Aro-Mind

I dont think the real purpose of whakapapa is to explain the world and its phenomena - although it could be used here, and there are good reasons to do so. Ultimately, I think the purpose of whakapapa is to bring us to an experience of the world, to bring us into some kind of accord or relationship with the world. An essential feature of 'indigenous' knowledge is the degree to which the natural world seems to speak into and influence human creativity and activity. Whakapapa, I think, is about bringing us to this experience - of kinship with the world.

There has been a tendency to see whakapapa as similar to 'history', that is, as a way of explaining the past. It is possible that our ancestors were not so concerned to explain the past but rather to make sense of the presence through whakapapa. As a series of actions, whakapapa (stories, genealogies) is about clothing and adoring the present - so that we come into some kind of relationship with the present world. Whakapapa is a ritual about the world coming into being in our present reality. Hence, past, present and future are fundamental concepts in whakapapa. One way to illustrate this is by thinking about Ranginui (sky father) and Papatuanuku (earth mother). If whakapapa is about the past (like history), then as one went 'backwards' from the individual, through their human ancestors and toward Rangi and Papa, one would go 'backwards' through time (if whakapapa was about the past). However, as Rangi and Papa are ever present - they are right here with us now ...

Whakapapa is a term used to stand for a fund of stories and related genealogies created and maintained by Maori to explain and understand the world around them. This fund of stories and genealogies relate the origin and nature of phenomenon and the purpose of existence; they provide ethical and moral guidance and serve as the basis of the behaviour of the culture. Whakapapa is a vast pool of information about everything in the experience of the human person - from the macrocosm (the origin of the world, for example) through to the microcosm (the way thought arrives in the mind, for example). This statement needs some working on. Words like 'origin' need discussion and clarification which will be the topic of subsequent blogs.