Toitū te Moko

As an indigenous people, re-claiming moko confronts and refutes the age-old myth of Māori as a ‘dying race’. It calls on us to recommit to our strong Māori identities, customs and traditions, and challenges the viewer to re-examine their social interpretations of moko and moko wearers. Kaituhi SASCHA WALL shares her personal moko haereka.

FROM A GROWING FASCINATION WITH TĀ MOKO, WHICH BEGAN WHEN I was in my early 20s, I held a quiet certainty that I would one day carry moko on my skin. For me, it wasn’t about being the right age or having acquired a certain amount of knowledge, it was about knowing, on a puku feeling, that I was in the right space to receive it.

The first tohu I received was while working in a museum. I was responsible for packing objects of historical significance from various collections in preparation for relocation.

One day, while working with a colleague, she found a box marked with an accession number that didn’t match the area we were working on. Curious, my hoamahi opened the box and we both gasped. Inside was a mau kakī comprised of several sections of sharp bone resembling the shape of large teeth, connected by a curved metal wire.

When we searched its accession number in the directory, the taonga was described as: ‘Moa bone mau kakī, made to imitate the teeth of a whale’. We struggled to comprehend a time in Aotearoa when whalebone was sparse and moa plentiful. Granted, moa became extinct in 1400, so it made sense that the taoka had been tentatively dated back to 1200.

Under the ‘more information’ section we read the mau kakī had been unearthed from a burial site in 1910, preceding the building of a railway line. The taoka was found by an eight-year-old boy who gifted it to his teacher. It was then donated to the museum in 1920. Knowing that the mau kakī held the breath of many generations, taken from an urupā not by right, I immediately felt the weight of its tapu.

In te ao Māori and in museology, handling taoka of a tapu nature requires blessing first and is not something to be taken lightly. I found the nearest sink and doused myself with water, quietly reciting karakia to whakanoa.

Although the museum had followed correct protocols and tapu had been lifted by mana whenua at the beginning of the relocation, I still felt a need to protect myself. Looking down at my wrists I visualised moko wrapping around both of them, representing my tīpuna, to invoke spiritual protection from items of tapu and to clear away any heavy energy.

When I went home that day I opened a note I’d left in my phone that read: ‘Tā moko – Renata Karena.’ Renata is a Ngāi Tahu moko kaitā based in Tāhuna, and I’d taken down his name after seeing his mahi on many people I knew from home in Wahōpai. I reached out to his studio that night and booked in.

A fortnight passed before I arrived at my appointment in Tāhuna. My kōrero with Renata was transformative. He wove together designs representing my whakapapa with pūrākau and intuitively traced them to complement the contours of my wrists. What he came up with was
almost exactly what I’d envisioned.

And although the appointment took several hours, I felt very little pain. They say this is what happens when the tīnana is ready to receive moko.

Sascha and her Papa, Geoff Young at Ōtautahi Tattoo studio, Tāhuna

I had my husband, my Nan, Papa and cousin with me intermittently throughout the day. At one point my Papa came to see me on his own. He didn’t say much; he never did. But as he got up to leave I watched him walk out the door and spoke about his recent terminal brain cancer diagnosis.

I turned and caught a shift in Renata’s composure – a brief rise of emotion and compassion. What followed was a quiet knowing between us, one that deepened the meaning of wearing my aroha
for my whānau, on my skin.

Several months later we celebrated my Nan’s 70th birthday. She had spoken for some time about feeling ready to get her moko kauae done, but had been waiting for the right kaitā. After being with me while I was getting my wrists done, Nan was confident that kaitā was Renata.

We organised for Renata to travel down to Bluff to give Nan her kauae in our wharenui at Te Rau Aroha Marae. Alongside our tīpuna on Papa’s side – Tamairaki, Renata took his time to trace the design of Nan’s kauae.

Surrounded by whānau, I watched as the ink was carefully placed on her skin – a peaceful and powerful experience.

Kieran Wall, Van Young, Geoff Young, Trish Young, Sascha Wall and Harper Young at Te Rau Aroha marae, Bluff.

Something about watching wāhine take their moko kauae makes you feel as if you’re a part of the process of them becoming who they were always meant to be. The first wahine in our bloodline for many generations, Nan rose from the table looking more like herself than she
ever had.

It was an honour for me to be present that day.

Sascha’s Nan, Trish Young, after receiving her moko kauae at Te Rau Aroha marae, Bluff.

Today in Ōtautahi moko kanohi, mataora and moko kauae are still viewed as an apparition of the past. Many people seem to be incapable of reconciling contemporary Māori with the moko-wearing kaumātua housed within gilded golden frames, painted by Lindauer or Goldie.

Despite its renaissance, there are lingering misconceptions about who can wear moko and why.
By far the most common is that it must be earned through being fluent in te reo Māori or having exerted an amount of effort (to an imaginary end) towards being Māori.

Although some iwi, hapū and whānau may have their own tikanga, for those of us who whakapapa Māori, moko is not awarded, it’s our birthright with every singular line of ink contributing to the patterns on our skin, telling the story of who we are.

A few months after wrapping up my mahi at the museum, I packed up and moved to Ōtautahi to begin a new role as Communications Advisor – Publications at Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu.

Not long after starting, my hoamahi and whanauka, Reese Harrison offered me the opportunity to receive moko from Tāmaki-based kaitā, Kairangi Ihimaera, who was visiting for a moko wānaka. Kairangi is known for weaving the feminine arts of raraka and tukutuku into her designs.

Looking for inspiration, I turned to our Ngāi Tahu archive, Kareao, and found a tukutuku panel made by weavers from Awarua for the Ngāi Tahu Māori Trust Board building in Te Waipounamu House in 1983. Titled 'Te Mana o Te Tītī,' it showed a large white manu leading a tītī away from the motu. At the top of the panel is a white motif of a manu, symbolising the ‘Hakuwai,’ a spiritual bird tied to the end of tītī season and believed to
guide them into migration.

Te Mana o Te Tītī’ tukutuku panel. Weavers from Awarua for the Ngāi Tahu Māori Trust Board building in Te Waipounamu House, 1983. 2019.0677.1, Ngāi Tahu Māori Trust Board Collection, Ngāi Tahu Archive.

I’d grown up hearing whispers of the Hakuwai: unseen, possibly extinct, with a cry that sounded distinctly like the rattling of heavy chains. Some say it may have been the South Island
Snipe.

At my moko appointment I shared the story with Kairangi – our shared whakapapa to Awarua gave the kōrero deeper resonance. To me, the Hakuwai represents humble, unseen leadership – qualities embodied by my late Papa, who quietly upheld the tikaka of our tītī island. His leadership and legacy have enabled our traditions to survive.

I chose to place the tohu at the centre of my throat, symbolising the guidance of my voice – which sometimes sits heavy in my chest – from my throat and into te ao. Despite being a sensitive spot, the process was gentle and peaceful and when I saw my new moko in the mirror for the first time I was blown away by how she wove such a rich story into a design so delicate and precise.

Moko kaitā Kairangi Ihimaera tracing the outline of Sascha’s moko

Wearing moko on one of the most visible parts of my tinana allows my whakapapa to speak before I do. I feel the power in this every time I meet someone new.

Growing up, my connection to my Māoritaka lived in fleeting marae visits with my Nan – moments cherished but brief. The rest of life kept me distant from my whakapapa.

At a Catholic school in Invercargill with very few Māori students, my whakamā shadowed my daily life. Now as an empowered wahine Māori, I look back at that girl with nothing but aroha and a quiet promise that our future tamariki will grow up knowing exactly who they are.

In a modern context, receiving moko is an integral part of our broader cultural and political resurgence, one that embodies our assertion of tino rakatirataka and mana motuhake. It reflects our collective aspirations in a political, cultural, social and spiritual sense, whether as whānau,
hapū, iwi or as Māori. In this context, moko becomes deeply rooted in a critical process of cultural regeneration, shaped and influenced by the political landscape of our time.

For now I wear my whakapapa wrapped delicately around my wrists and through the centre of my throat to encapsulate the people and the places from which I come. Rejoining the separate threads that were woven together to make me who I am, just as the skin rejoins after the needle cuts through the flesh, making me whole again, but different.

So, to anyone who believes we must be old, fluent in te reo, or have exerted an amount of effort, to an imaginary end, towards earning moko, especially moko kanohi, I implore you: lean into curiosity before practising judgement. If you are Māori, moko is your birthright.

ONE VERSION OF PŪRĀKAU – THE WHAKAPAPA OF TA MOKO tells the story of the ancestors Mataora and Niwareka. In this pūrākau, Mataora struck his wife Niwareka, committing the first act of domestic violence.
In shock, Niwareka fled to her father, Uetonga, who lived in the underworld. Uetonga insisted that in order to be with his daughter anō, Mataora must prove his bravery by receiving moko kanohi.
Mataora agreed and after his moko kanohi was done, the couple reunited once again.
This pūrākau reflects not only the whakapapa of tā moko but also the kupu we use for tāne moko kanohi – which is what we refer to as mataora.

By the eighteenth century, moko kanohi was distinct and varied and more common. This period saw the arrival of the Europeans who were fascinated by our traditional markings and thus began the trade of mokomōkai.

Māori heads were traded for firearms, ammunition, wool blankets and other newly introduced resources. The European arrivals sent mokomōkai home to museum collectors across the vast moana, just to sit behind glass for their cousins to look at.

Although the trade predominantly targeted men with moko kanohi, wāhine with moko kauae were also killed for the same reason. Naturally, in response to this threat, there was a decline in the practice of tā moko.

In 1907, the Crown established the Tohunga Suppression Act, a New Zealand law which aimed to replace traditional Maōri healing practices with western medicine. Under this Act, the practice of tā moko became illegal. The Act was not repealed until 1962.