Māori Healing and Herbal Archives - Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu
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Posts Tagged ‘Māori Healing and Herbal’

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.

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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).

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