Kaitiakitanga
Up to this day, iwi(tribes) and hapū(sub-tribes) are still practicing Kaitiakitanga to support our environment and Māori culture; even some schools in New Zealand focus on learning more about Kaitiakitanga!
What is Kaitiakitanga?
To begin, Kaitiakitanga is the New Zealand Māori term for guardianship or protection—it is to take responsibility for the land, waters, skies and nature of the world, to protect it for our future generations.
If we break down the words, Kaitiakitanga got its name from the prefix ‘kai’ meaning a person doing an action, ‘tiaki’ means to guard, therefore, ‘kai’ with ‘tiaki’ creates the word ‘kaitiaki’ which is defined as a person or a group that is a guardian. Along with kaitiaki, comes the suffix ‘tanga’ which means conservation; together, they become Kaitiakitanga.
Kaitiaki of the Environment
Speaking of kaitiaki, not only does this just apply to people but also animals and other beings that take care of the environment too. For instance, taniwha are guardians of the waters and other areas.
To be a Kaitiaki of the environment is to be a practitioner that takes mana, tapu, and mauri into consideration—they are the key concepts that support Kaitiakitanga.
Mana is a spiritual power, in the context of Kaitiakitanga, it can be shown in forests based on its nature, animals, and the fruit it bears; for example, if a forest’s overall environment is thriving, it has great mana.
Tapu on the other hand is a spiritual restriction; One type of tapu is rāhui, it can take roles in forests to create temporary/non-temporary restrictions or bans to food sources so you don’t take too much which would lead to the source going extinct or having a hefty reduction of it.
Lastly, we have mauri, a life force; mauri allows life to grow including fruit, birds, flowers, etc. Back then, forests were taken care of with great responsibility, so much so that sometimes a tohunga(priest) would do a ritual such as a karakia over a mauri stone in forests, which is believed to maintain the forest’s life force or to ‘revive’ a forest containing not much life. People especially protected its mauri for its forest mana to flourish.
How Māori practiced Kaitiakitanga
Practicing Kaitiakitanga involves harvesting in moderation by taking only what is needed—not hunting and fishing as a sport, but for food. There were other practices too, for example, using a maramataka(lunar calendar) to decide when the time is right to plant and harvest, not using bird snares when birds were breeding, using the proper baskets used for gathering food, rāhui on food sources, and more. Often, only once a year, tribes would fish with a large net strung between two canoes.
To conclude, Kaitiakitanga is an important practice that helps people maintain their relationship with the environment around them, to become kaitiaki, to look after Papatūānuku and her land.