te tīmatanga me te hiranga o te moko kauae. I tautuhi rātou i te moko – tae atu ki ētahi atu mahi toi me ngā āhua ahurea i roto i te ao Māori – hei pūnaha reo e whakaatu ana i ngā ritenga me ngā uara ā-pāpori, tae atu ki te tūhonohonotanga o te tangata ki te taiao, ā, tētahi ki tētahi. I tautuhi hoki a Harvey i te mamae me te momotutanga i wheakohia e ngā iwi, ngā hapū, me ngā whānau nā te pēhitanga o ngā tikanga moko kauae.

Rangi Kipa giving evidence virtually, pictured with Judge Sarah Reeves


Christine Harvey being supported by waiata at Ngā Hau E Whā, Christchurch

Ngā kōrero a ngā kaiwhakaatu

  • “Nō te wahine te mana tō te Moko, nō Niwareka kē te taonga e mauria mai ki te Ao Turoa nei. Mai tōnā whakapapa kē tēnei taonga tuku iho … He nui ake ngā āhuatanga o te Mana Wahine heoi ko te kauae he tohu mutunga o te pai kia kite ai tātou katoa. Ehara noa mō te tokoiti hē tohu mana tō ia wāhine Māori. E tae wahine mai. He tohu kia tū wahine, me tiakina hoki kia ora kia haumaru nā te mea he whare tangata.” (Rangi Kipa and Christine Harvey, tuhinga A147, p 4)
    "Women exercise mana over moko because it was Niwareka who brought it here to the natural world. This ancestral treasure descends from her. ... There are many more aspects of Mana Wāhine but the most potent symbol is the chin moko which can be seen by everyone. It’s a powerful symbol for all Māori women not just a few. Come forth women. It urges women to stand and protect it so that it survives and is safe because they are the house of humanity." (Rangi Kipa and Christine Harvey, tuhinga A147(b), pp 1-2)

  • “[Moko are] language systems that perpetuate and maintain our societal norms that convey and carry our collective (but not limited to) ethics, values, norms, morals and codes of conduct.” (Rangi Kipa and Christine Harvey, tuhinga A147, p 7)

  • “[Kauae] was only a small part of the diverse practises of body adornment and modification, it is well documented in early lithographs from Cook and other voyages that Wahine Maaori wore moko of all descriptions on all parts of their bodies.” (Rangi Kipa and Christine Harvey, tuhinga A147, p 8)

  • “The distinction of rank is usually recorded in the tāmoko, enabling the mana and status of the wearer to be reflected. These include warfare skills, ability to unite confederation of tribes, whakapapa, high birth and history.” (Raiha Ruwhiu, tuhinga A93, pp 6-7)

  • “There may be occasions when tāmoko may be changed. An example of this is during the exploits of war, where the ultimate insult is for the enemy to change the tāmoko … A replica pou in the Opotiki museum shows Muriwai had a full tāmoko, full facial, arms, buttocks, thighs, legs like that of a male, there was no differentiation, which confirms her role as a wahine whaikorero, wahine whai mana. What I have observed is that the last moko kauae in our whanau and the hapu of Ngai Tamahaua is my great grandmother Hariata Parekaramu’s generation. There are many nannies with moko kauae in the photos that adorn the walls in our ancestral house Muriwai, but I am not sure of what generation they belonged to. One can assume that our Ngai Tamahaua definitely had women that were deserving, skilled, in matauranga Māori. My mother believed that moko kauae were reserved for those with a kauae runga practice, so she didn’t see the relevance of moko kauae with the evolving culture, especially given that the English language had changed the thinking and psyche of individuals. I often wondered whether the church had impacted her comments, or that the Anglican and Catholic church were exerting their dominance through Christianity telling Māori that tāmoko originates from the underworld and backing it with scripture.” (Raiha Ruwhiu, tuhinga A93, pp 12-13)

  • “The consistent practice of applying tribal markings, moko kauae, on wāhine Māori had been absent from Taranaki hapū and iwi for over a century. The dearth of tā moko practice is directly attributed to colonial confiscations, behaviour and practices and the negative effects experienced by wahine Māori in Taranaki.” (Ngaropi Cameron, tuhinga A113, p 11)

  • “Either as an adolescent or a young woman Mihi Ki Turangi (b 1836) got her Moko Kauae. It is in the design of Maniapoto, she had her lips done and has a line above her top lip.” (Mereti Taipana, tuhinga A130, p 4)