Indigenous Intergenerational Resilience by Lewis Williams

Author:Lewis Williams [Williams, Lewis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Developing & Emerging Countries
ISBN: 9781003008347
Google: eLaZzgEACAAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-10-15T01:02:04+00:00

In this sense, rongoā is not just about “treatment.” Rather, it is very much about the lifelong journey of te taha wairua (spirituality) or “becoming,” which for many in neocolonial Aotearoa / New Zealand includes the continuing reclamation of what it means to be Māori. Kia Maia sums this up when she says rongoā Māori is as much about “knowing who you are, where you’re from, know[ing] your whakapapa and your culture … [being] involved in all the traditions of your hapū and your tribe … And your language.” For Kia Maia, an important part of rongoā Māori is also connecting to te taiao, through, for example, swimming in the moana [sea] and going up Mauao, the ancestral mountain of the three Tauranga Moana iwi. Elaborating on Mauao, she adds, “Mauao, I always go to as a rongoā for myself. This I believe is a spiritual rongoā. There is an energy that Mauao more than any other place gives me. It helps me to feel mentally and spiritually balanced.”

In its fullest sense, rongoā Māori is a state and practice which continuously enacts the principles of balance and reciprocity through attuning to the rhythms of te taiao. Hēmi O’Callaghan explains:

Our ira atua and our ira tāngata, our celestial and our physical realms are held in balance. Oranga and mate,8 life and death and all the cycles between. Understanding those cycles was all a part of our wellbeing and also a part of our nourishment. Like harvesting and star cycles. And tapu and noa and those times and states when we were in those places and how to actually deal with them.

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