'You don't throw Tangaroa's koha back': Burial of beached whales at odds with tikanga

Wednesday, 26 October 2022

Since a dead sperm whale was found on a Coromandel beach, it has been towed to a new site and iwi have begun stripping its carcass. Video first published October 26 2022.

The carcass of a sperm whale lying in the surf of a Coromandel beach has sparked new calls for a review of cultural practices around beached whales.

The parāoa (sperm whale) was found on the banks of Matapaua Bay, about 15 kilometres north of Whitianga on Saturday.

By Sunday, Hauraki iwi Ngāti Hei had towed the remains of Puhiwai Rangi, the tohorā (whale), to Wharekaho Beach to rest in front of their marae before deciding what to do next.

It was expected that the tohorā will be buried, but the sheer size of the 40-tonne beast has made it difficult for the iwi, the Department of Conservation and contractors to complete the task.

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The sperm whale was towed to the southern end of Wharekaho/Simpsons Beach on Sunday, after it was found on Saturday, washed up at Matapaua Bay.

Following karakia and formalities on Wednesday, Ngāti Hei, with the help of Ngātiwai, has begun to carve up the taonga, beginning a traditional cultural harvest.

The burial of dead whales has become a practice most iwi engage in, however this contemporary tikanga is not rooted in the tradition, an expert says.

Ramari Stewart MNZM not only remembers the way of her ancestors, she has lived experience.

Dr Ramari Stewart receives her honorary doctorate from the University of Auckland for her work around whales by weaving together mātauranga Māori and Western science.

Stewart has dedicated her life to the preservation and growth of mātauranga Māori practices around tohorā, has fought for the right for Māori to return to the beaches despite legislation designed to prevent iwi from exercising their rangatiratanga, and earned an honorary doctorate from the University of Auckland for her mahi, weaving together indigenous knowledge and Western science.

She has also had a new species of whale named after her in 2021 – Ramari’s beaked whale.

She says it’s time for a review of the contemporary guidelines that Aotearoa follows during a stranding, to align more closely with traditional practices.

There is a societal expectation that beached whales are buried, Stewart says, but that has created issues for cultural preservation.

“The historical tikanga was that they [the tohorā] offered themselves to us. He taonga nā Tangaroa [a gift from Tangaroa],” Stewart says.

When tohorā offered themselves to tangata whenua, they were not interfered with other than to remove bone or hinu (fats, oils) for healing and other traditional practices.

“The whole relationship was disconnected once the legislation appeared.”

Tohorā are considered to be a gift from Tangaroa, god of the sea. Muaūpoko care for a beached whale on Hokio Beach west of Levin. (File photo)

The Marine Mammals Protection Act of 1978 put a stop to the tikanga Stewart was raised to follow.

She learned the old practice and values of handling live and dead whales from her elders. She did not want to publicly share the mātauranga of her iwi, saying it was knowledge to be shared at wānanga.

However, Stewart remembers the shock she felt when the new legislation was being prepared in November 1977, as she arrived at Hariki Beach in Te Kaha to help her whanaunga after a mass stranding of pilot whales.

“When I got there it was shock horror because the bulldozers had arrived and there was a guy from the Ministry of Ag and Fish there running around saying it was against the law.

“It changed my life forever, the fact that it criminalised the [customary] practice for live and dead whales.

“A few years later when I looked into it, it wasn’t even an act, it was a bill before Parliament, so they were moving pretty quick.

“It was all designed to prevent us from having access to whales because the value of resources had shifted, teeth were worth money …”

Stewart says that what Māori learned from whales, dead or alive, that came into shore, helped them to understand the condition of the sea.

Ngāti Hei are working with Ngātiwai and the Department of Conservation to harvest from the tohorā.

“There’s a huge amount of things learned from dead whales. If you bury them all, and don’t actually learn anything about the state of the moana.

“They were left to naturally separate where they landed. A lot of time was spent observing the decomposition, waiting for the bones to slip. This is how we learned so much about the decomposing carcasses, they weren't recognised as a biohazard as we recognise them today.

“That mātauranga, much of it has been lost because of the lack of ability to practice around these things.”

Ngahiwi Tomoana is working to restore Māori cultural rights, knowledge and practices.

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Today, pressure is put on hapū to itemise what they wish to recover before burial, such as the jaw bone of a sperm whale, rather than observing what the tohorā might have to offer, Stewart says.

“There’s mātauranga that our people are not learning because the way strandings are managed has changed, so the experience is not there. It’s only there in a limited capacity by naming a resource that we may wish to recover but, historically, they were not a resource, they were regarded as a taonga.

“Before 1978 our people ate fresh whale, so all of the knowledge that was associated with that has been lost or disconnected.”

A mass stranding on October 10 left 215 whales in the northwest corner of Chatham Island.

Section 4 of the 1987 Conservation Act allowed for some partnership between rūnanga and the Crown to ensure Māori were allowed back on the beaches to carry out some aspects of tikanga, but the traditional ways of her tīpuna (ancestors) have almost been lost, Stewart says.

“Māori do have the opportunity to recover, the problem is a lot of the skills have been lost. My whole life has been dedicated to getting this back.”

Ngahiwi Tomoana, a rangatira of Ngāti Kahungungu, also remembers the old ways.

His whānau alongside six other iwi claimants took the Wai 262 claim to the Waitangi Tribunal seeking the protection of Māori interests in relation to a wide range of cultural knowledge and cultural practices, as well as in their relationships with indigenous flora and fauna.

As a member of the descendants group, Te Taumata Whakapūmau, Tomoana says the protection of tikanga around tohorā could return through the next steps of the iwi-Crown negotiations.

“We should be able to use every part of the whale that was stranded, but under the Marine Mammals Act, we've got to bury it, so we’re losing all that mātauranga Māori, we lose all that rongoā and the reo around the tohorā,” Tomoana says.

In early October, more than 400 whales were stranded on the Chatham Islands. Many were euthanised and left to decompose on the beach due to fears of shark attacks to people and the whales.

Tomoana said the tohorā were a gift, but the inability of iwi to follow their traditional tikanga was a waste.

“It's a koha. You don't throw Tangaroa's koha back.

“If we can just get one thing at a time over the line like that, it'll be a real bank of resource and knowledge, of healing, of rongoā, of reo, of tikanga, and stop the wastage.”

Stewart says it’s time for a review of the management of both dead and live whales to align closer with historical tikanga.

“What I want to do is develop some customary guidelines for dead whales and live whales. Hopefully I can draw on the past to give it the mana for a contemporary practice.

“I don’t think anyone expects to go back to the old traditional approaches, however, there is much that we can learn from those traditional approaches, and I don’t think we’ve looked hard enough.”