Overview
The sacred bond between Papatūānuku, the earth mother, and a Māori child is acknowledged by burying the whenua or placenta in a special place such as under a designated tree. The significance of this is captured in the term that describes the native inhabitants of New Zealand, tangata whenua, literally meaning 'people of the land'. It is present also in the idea that people and land are inseparable.
According to Māori lore the iho, which is the umbilical cord, was severed at birth by a female attendant using a sharp stone of flint, chert or obsidian. This stone was usually retained for the same purpose for the next generation. The whenua was ritually bound with makahakaha, a plant that grows on sandy beaches.
Elsdon Best writes that if an infant's iho was buried, it was marked with a wooden post or stone and the place was named for the child, 'in other cases it was placed in a cleft in a rock or tree, often on a boundary-line of land on which the infant would have rights of ownership' (1). For instance, one hapū of Ngāti Tūwharetoa place their whenua in the branches of a huge 300-year-old karaka tree, a practice that is itself centuries old (2). Ngāti Kahungunu has a tuahu, or sacred place where the iho of all infants were deposited.
'The spot was marked with a stone, under which was a small rectangular pit lined with stones and covered over with a flat stone;' Best says (3). Certainly no one could walk over the whenua or iho without spiritual consequences. It was part of a world view entirely different to that of the surveyors.
As a modern response to an old custom, Māori artists have developed the ipu whenua or whenua pot, which is a repository for whenua, iho and pito (the withered belly button). This particular pot was made by Wi Taepa of Te Arawa, Ngāti Pikiao and Te Ātiawa, who worked it from clay and then used flax muka tassles and bone to adorn it. It is a bulbous, pit-fired, earthenware vessel with crosshatched markings etched onto the surface and a large opening at the top in the form of a wrapped cloak. As Wi Taepa has said of this new form, 'I was looking for another medium than wood for carving. I found it in clay, the body of Papatūānuku' (4).
Still experimenting, Wi Taepa says that pots are like people, each with its own character. 'We are all too fast in putting people into categories' (5). His life experience, which includes two tours of duty in Vietnam and working as a prison officer and self-taught carver, has led him to value differences. As he says, 'To look at people as individuals and that is how I would like people to look at my pots' (6).
Born in 1946, he graduated from Whitirea Polytechnic in 1992 with a Diploma in Craft Design and now teaches there. He has also been artist in residence at Whanganui Polytechnic and has recently become known for his widely-exhibited ceramic work.
References
(1) Best, Elsdon. (1975). The Whare Kohanga and its Lore. Wellington: Government Printer. p 19.
(2) David Young. (1988). Sacred Sites, NZ Listener. 30 January.
(3) Best, Elsdon. (1975). The Whare Kohanga and its Lore. Wellington: Government Printer. p 20.
(4) Adsett, S. and Whiting, C. (1996). Mataora: The Living Face. Auckland: David Bateman. p 110.
(5) The Dominion. (1994). 5 March.
(6) The Dominion. (1994). 5 March.
Text originally published in Tai Awatea, Te Papa's onfloor multimedia database (1998)