Birthing and Newborn Ceremonies

Te Whanautanga mai/From the Birth

When a high ranking woman conceived, there was rejoicing in the village and community and special presents were made²⁶ to mark the continuance of the aho ariki, the chiefly line²⁷. In ordinary whanau, there were less civic displays of joy.

Indeed Maui could recite his brothers’ names to his newly found mother because he had heard their names when he was in her womb²⁸, so the positive whanau messages were communicated to the foetus. This belief holds today. At the Hato Petera workshop conducted by Te Kahui Mana Ririki in Northcote in March, 2010, a young man said that his mother told him that she talked to him in Maori while he was in the womb and when he came out, he knew the language.

This likeness of Papatuanuku and the placenta indicates the spiritual interaction of the two. Birth was recognised as a time of great significance as whakatauki indicate:

Both are ika toto nui (fish which bleed a lot) and, in times of stress, give the same evidence thereof. This is also an indication that childbirth was considered a dangerous time for the mother and the child and not a ‘natural, carefree’ event.

There were, but rarely, two whare built for the birth³⁰. The first, roughly built whare kahu or kakahu, was pulled down and burned immediately the baby was born. The second was the more solid whare kohanga (nesting house) where the women usually gave birth with midwives and where the nursing of the baby took place. During the birth, the helpers chanted the same ritual chant as Hineteiwaiwa did in her birthing time, thereby including her in their lives³¹. After the birth, there were four ceremonies which emphasised the special and tapu nature of babies, sealed the path that the child was to take and emphasised positive messages to the baby about him or her self.

Nga Kawa/The Rites

The Tua Rite for the cutting of the cord

The first of these ceremonies was called the tua (the cutting of the cord). The
newborn babies, both male and female, would be told in a karakia how their special abilities would enable them to carry out the expected goals in life. In this example to a boy, the word tangaengae (navel cord) is repeated at the end of each line:

There is also an additional list which was more peaceful and useful for kainga life:

• to produce food for thyself, to build a large house, to build a war canoe, to welcome visitors,
• to make nets, to catch fish, to net fish.

These personal and civic goals were for the growth of this male child³². For the sons of the well born, then, there were the double expectations – that of being a warrior and a domestic producer. They were taught early about group and whanau responsibility.

The tua incantation for a female child showed the wishes for females:

The girls were also under the influence of Tumatauenga. This incantation did not mention the skills she might need for war activities. She was also expected to sometimes carry firewood, a task usually reserved for slaves. Women were also sometimes paddlers of waka which women often did when they were out line and net fishing.³³

The Koroingo or Maioha or ‘the greeting of the infant’ ceremony

The second ceremony Koroingo or Maioha was “the greeting to the infant” ceremony after the iho or cord dropped off, after about 8 days. The highborn mother would sit in the porch of the house with the newborn on her lap and the welcome speeches were made and waiata and pao (chants) were sung which linked the child’s birth to the creation of the universe.

The next lines talk about the food crops, usually those gifted to the child on the day, and the maramataka (calendar) of the crops which were a necessary part of skills the child would need. The parents were congratulated and if it was a first-born boy or girl, then special gifts were given³⁴.

The Tohi Rite or the dedication to the atua

The tohi rite was a dedication ceremony where the parents chose which atua would help the boy in this world, usually Tumatauenga, the god of war, or Rongo, the god of peace and agriculture, or Tangaroa, god of the sea. The baby was taken to a stream and ritually sprinkled with water with a branch of the karamu. The tohunga then recited an incantation “which invoked manly qualities of strength, endurance, and bravery for a male child, skill in domestic crafts for a female…”³⁵. The girl was ritually dedicated to Hineteiwaiwa and Tumatauenga and others like Rongo and Haumietiketike. Best³⁶ says that the child was named at this ceremony but Buck³⁷ says that this was not always the case. Marsden³⁸ says that this consecratory act endued the person with mana.

Maori Baptism Ceremony by Louis Auguste de Sainson. Image credit: https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22728764

The Pure Rite or confirming the mana

The pure rite was invoked to fix the spiritual powers or make mana permanent and was held at the parent’s house. The cloaks and clubs of the family wealth were laid out and the tohunga chanted the ritual chant with mythological references which laid the foundation of knowledge the child was to acquire. The boy was called to enter the tapu sphere of the Supreme Being and learn the higher knowledge contained in the three kete of knowledge.

Similarly, the girls were exhorted to follow the same paths. After the speeches there was the hakari or celebratory feast.

All of these birth rites bound the child to the whanau and the whanau to the child. The baby was surrounded by positive messages which showed that the parents and whanau knew what they wanted for the baby and their life. The adults, too, were constantly reminded of the special nature of the child. Hineteiwaiwa was thought to be the first woman to become a ruahine, a high ranking woman who removed an excess of tapu. A house could be made safe to live in through this action.⁴⁰

The content of this web page was originally published in the Traditional Maori Parenting report published in March 2011 as commissioned by the Office of the Children’s Commission (OCC). The content is republished here with their permission as copyright owners of this work.

You can download the whole report from the OCC website.