(Image: Getty Images/Xoë Hall)

ĀteaNovember 4, 2021

Tīhei mauriora: the history and tikanga of our breath

Contributing writer

(Image: Getty Images/Xoë Hall)

Māori are among a number of cultures whose understanding of breathing goes beyond the simple act of inhaling and exhaling.

“Tīhei mauriora!” is a common expression in te reo Māori. It acknowledges the breath of life, and is expressed on the pae during whaikōrero or mihimihi. It refers to the Māori creation story when the first human was fashioned from clay in the form of a wahine. The hongi symbolises this first exchange of breath between atua and tangata.

From time immemorial, we’ve been aware of our breath.

There are many kupu for “breath” and its related functions. In his book Tikanga Māori: Living by Māori values, Tā Hirini Moko Mead defines “hau” as vitality of human life and vital essence of land, while he translates “hauora” as health, spirit of life and vigour. These explanations depict a Māori worldview that is intrinsically connected to the natural world. They connect us to the environment and weave our beliefs around hauora back to that very first breath.

“Hā” is another term associated with breath and breathing, but can also be used to mean essence, tasting and intonation.

Hone Harawira performs the hongi with fellow MP Parekura Horomia, Waitangi Day 2007. (Photo: Phil Walter/Getty Images)

Tei Nohotima (Ngāi Tūhoe), a revered expert and source of Māori knowledge, uses the kupu Māori “hēhē” for breath and breathing. In his younger years Nohotima was exposed to elders who were versed in traditional esoteric Māori lore. Referencing the kōrero of one of his teachers, Anaru Kupenga, Nohotima says Māori breathing techniques and beliefs are “how we receive and instill the breath of life”. He also refers to the late Dame Kāterina Te Heikōkō Mataira, a traditional knowledge-holder who taught him that “through breathing, we are giving light and energy into the atmosphere”. He also recounts how Dame Kāterina would describe goosebumps as the receptors and transmitters of energy.

Our mōteatea and pātere, two different forms of traditional Māori chants, are examples of cultural breathing techniques that have been practised and sustained over the generations, Nohotima says. Some chants are lengthy and require a unique type of fitness to recite while keeping in time with the fast-paced rhythm. He talks about how karakia demands knowledge and experience of nose breathing and engaging the diaphragm. These breathing techniques are widely practised by the many kapa around the country when training for and performing haka. Students of these cultural practices are often taught to breathe through their nose in order to maintain a steady flow, to sustain the tempo, to maximise the use of air and ensure that the words are being delivered correctly without disruption.

This mātauranga can also be applied in our daily life to improve our health by becoming more conscious and aware of how we breathe.

We often don’t think about breathing until it’s a health issue, or our significant other pulls us up about our wheezing when we’re out for a hīkoi, or when we’re called out for snoring during noho at the marae. It’s easy to fall out of sync with these natural bodily functions especially in the fast paced, tech-heavy modern society we’re living in. But new information is emerging about the benefits of focusing on our breath to improve our health.

Try taking a deep breath. If you inhaled through the nose, from your stomach or diaphragm, you’re on the right track.

Now, try breathing in for four seconds and exhaling through your nose for at least eight seconds, then repeat. This is the basis of the Buteyko Method, which recommends engaging in mindful breathing practice for four minutes, four times a day, every day.

Originating in the 1950s from Russian physician Konstantin Buteyko, the breathing exercise programme is based on the belief that hyperventilation, or over-breathing, is the primary cause of a number of disorders such as asthma, high blood pressure, sleep apnoea and panic disorders. Artist Nikau Hindin (Ngāi Tūpoto) learnt the Buteyko Method 15 years ago after suffering from sports asthma. She says she would hyperventilate and suffer from panicked breathing after pushing herself too hard.

“I didn’t have an asthma attack again. I’ve been a nose-breather ever since. It changed my life,” Hindin says.

Hindin says the key to improving the function of our hā is learning to breathe in and out through our noses, rather than through our mouths. She says it is a common misconception that CO2 is purely a waste product, but our bodies actually need it to “bump” the oxygen off the red blood cells, and push it into the cell tissue – our muscles – so we can create energy.

“Breathe through your puku,” she says. “A lot of us breathe quite high up in our chest, so it’s really important to use and exercise our diaphragm, because it’s a muscle, along with our intercostal muscles.”

The book, Breath: The new science of a lost art by James Nestor, published in 2020, has brought the discussion about nose-breathing into the mainstream. Nestor travelled the world looking at different breathing techniques from cultures across the world, including Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya and Tummo. The premise of the book is that many of us have forgotten how to breathe properly.

Using the mātauranga of kapa haka, karakia, mōteatea and te reo, we can relearn what our elders knew innately. Connecting it with contemporary knowledge and understanding about the breath from other cultures gives us an even bigger picture of its importance.

Tei Nohotima says we acknowledge the exchange of light and energy with our taiao every time we say “kia ora”, or engage in hongi. The uncertainty shrouding us at the moment can be suffocating, but in the moments when the taumaha weighs heavily on our chest, constricting our airflow, we can use these examples to help us breathe through it.

Follow Nē? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast provider.

Keep going!

(Getty Images)

ĀteaNovember 3, 2021

Te taiao under threat: Indigenous voices speak up on climate change

Leonie Hayden

Contributing writer

(Getty Images)

Ngā Pae o te Maramatanga, the Māori centre of research excellence, has published a major report on the impact of climate change on Māori communities to coincide with the Cop26 conference.

“I don’t know if these goals are designed with Indigenous communities in mind,” says Victoria University of Wellington astrophysicist Dr Pauline Harris (Rongomaiwahine, Ngāti Rakaipaka, Ngāti Kahungunu) of the government’s goals going into Cop26, the global climate change conference currently happening in Glasgow.

Harris is co-author of a new report released ahead of Cop26 that highlights the effects climate change will have on Māori communities in the coming years. Speaking on a Science Media Centre panel about the goals of Cop26, she shared findings from the report – ‘He huringa āhuarangi, he huringa ao: A changing climate’ – describing it as “a summary of observed and projected climate change impacts”.

The findings paint a picture of disruption to the centuries-long relationship Māori have had with te taiao, the natural world.

“A big part of that report was looking at the health and wellbeing of the environment,” Harris said. “We looked at key research that will impact on our worldview, like certain species made extinct once we go over three degrees.” She said some natives species of trees, for example, have seed dispersal mechanisms that can handle a change in temperature, and others simply can’t. The report predicts high extinction probability in alpine areas.

“For Māori we’re less humanistic in our thinking – it’s more of a holistic model where we’re part of the environment, and have different value weighting for all species on the planet,” Harris explained.

“Values inform how you write policy, what sort of research you do, your behaviours. So from a Māori perspective, having a more holistic view of the world where we are not central, we are one part, then informs your care for the environment.”

Harris noted that what affects Māori affects the whole country. Fire risks and changing or depleted fish species, for example, will have impacts on Māori business and enterprise, with flow-on effects to the rest of Aotearoa.

Dr Pauline Harris. (Image: MacDiarmid Institute)

The report looked at effects on specific areas of land, from high alpine areas to the oceans, and included research reflecting Māori perspectives on those key areas. “We looked at the higher risk of invasive species, the impacts of kauri dieback and myrtle rust with increasing temperatures,” Harris said. “We’ve been polluting our environment for years – putting stress on other species, reducing their biodiversity and their genetic capability to be able to survive and be more resilient.”

One major impact of climate change on traditional knowledge is its effect on the maramataka or lunar calendar. Maramataka uses observances of the natural world, such as when different species of fish spawn, bird calls are heard or flowers appear, the phases of the moon and seasonal weather patterns. This rhythm with nature is still widely used and traditionally informed Māori when to plant, when to harvest, when to fish and when to stop gathering certain species for regeneration, as well as possible effects of the moon and seasons on energy and mood. It also encompasses whakapapa ties to deities and all living creatures.

“Our cultural practices and cultural knowledge are around the observations of the environment and our engagement with the environment, like our fishing practices,” said Harris. “The maramtaka has already been affected by what we’ve done to the environment. All our observances are out, our practices are now out of whack with the time of year.

“We’ve already seen changes in weather patterns and people who are in tune with the environment, who do the gardening, or are always in the forest, always on the ocean – they have different data, different values. They’re seeing the changes to our maramataka firsthand.”

An open letter from OraTaiao, the New Zealand Climate and Health Council, last week called for Jacinda Ardern to “proactively place Indigenous and marginalised voices at the centre of Cop26”.

Indigenous peoples have been making this request of the UN climate conference for many years now. Climate activist India Logan-Riley (Ngāti Kahungunu), a veteran of Cop at only 26, delivered a blistering challenge to delegates last week at the opening summit in Glasgow.

“Before we embark on these negotiations, it’s important to reflect on how we ended up in this room,” they said, before giving a potted history of colonialist expansion, land theft and extraction of resources in Aotearoa.

India Logan-Riley addresses the opening summit of Cop26 (Image: United Nations Youtube)

As part of a wider network of Indigenous delegates, Logan-Riley who first attended in 2017 with Te Ara Whatu, the rangatahi Māori delegation, has had to navigate the tricky power structures of Cop – a system, they told The Spinoff in 2017, that “has not been designed for Indigenous participation”.

Nevertheless, at Cop26 this week they reiterated the unique leadership of Indigenous climate action and the power it has.

“In the US and Canada alone, Indigenous resistance has stopped or delayed greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to at least a quarter of annual emissions. What we do works.”

Calling climate change “the final outcome of the colonial project”, Logan-Riley ended with a challenge to the conference: “Learn our histories, listen to our stories, honour our knowledge, and get in line or get out of the way.”