Mau rākau
mau rākauA Māori martial art with traditional weapons such as the taiaha and patu, which according to the Te Ara encyclopedia has been undergoing a renaissance since the nineteen-eighties.
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About Mau rākau
Mau rākau is a Māori martial art with traditional weapons, which Rangi Matamua describes in the Te Ara encyclopedia (2013) from the training of children through the para whakawai schools to its modern revival. We have not found a founder or year of origin in the sources. According to Matamua, the weapons were made of wood, stone and bone. The best-known two-handed weapons, the taiaha, tewhatewha and pouwhenua, usually measured one to two metres, and short one-handed weapons were collectively called patu. A fighter with a patu wrapped his free arm in a thick woven mat that served as a shield.
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According to Matamua, children were woken unexpectedly at night and struck with a stick so that they stayed constantly alert and learned to avoid blows. In para whakawai, recruits learned battle formations, weapons, offensive and defensive movements, and also the rituals and rules of conduct of Māori warfare, and fought in practice battles with reeds instead of real weapons. According to Matamua, the taiaha and similar weapons quickly became obsolete with the arrival of muskets. According to NZHistory, the Musket Wars took place between 1818 and the early eighteen-thirties. Since the nineteen-eighties, according to Te Ara, mau rākau has been undergoing a renaissance, carried among others by Mita Mohi with a programme on Mokoia island and Pita Sharples with the school Te Whare Tū Taua o Aotearoa in Auckland.
History
According to Rangi Matamua (Te Ara 2013), the taiaha and similar weapons quickly became obsolete with the arrival of muskets. According to NZHistory, however, the first muskets were unreliable and slow to load, so warriors with the taiaha and patu were at first more effective. When the Ngāpuhi first used muskets around 1807, they were defeated by the Ngāti Whātua. The so-called Musket Wars took place, according to NZHistory, between 1818 and the early eighteen-thirties, and thousands of Māori died in them. According to Matamua, some tribal areas kept their own traditions, passed down among only a few chosen individuals. According to Te Ara, a renaissance of mau rākau has been under way since the nineteen-eighties, and Matamua names as living experts who preserved the tradition Irirangi Tiakiawa, Pita Sharples, John Rangihau, Matiu Mareikura and Mita Mohi.
Technique
According to Rangi Matamua (Te Ara 2013), the emphasis was on skilful footwork called rakanga waewae. Long two-handed staffs of hard maire, rātā or kānuka wood were usually one to two metres long. The taiaha was richly carved, decorated with red kākā feathers and waero dog hair, and ordinary members of a war party did not use it. The tewhatewha was axe-shaped, and a bunch of feathers hung from a hole in the blade to distract the enemy. Warriors feinted a thrust with the point and then turned the weapon around, and fights with the tao spear mostly ended in injury, not death. With the mere pounamu, according to an older source cited by Te Ara, the warrior tried to seize his opponent by the hair and drive the sharp end of the weapon into the temple. The kotiate is, according to Te Papa, a variant of a short striking weapon, whose name most likely derives from a shape resembling the lobe of a human liver. According to the National Museum of Australia, kotiate were mostly made of whale bone, often also of wood. Other weapons included, according to Matamua, the adze toki and kōpere darts, and the warrior chose a weapon according to personal preference and build.
Training
According to Rangi Matamua (Te Ara 2013), children were prepared for war by being woken unexpectedly at night to stay constantly alert, and by unexpected blows with sticks to learn to dodge strikes. Training consisted of games, namely running, jumping, diving, throwing stones, climbing, boxing and wrestling. Para whakawai was a school of traditional weapons where recruits learned battle formations, weapons, offensive and defensive movements, and the rituals and rules of conduct of Māori warfare. In practice battles they used reeds instead of real weapons. According to Te Ara, young men learned the incantations hoa rākau and mata rākau, meant to make warriors swift of foot, and karakia were recited over weapons to make them tapu.
Today
The para whakawai programme on Mokoia Island came into being, according to Te Ara (Matamua 2013), under Mita Mohi in the mid-nineteen-eighties. In the same decade Pita Sharples founded the para whakawai Te Whare Tū Taua o Aotearoa at Hoani Waititi marae in Auckland. According to Matamua, only a small number of para whakawai are in operation, mostly within a tribal framework. Taiaha and patu are used today by kapa haka groups, and handling the weapon is part of their training. In the wero ceremony the warrior displays a weapon and lays down a taki, a symbol of peace, which the guest picks up. Te Atarau Cassidy writes in the Otago Daily Times (2023) that he trains at Te Whare Tū Taua o Aotearoa, whose style, in his words, derives from Ngāti Kahungunu.
Did you know
In 1885 the Ngāti Maniapoto chief Wahanui presented Prime Minister John Ballance with a taiaha as a weapon of peace (Te Ara 2013). At the end of the nineteenth century, according to Te Ara, a taiaha master fought a horse artillery officer, who was a swordsman, in the restaurant of the parliament building, and the duel lasted exactly 30 seconds. Colonel Arapeta Awatere used the ancestral taiaha Tūwhakairiora in the wero ceremony for Queen Elizabeth II at Waitangi in 1963. According to Te Ara, Pou Temara was in 2012 considered the only living expert who uses various weapons in the oratorical whaikōrero. According to Matamua, making a long weapon took months, and a stone patu more than a year. According to Te Atarau Cassidy, the pouwhenua is in some tribal accounts the first rākau whawhai ever made.
Frequently asked questions
What were the weapons for mau rākau made of?
According to Rangi Matamua (Te Ara 2013), they were made of wood, stone and bone. Long staffs were made of hard maire, rātā or kānuka wood, and kotiate were mostly made of whale bone, according to the National Museum of Australia.
What was para whakawai?
According to Te Ara, it was a school of traditional weapons where recruits learned battle formations, weapons, and offensive and defensive movements. In practice battles they used reeds instead of real weapons.
When did the revival of mau rākau begin?
According to Te Ara, a renaissance has been under way since the nineteen-eighties. In the middle of that decade a programme on Mokoia island was set up under Mita Mohi, and Pita Sharples founded Te Whare Tū Taua o Aotearoa.
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