He Aitaka a Tāne Archives - Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu

He Aitaka a Tāne
Mānia – Hardy sedge makes a soft, warm bed

Mānia is a densely-tufted, hardy, grass-like sedge that historical records suggest was mainly used for bedding and waist belts by Ngāi Tahu. Botanical references describe it as a very distinctive ornamental grass with colours ranging from shiny to dark green to yellow/green, red/green, bronze, and various shades of brown or golden brown, depending on the source.

He Aitaka a Tāne
Pātōtara – The perfect sweet treat

There are not that many native New Zealand plants that produce a sweet and tasty fruit that you can pick and eat straight off the plant.
Pātōtara, a prickly low-growing shrub, is one of the few. Its juicy yellow/orange berries that ripen in summer and early autumn were once a popular sweet treat for Māori and Pākehā children, in the days before they could buy confectionery from the corner dairy.

He Aitaka a Tāne
Korokio – As tough as wire-netting

In Māori tradition, the leaves of either korokio or karamū were used in a ceremony to lift the tapu from foods. The hard wiry wood from its intertwined branches was fashioned into fish hooks, and also made into knives to pierce the skin in treating battle wounds or injuries.

He Aitaka a Tāne
Sacred māpou – popular choice for ceremonial blessings

It was one of several rākau tapu from which tohunga routinely plucked a sprig, dipped it in sacred water, and sprinkled the water from the sprig onto people or items that required cleansing, with an appropriate karakia or blessing. The same ritual would be followed for a tangi.

He Aitaka a Tāne
Wharariki easily mistaken for versatile cousin

Although they are widely known as flaxes, wharariki and harakeke are actually lilies. The two species are usually found in different environments, but do cross-breed and hybridise. Horticulturists have bred many coloured ornamental forms that are widely used in landscaping, and some well-known cultivars used by weavers are hybrids.

He Aitaka a Tāne
Tussocks offer unlikely shelter in a storm

Before human settlement of Aotearoa, the dominant cover of higher alpine grasslands was large snow tussocks of the Chionochloa family. At lower altitudes, sub-alpine grasslands were primarily dominated by short or low tussocks (less than 50 cm), including a taonga species for Ngāi Tahu – silver tussock (Poa cita) – and hard tussock (Festuca novae-zelandiae).

He Aitaka a Tāne
The binding powers of Akatorotoro are easily overlooked

Akatorotoro is a Ngāi Tahu taonga plant that is easily overlooked in the bush, because of its habit of clambering all over its neighbours on its climb into the forest canopy.

Its thin young vines, when green and pliable, are strong and extremely durable, a primary natural resource used by Māori for all manner of lashings and bindings. Sometimes vines were selected, trimmed, and steamed in an umu to make them more pliable, as the lashings dried hard and rigid.