Weaponry is tapu
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- Student from Turakina Māori Girls’ College
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Are the facilities that the taonga are housed in tapu?
- Erana
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Just in regards to your question, that probably in the old days, yes, everything was very tapu with regards to our weaponry, our people going into battle, and even when they came home from battle. I’m not sure if you can recall when the Māori Battalion returned from the war overseas, how they were brought back, and we had ceremonies on our marae, and when they came into Wellington there were ceremonies. And those ceremonies were to take away the tapu of the killing that had just been done, and the participation in those particular wars. So up until that time, the use of our weaponry, and that, was still very tapu. However these days as some of our old people say, Jesus Christ came and made a lot of our tikanga easier for our people. And with that…with the way that we actually use our weaponry these days, as you can see it’s not so much in fighting frames, it’s more for more ceremonial purposes, and sometimes it’s for tourism.