Tangata Whenua

'Tangata' is a maori word which among other things, means "people" (technically, according to the definitive Williams Dictionary of the Maori Language, tangata means "man" or "human being", whilst tāngata with the long ā is the plural meaning "people", but in contemporary New Zealand English certain maori words, including māori itself, use the short "a"... probably due to ignorance, sloppiness, or the common use of US word processing keyboards and software).

'Whenua' means both land and placenta (again referencing Williams, who lists five definitions). Unlike European thought where man owns land (and the use of the singular gender is historically intended here), in maori, the land owns the people (the land is deemed as feminine, and her relationship is with a group of people). The relationship to land is not dissimilar to that of the foetus to the placenta... the unlikely survival of a foetus with a damaged placenta is akin to the questionable survival of a tribe whose land has been environmentally damaged. In addition, there are certain maori rituals involving burying the afterbirth of a newborn in ones ancestral land, which may further shed light on the use of the word whenua for both land and placenta. (note: the "wh" consonant in Maori is today pronounced by most people as "f", as in "fen-new-wah").

When taken together Tangata Whenua has become a NZ Engish word with specific and very important legal status. The Indigenous peoples of New Zealand are divided into three levels of kinship, from which traditional governance was based.

The numerically smallest level, whanau is what westerners would consider the extended family... perhaps going back to a common great grandparent or so. Traditionally a whanau would hold in common their food store (their forest or bush for hunting birds and gathering or growing plant foods, and a part of the sea, a river or a lake for gathering eel, fish, shellfish and other water based foods). These food stores were fiercely protected and when one's whanau grew too large to survive, often war with a neighbouring tribe would eventuate.

The next level, hapu is the grouping of several related whanau, and traditionally was the primary governance unit. In war and when decisions needed to be made in negoations with outside tribes, the whanau leaders would gather and the hapu would make the decisions.

But several (or many) hapu can trace their ancestry, usually on the male line, back to a particular waka, the ocean going canoe upon which the common ancestors of that tribe arrived on these islands now the nation of New Zealand (aka Aotearoa), and this unified level is called the Iwi. Until the British arrived, Iwi was not a governance unit, but among other things, a way to establish kinship and commonality, part of a "who's who" which forms the formal greeting ceremony of "powhiri" when one group visits another.

However, under British and subsequent New Zealand law, typically an Iwi forms itself into a legally recognised entity, and under the Treaty of Waitangi these entities are accorded special rights and obligations under New Zealand law... when they are recognised as tangata whenua. They must have a provable relationship with a specific area of geography, and if this is acknowledged by the national or local authority, they become the legal tangata whenua. (Some areas may have several groups given tangata whenua status, which can make the process more complex).

When, for example, a major real estate development is proposed to the territorial authority, the tangata whenua must be consulted. When bones are found, the tangata whenua are supposed to be called. In addition to these sorts of legally mandated requirements, when a person wishes to have land blessed, or when an untimely sudden death occurs, an elder (kaumatua or tohunga / tohuna) of the tangata whenua may be asked to perform a cleansing ritual.

In order to fully understand these māori concepts, one must go beyond the scientific view of reality to the metaphysical, as traditional māori engaged with reality both in the outward or physical realms and the inner or spiritual realms concurrently. This is embedded in many māori words, and certainly in traditional māori thought. Unlike many other indigenous languages, the lineage of native māori speakers was not broken in the 20th century, and people, especially tohunga / tohuna, can be found who carry this into the present day.

This adds a certain richness to New Zealand law, which is based on British Common Law in that it adds indigenous concepts which stem from a completely different ancestry. Never-the-less it works and for many indigenous peoples of the world, the New Zealand model is one to which they look.