In this second part of my conversation with Tū, we discuss Māori ritual experience and traditional clothing. Tū also addresses common misconceptions about traditional Māori markings.
We left off our conversation talking about cultural appropriation and representation. Here in part two, Tūranga explains what it was like to get facial moko, or traditional Māori markings (i.e. tattoos).
He outlines his unexpected spiritual experience and how his life has changed since getting moko.
He also describes traditional Māori clothing and how it has gained cultural significance over time within his community.
In case you missed it, here’s part one of the interview.
Discussing Māori Markings, Dispelling Misconceptions, and Traditional Clothing
Here’s the second half of my conversation with Tū:
Ryan: How has your moko [traditional markings — i.e. tattoos] changed your daily interactions with people? I imagine you get to a point where some days you’re at the grocery store trying to buy bread, and you feel sick of people staring.
Tū: All of a sudden, I can’t walk out the door without somebody looking at me.
Of course, as a touring musician as well. I get to go to places that I’ve never seen before.
I always preface that the only times I’ve ever had negative experiences have been in New Zealand.
Though, of course, if I’m in the middle of Belgium or somewhere and I get a weird stare from an old lady, I’m not going to be that offended. People in many places have never seen anything like it.
In a way, I think I’d be almost a bit ignorant to expect anything less sometimes.
I was well aware of what I was getting into. So, I’m not going to go out there and complain every time somebody looks at me.
Sometimes we get people who get the moko on the face when they’re not quite ready for the public side of it — how it changes your everyday life.
You almost become a Māori ambassador by default.
That’s right. You change.
Once upon a time, I was in university partying out in the streets, drunk, in the middle of the morning.
Not anymore. With face moko, you become instantly recognizable, at least in our country, as Māori. If you’re causing any issues, if you’re causing any headlines, you wouldn’t be “just a guy” you’d be that “Māori guy”.
And further you’d just add to the perpetuation of negative stereotypes and negative associations.
The other interesting thing is that, for someone like me, without moko I wouldn’t be instantly recognizable as Māori.
After getting moko, lots of Māori, now more than ever, will come up and be like, “Oh, wassup G?!”.
It’s sparked a lot more interaction on a day-to-day basis with other Māori than I ever used to have.
In my experience, it’s been relatively positive. But I’m also not really somebody who is uncomfortable with people looking at me anyway. So, the stares are not something I’ve noticed that much.
Then again, when I’m out walking with my girlfriend, she really notices. She doesn’t like it.
Maybe I’m just oblivious to it more than somebody else might be. But I’ve had pretty sweet experiences. Of course, again, I acknowledge that I also do have white skin. My general experiences in public have been very different than if I had a brown body.
Speaking of moko, you and I have both had rite of passage-type experiences.
It’s kind of sad that most people don’t have that kind of experience, that kind of rite of passage.
Yeah, it’s a little sad. I guess it’s a little sad sometimes that, for many people, there’ll be nothing that significant that happens in their lives. They have nothing in within themselves that they can really treasure like that, you know?
When it comes to getting moko without understanding the significance, you can get it, but it’s a shame that you don’t see the significance in it. It’s also a shame for others who judge without having anything significant to compare it to. That would cause you not to care.
If you have something to compare it to, you’d think, “Oh, wow, this is this significant.”
I think the same thing when people don’t appreciate incredible architecture. You go to a cathedral that’s 800 years old. I’m not Catholic, but I go in and think, “This is powerful.” There’s a certain feeling.
I think about how some of my ancestors might’ve built this amazing edifice. It seems like so many people just don’t care.
I can’t fathom it. Like I said, I’m an atheist. But, when we tour Europe, we see those stunning cathedrals.
Even though I don’t believe in what a cathedral represents, I can still acknowledge its beauty, and its grandeur, and its power.
Sometimes people just don’t want to go in purely because of what they’re associated with.
What I do is imagine it’s something that I do feel that way about. It’s that comparison that makes it special for me.
It’s remember what it’s like to walk into a beautiful marae and the feeling that I get. I just apply the same openness, I suppose, when walking into these grand cathedrals.
I think that it’s so close-minded to shut out an experience like that just based on your initial reaction.
People often do that when they encounter someone with moko, right?
Yeah. They see this rich, beautiful culture that maybe it’s different than what they would personally do to themselves.
It’s very telling when someone has a negative immediate reaction without looking into things…
What are the biggest misconceptions about people with moko?
I would say that these are the two main ones:
First, most people just get tattoos for whatever reason that they want. The thing that always shocks people is that we don’t pick the design. Just picking a design yourself that you think looks good goes against everything that moko represents.
But, easily the biggest misconception is always the gang thing. People look at you and wonder if you’re in a gang.
The reason is a combination of things. Internationally, face tattoos are generally associated with gangs.
But in New Zealand, at least, our history was that back in the 60s and 70s, gangs brought moko back. Moko, at that point, was nearly non-existent. Governments were telling us that we couldn’t have it. They tried to teach us that it’s a savage practice.
So they went and started getting…
Moko. But unfortunately, at the same time, they were still doing all the gang stuff.
All the violence, all the drugs, all the things that come with real gangs. Then, a few generations who had never seen moko before were seeing it on the news on someone involved in criminal activity.
So it was in the late 70s when the artists realized that it was not a great image to have. It’s not a great image to perpetuate when the practice didn’t represent this stuff at all.
On one hand, it was great that they were getting it because it showed Māori that we could continue to get these things done. But at the same time, it caused all sorts of problems.
There are still people alive who associate it with that era.
It seems like a lot of people think that these practices are somehow new — either really new or really old. They don’t realize that it was only something like 70 years when they weren’t around.
The rest of the time it was there. Right!
People say, “Oh, it’s an old, bygone thing.” Well, really, from the 1900s to 1970, that is the only time we didn’t have it.
We had it for a thousand years before that, and we’ve got it now. But that period was enough to do so much damage.
It’s the state that it’s in now is because of a meager 70 years out of a thousand years of history.
You said you were interested from a young age in the culture and in Moko.
When you saw yourself with moko for the first time, what was that experience like?
It’s so difficult to describe that sensation.
Me and my mum got ours done on the same day. Mine was first and took about six hours. It’s eight hours all total but six hours on the needle part. And then hers was 45 minutes.
People always ask, “Did it hurt?”
Well, the obvious answer is yes, but the hidden side to that was that I actually don’t remember the first four hours or so.
There’s a creation story as to why we get moko versus the anthropological reason why.
When you lie down on the table, the artist tells you to put yourself in the position of the man who got moko. He goes through this journey throughout the story. At the end of the journey, he brings moko back to the physical world from the spirit world.
So he tells you the story and then he tells you to put yourself in in that man’s position and go through the journey and then come out the other end with moko. So I was doing that.
It was almost like a meditative state. And this is from someone who, again, like we mentioned earlier, is atheist in his religious belief and up until that point relatively non-spiritual too.
That moment was like something I’d never experienced and haven’t experienced since.
It was like I was in no man’s land. I was goneburgers for four hours. I don’t remember a thing. I don’t remember the pain, I don’t remember anything.
Then I got hungry at four and a half hours in, and that broke my concentration. After that it was hell on earth!
Every time I think about the pain, it’s only the last hour and a half or whatever. The spiritual environment of that scenario was so intense.
Even when loved ones have died, I never saw those environments as nearly as spiritual.
Then, when the artist finally said, “you’re done”, a whole range of emotions came flooding out. I don’t think they can manifest themselves in any way other than crying.
It just all comes out.
Of course, there’s the physical element. It’s a relief that you’re out of the uncomfortable situation.
There was something else, I don’t think I would say I felt transformed or that I felt like a different person. I just felt more whole.
I felt more of who I should be. Not that I felt completely different, but in that emotion comes the sensation that you will be treated completely differently.
I know that, from that moment forward, out in the everyday world, my life will no longer be the same. I know I’ll face both positives and negatives.
I had my family there. My brothers and my cousins performed the haka for me, and that’s always very emotional. So there was a lot of crying. It was probably like 20 minutes of just crying.
Then mum had to wipe away the tears and dry her face and get on the table herself.
We waited an hour, and then it was crying all over again!
So it’s a very indescribable sensation. It’s an elation. It’s relief. But there is also sadness.
None of my grandparents were alive to see it — grandparents that didn’t have moko. Obviously, my grandmother didn’t, as a Mormon, but she was also someone who was proudly Māori.
So you know, there is a kind of sadness that they were never around to see these things, and also that they were never comfortable enough in their lives to have them either. Her grandchild would be one of the first people in the family to pick up our cultural traditions again.
Do you attribute the meditative state in the beginning to something metaphysical that you can’t explain?
It’s more of just like experiencing these things that are probably ancient and experiencing my culture in different ways.
It’s one of those things that to this day, coming up on three years since I had it done. I still can’t quite explain it because I already had moko elsewhere. I had both my arms done before I even got on the table. I had my throat done, and I’ve had my stomach done since.
Even though they’re all moko, none of them were like having my face done. They were just any other day on the table being in pain.
I wonder when, in theory, I’m supposed to finish off the rest of my face. I wonder if I feel that spiritual feeling again. Perhaps that was purely reserved for that initial part?
Obviously, the face in general in modern society is big on its own.
I think getting a face tattoo, regardless of what it is, is a big thing to do. Let alone a face tattoo with a whole lot of weight behind it.
Wow, that’s an awesome experience.
What other misconceptions do people have about it?
One of the things we do get a lot is that, like, when you google moko, it’s predominantly the articles will predominantly mention chiefs and people of high status.
A lot of people think that only chiefs can get facial moko, predominantly. It came about from a bunch of mistranslations and subconscious developments that just happened throughout time.
Since it was lost for so long, some of the only people that we still had pictures of to reference were chiefs.
Even a lot of Māori today wonder, “Can I get it? I’m not a chief.” And I always say, “No, you don’t have to be a chief. That’s not a real requirement, but it’s a huge misconception.”
Are there other expressions of Māori identity? Clothing perhaps? If so, is there a debate about cultural appropriation surrounding them as with moko?
Yes, there is Māori traditional Māori clothing.
They’re woven cloaks made out of flax and woven with feathers. These days, of course, they’re predominantly modern materials. You can make them out of a whole range of things, but once upon a time, it was flax fiber and feathers.
Back in the day, they were just everyday Māori clothes — what we wore to keep warm. They were essentially blankets that you could tie around yourself.
However, they came in different “levels” depending on the bird feathers.
If a bird was harder to kill, its feathers went to the chief.
Today, you get the association of certain cloaks with certain statuses or hierarchies.
Most Māori today just wear normal everyday clothes, which surprises people. Some people, I think, still think we’re in the mud huts with grass skirts.
But, it’s very popular to get a Māori cloak for your school graduations to wear over your graduation gown.
The cloaks aren’t exclusive to Māori, though. You know, normally, when it comes to the context of non-Māori, you get some caveats. But, again, it depends on who you ask.
In general, if it’s gifted to you by someone Māori, then go for it. Wear it.
Normally, seeking it out yourself is a bit more frowned upon. But take our prime ministers, for example.
There was plenty of photos yeah, and there was plenty of circumstances where our last prime minister, Jacinda, was wearing one. You’ll see photos of her in our Māori cloaks all around the world.
Do you ever wear one on stage?
Not on stage, because they’re long — they’re from your shoulders down to your knees. But I have one.
My mom weaves, so my mom’s learned to weave them. That’s what she does now that she’s retired. She sits up, and she weaves them all day. So I had one for my graduation and things like that.
I don’t think that Māori are hostile when it comes to things like our clothing and even our jewelry. Definitely, moko is the one that people will get upset about a lot more often, but it’s got a different history.
We had our clothes the whole way through, because they were just clothes. In modern times, I think, they’ve been sort of elevated to a higher status of significance.
Everyone’s had one of these once upon a time. It was just what we wore. You look at the old photos, everyone’s got one of these cloaks on because it was cold. Whereas, these days they’re mainly reserved for special scenarios.
So you don’t see them in the grocery store?
That’s right. Where in theory, we could. Right?
In theory, we could put it on and just go outside if we wanted to. But, they’ve become affiliated with formal or celebratory settings. I think that’s the modern evolution of these things.
Conclusion
Thanks to Tūranga for taking the time to answer my questions. I hope that you enjoyed learning more about Māori culture. I also encourage you to learn more about your heritage and to consider what makes your culture unique.
Leave your questions and comments below!
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