Incompatibility between maoritanga and Christianity

Tu Tangata, Issue 27, 1 December 1985, Page 5

Incompatibility between maoritanga and Christianity

Na Ruka Broughton

Te Wairua Maori

\ A / airua Maori to me is where I can relate my own thinking to \ / \ / something that belongs to me and not to something that’s outV * side of me. A person is born with this Maori spirituality, it’s not something by choice, you don’t choose it. It’s how that thing is nurtured when you are growing up, that is the important part.”

Ruka sees an incompatibility between maoritanga and Christianity. "I don’t mean any disrespect to other religions but although some ways are compatible, it’s not always, you see it’s not meant to be. I’ll give an example of that. A chap came to see me the other night and said because I believed in the Maori gods, I would have to come back. He thought it was wrong because he was a true Christian. I told him it was good for him to feel that but it was because he never had the Maori side, the opportunity to nuture the wairua Maori.

"I think that’s where a lot of people argue against Maori spirituality. You see I sit on two sides of the fence. I’ve had the opportunity to see both sides pretty deeply. I’ve been an ordained Anglican clergyman for over twelve years, I’ve a degree in theology too. But I’ve also had the Maori side.

“During my ministry there were many times when the two clashed. For example the opening of a house in Kaiiwi. The karakia that I used then, I knew when I was a kid, because I was taught them. But I knew at the house opening I couldn’t use them, but I feel free to do so now. I'm fortunate that this wairua was cultivated in me to bring it out.”

Ruka says from around the age of eight he used to spend time with this kaumatua who taught him whakapapa and karakia. Ruka says his parents who were Ratana weren't big on encouraging this side. Instead of other childhood pursuits, his time was spent in the company of the old man, it was his recreation.

"We used to sit down and he would waiata, and I would follow him. and then we had some very serious times and I would go over in the night. We'd sit in the meeting house, we'd be there all night, and then he would condition me, it might be one of these karakia, he'd recite over and over again and gradually I would follow."

Ruka says his parents were against him learning the kakakia and blamed his sickness as a child on it.

"But I loved it. The old fellah kept on going with me with whaikorero, there were a lot of the old people alive then. He would cue me to stand up and whaikorero and I would get all mixed up and get hoha sometimes. As time went and he died, I was pretty strong on it. I was twenty three or twenty four and because there was nobody on the marae back home, I gradually took over talking on the marae.”

This nurturing resulted in a very knowledgable young lad who was known as ‘uncle’ at Te Aute College because of his ability to be able to let fellow school friends know who they were descended from and related to. A boyhood desire to be a clergyman was realised when he was asked to study for the Anglican priesthood. However it was here that conflict first showed its head.

"During this time I was pressed down by the doctrines of the church, the tikanga. I remember at one stage one of my fellow Maori clergyman telling my parishoners that he was against me wearing a tiki, where today it’s common to see whalebone tiki and all sorts. At that time people were more reserved about it. They saw it as part of the pagan mould. But to me it was ingrained, part of me. It is far more now because I am more free to express it.

TU TANGATA: Is this conflict between Christian tikanga and Maori spirtuality man-made?

"Ae, for a start you have the doctrines of the church and then there's the administration side of it. In the Maori side you haven't that to worry about."

TU TANGATA: How did you resolve this conflict?

‘‘l adopted a pretty general attitude but at the time I don't think people realised it too, that with some of the old people, the learned ones. My old fellow, if he

was performing maori ceremonies down at the beach, he was a Maori. He was a staunch Katorika (Catholic). At home we had church first, he would carry the Catholic prayers, then we would carry on talking and getting into the maori realm, there was almost no room for the Catholic side, I mean with karakia maori, whakapapa, the deep side of it, we were in a different world. In fact the old fellah doing his thing outside, there was Tane, there was Maru, Tamaroro and all the rest of them, they were more real to him. He was a Maori and the wairua came out of him. Yet if you discussed things ordinary with him he would say, ‘Ae ko te Atua, Ko Ihowa, and all the saints etc’.

“I suppose he was playing a double role like I did in the ministry. When it was a Christian thing I carried it to its fullness, and the maori thing likewise. But there were these hangups I had especially in the open, in hostile. It wasn’t so much the karakia I used but the philosophy behind. Some used to say to me, ‘No te ao kohatu era korero’, meaning from the pagan past."

Ruka thinks this opposition to the wairua maori came from the generation of Maori parents that took on the missionary fervour.

"My parent’s generation and a bit of my own were programmed to believe that there is only one hope for the people and that was Christ. And everything was based on that so much so that if you talk about anything maori well it belonged to the devil, the pagan world, ‘no te rewera, mahi tipua’. These were common sayings... then and perhaps still now with a lot.

"I came to a time a couple of years ago when I was thinking quite seriously of returning to the ministry and I knew I had to make a choice. My wife Dolly said you either do one or the other. So I finally decided to follow my maori side."

Ruka believes this basic conflict between wairua maori and Christianity is shown in the saying that Maori people don't have that problem with religion.

“You know that Katorika, Anglican can come here and pray together and recognise and acknowledge one another."

Ruka says when this is taken deeper, with say a hard-core Katorika and a

hard-core Anglican, it’s more likely that they will tolerate one another rather than accept.

“I really think the old people didn't see the seriousness in it, it was a wairua thing and as far as they were concerned it was ok, until it was later pointed out to them.

“One old dear, she was a prophet, she used to hate me going to see this old fellah. She used to say ‘he kehua’. But I told her, ‘it’s you making those things kehua nanny, you bring the devil out in those things, because you want to believe that it’s the devil's works. The Maori’s got no devil, no hell, not in the way you preach about.’

“I told her she was using it as a weapon against maoritanga, she had caught onto a lot of Christianity and was using that. I think the problem with a lot of religions is that they say come my way and become a pakeha. There’s not only an immediate spiritual change but also a cultural change in the person.

“Maori spirituality is where you can relate yourself. The parents of all things are Rangi and Papa, the heaven and the earth. This tohunga from Te Awara, Te Rangikaheke, says ‘kotahi te tupuna o te tangata', there’s one set of parents, heaven and earth. I think that’s where maori spirituality begins, with something natural. Everything about him, the trees, the stone, the animals, the birds are all connected.

“If I was telling this in maori it would be much easier....

“We all share a common whakapapa or evolution, ‘ka moe a Rangi i a Papa, ka puta ko mea ko ipea...’. We get down

to the birds the trees and ourselves. The thing is not whether it’s true or not but that we relate ourselves to the natural environment.”

Ruka sees Maori gods or atua as meaning a tua, something beyond, rather than some ghost running around the place.

“So the trees not only belong to Tane, they are Tane, same as the sea is Tangaroa and the earth is Papa. That’s where this Maori spirituality comes in, it doesn’t just involve myself a human being. For Maori belief is that everything has life, the stone, the trees, they have a mauri, and this comes out in the karakia.”

TU TANGATA: What is your view of Maori sections in the mainstream churches. Can true Maori spirituality grow in that environment?

“I think to have a proper environment operating is what the Anglican Bishop is doing. He has in mind to changing the prayer book and base it more on maori thinking, rather than just translating the english. I reckon once you start that you’re getting off the mark.”

At a kohanga reo hui Ruka was recently at, he spoke about not just translating ‘Humpty Dumpty’ because that wasn't getting anywhere, because every language has a philosophy that transmits the thinking that belongs to that language. He made up a waiata that transmitted the thought behind the ‘Three Little Pigs’ but in a maori way.

However Ruka believes that Maori participating in their Maori section of their church doesn’t resolve the incompatibility, it just postpones it. He says

Maori people are seeking that freedom of expression in their sections but when they come up against the inability of their church’s doctrine to accommodate wairua maori there’ll be problems.

“There’s only a certain amount of things we can use of our own culture, because, taking Christianity itself for example, it comes from another culture, it’s not ours. That’s why there must be some taupatupatu there somewhere.”

Ruka says with likewise with the other world religions, they cannot take the wairua maori far along the path because the come from another culture. He says the following that the Rastafari religion has amongst Maori young people only leads so far. And he says the largely pakeha upbringing that Maori children have now contributes to this lack of nuturing of the wairua maori.

Ruka enjoys verbal skirmishes with other ministers about the relevance of some of the cultural rituals in New Zealand churches. He says one day he asked a local priest who were the hundred saints he named in the liturgy.

For himself Ruka says it’s enough to stand on the marae and say, ‘E kui e koro ma i te po,’ because he is addressing the ancestors that he knows, or else is related to. He says they all mean a heck of a lot to him, but he doubts the significance of some of the saints remembered.

“I said when you rattle through those saints names don't you feel funny, some belong to Spain, some to Holland. Who the hell are they?

“He laughed and said, ‘You know, you’ve got something there’.

“I say this is where Rome's culture has been imposed on you and you’ve swallowed it hook, line and sinker.”

TU TANGATA: How then does the wairua of Aotoearoa assert itself today?

“I think our people, nga Maori have to first have a solid maori background in order to provide these things for themselves.”

But Ruka is doubtful that there is this depth of maoriness today. He says an example of this is Te Maori Exhibition in the States where there was all the ritual, and whaikorero associated with our taonga and they sung “Hoki hoki tonu mai’, just an ordinary lovesong. He says the song had nothing to do with nga tikanga maori which really is our maori religion.

“I was ready to start a poi off, something that belonged to the taonga we went to show off, that the country spent thousands and thousands of dollars on, and then they sing ‘Hoki hoki tonu mai’.”

Ruka says it’s because of this sometimes acknowledged conflict that maori ‘religion' should be revived for those that want it. He sees it as practise of tikanga maori as an ongoing thing, not one day a week. Waiata and karakia,

people don't realise this is all part of it, and for those who want to go further there are stronger disciplines that have to be observed.

And a crucial part of this has to be stop making comparisons with church, but think maori.

"It’s not an organisation, but more an organism.

"Your full awareness of your taha maori is your maori ‘religion’. These people are talking about the land, the reo, having a special tv station. I’m talking about the cheapest one of the lot and the one that takes less work, and that’s the wairua maori.”

Ruka says these Maori people are thinking about the organisation when they should forget about the organisation and think of themselves as people. He says too many chuck off at karakia, forgetting that as soon as you whaikorero, and karanga that is part of your wairua maori. He sees perhaps these have become part of the organisation instead of the practice. Ruka gives an example from his own life.

"When I got sick, some people blamed my taha maori, but I expected that. I told them that the pakeha doctors said this that and the other. When I went to the hospital the doctor said it was strange that I took the chemotherapy very well, never vomitted... and I told him I talked to those medicines just like I’m talking to you.

"My body is the tangata whenua and those are the manuhiri, and I ask my body, my spirit to receive those things because they are going to look after us.

"The doctor laughed at me at first but then he saw the positive side of it.

"This is central to the wairua, te korero ki taku tinana, korero ki nga rongoa. I actually talk. ‘Haere mai koutou, tomohia taku tinana, hei oranga mou’. It’s looked upon by some as mumbo jumbo but if you look at the working of the karakia, it’s just plain common sense.

"Most of the karakia are just a running commentary of a practical nature. One is 'Tenei te ara, te ara o Ranginui e tu nei, te ara o Papa e takoto nei, te ara o Rangi raua ko Papa e takoto nei, na rau te tapuwae o Tane ki raro, haere te po tenei te ata'.

"All that one is saying is, ‘here’s the pathway above, the pathway to Rangi, the pathway to the earth, recite the rituals of Tane, farewell to the night hello to the day'."

But Ruka says because this karakia is usually said in the pre-dawn and it's said in a monotone, ‘ah he kehua'.

TU TANGATA: You are suggesting that we should get back to an understanding of what is behind the karakia?

"Ae, admittedly there were plenty of things that did a lot of damage to our people because they didn't understand and even our tohunga didn't, but there were a lot of good things that they did, and along with those bad things a lot of

good things went too when they were discarded.”

Ruka says partly the programming of the missionaries and partly Maori misunderstanding resulted in Maori faithhealers and prophets being too ready to brand some tikanga maori as kehua or evil spirits.

"Our people became frightened of themselves, frightened of their culture, frightened of their tikanga, frightened of their spirituality and they pushed them aside, even their reo.

“I think an example is my kids talking to their grandmother. My belief is to talk maori to my kids. But their kuia talks pakeha to them, and tells them to forget their past, ‘your future is in the pakeha world’, and that's sad, that was the thinking that permeated that generation."

Ruka believes this thinking must be undone, not with the older generation but with the coming generation, to win back something.

He says this is what a lot of Maori people are doing, by their search through other religions for their taha maori. He says Ohakune is a good example, where there is a strong nucleus of Maori young people staunch in their Katorika roots and their taha maori.

But he believes the institution behind the churches will always want to call the shots. And he says he's observed that each race's religion throughout the world is bound up in their society. For the Maori people it was a society with many chiefs each looking after a cer-

tain specified area and this was reflected in their many gods for many areas.

But other races, he says, believed in the supremacy of the soverignty or one big boss for the whole empire. That’s why they found it easy to believe in one god. Their religion reflected their society.

Ruka sees the effect of this influence of pakeha religion was to make Maori people insensitive to their taha maori. He says this is not through ignorance either because he is speaking about people who know their taha maori. But he says through the environment, something is lost. He gives an example of where the Bishop of Wellington died and those old kuia came dressed in their flash frocks and furs. He asked them to karanga but they said, ‘oh no’. They had become embarrassed.

TU TANGATA: Where then can a Maori be in a maori environment, where this wairua can be nurtured?

"That’s a good question. People say you go to your marae but marae can only provide so much, but they haven’t got things that are on-going. I say again the strong Catholic group at Ohakune which is a good example of the two going along together. However even there it’s only compatible on the surface. Where you see the taiaha being taken up to the altar and blessed, you can see which is the stronger of the two, but I accept that for them cause I know them, but I don't think that is the answer for everybody.”

TU TANGATA: Where does the Maori ability to have different ministers and church rituals combining at hui fit into all this?

"Well it’s whanaungatanga, that is the wairua maori helping us to get along with one another. We share a common geneology and this brings us together.”

TU TANGATA: You said earlier on that you have now chosen the maori way. What does that entail for you?

"Well I see that some of the old ways, nga tikanga maori need to be revived. At the moment karakia is seen as a relish adding onto something else. I’d like it to be recognised as an official part of maori religion."

Ruka says now it’s seen as just a performance, very nice and really only ok for the stage, that sort of thing. It's.not seen in its proper context.

"I'd like it to be used in its own right, where it’s appropriate."

Ruka believes there are enough young people to transmit the knowledge to. He sees these young people going through much the same wananga he went through, that is going to certain people, learning over a period of years, so that they are properly prepared.

“I have already started baptising because of requests from people. It isn't a thing I rush into, the people and I have a long talk about it. Wairua maori, it's total commitment."