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the-quiet-fire-of-defiance · 9 months

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Te Hōkioi, and Speculation on the Dietary Habits of the Great Eagles

He Hōkioi, i runga, he Hōkioi, i runga, hū.

(The great eagle, from above, made a booming call)

Kei te āputa koe, nā, o te rangi, e noho ana,

(In the open space, there, in the sky, it dwells)

Te hoa moenga, nō whatitiri mātakataka;

(Death's companion, with crashing thunder)

Hei aha, tērā, e tararua mārire, ona hikumaro?

(Why, then, do its tail feathers no longer split the quiet in two?)

Rua maro tonu, ona hakikau;

(Two fathoms wide, its wings;)

E huhū nei, i runga te rangi,

(It called, above in the sky)

Hōkioi, Hōkioi.

(The sound: hōkioi, hōkioi.)

- poem/chant by the great Ngāti Toa chief Te Rauparaha

For @tolkienofcolourweek, I'm spending seven days bringing Māoritanga and mātauranga Māori to the world of Tolkien! Starting off on day 1 with: what did Manwë's Eagles eat?

Such massive animals, especially flying ones, would have required a huge caloric intake. We have little evidence about what potential prey may have existed in Beleriand and Middle Earth. The Hobbit mentions them eating sheep, and it seems likely that they would hunt other large animals, such as deer or bison. But there's nothing in our modern world that compares to or fills an ecological niche like Manwë's Eagles.

This is where I draw on Māori oral history of the largest eagles to ever live.

In English they're called Haast's Eagles, but in Māori there are several names. Probably the most well-known of the Māori names is pouakai/poukai, but my people called them hōkioi.

They were massive, weighing as much as 17.8 kg (about 39 lbs) and with wingspans as large as 3 metres (about 10ft). Their feet and claws were the size of modern day tigers, capable of punching through bone. They hunted prey more than fifteen times their own size.

(Granted, the eagles of Manwë are much larger than even the hōkioi! Still, it's similar enough for me to draw inspiration.)

[Left image: an artist's rendition of a hōkioi perched on a rock. Right image: an artist's rendition of a hōkioi attacking the neck of a giant flightless bird.]

The hōkioi's primary prey was the moa, large flightless birds similar to ostriches or emus. With no large land mammals on the islands, hōkioi were the apex predators.

Then, circa 900 CE, large mammals came to Aotearoa for the first time. They also preyed on moa, reducing the hōkioi's food supply. So perhaps it was natural that the hōkioi began to hunt these mammals as new prey.

Unfortunately, those mammals were us.

[Left image: an artist's rendition of a hōkioi attacking a Māori man who holds a spear. Right image: an artist's rendition of a child running from a hōkioi.]

Our stories of the hōkioi, or pouakai, tell of giant birds that could swoop down from the sky to kill and eat even strong warriors. They were also known to carry off small children.

I'm not saying that the eagles of Manwë ate elves or humans. (I think they were probably given firm instructions not to!) It would make sense for them to prey on orcs and other creatures of Morgoth, though. And there's one other group who we know were hunted like animals in Beleriand, due to... misunderstandings. A group who the Eagles may not have initially recognized as sentient creatures. A group who would have been an ideal size to pick up and carry off as a snack.

I'm just saying, I think there may have been multiple reasons that dwarves chose to live underground.

(Sources for further information about te hōkioi:

The man-killer that fell from the sky

NZ Birds: Haast's Eagle)

#silmarillion #silm meta #the giant eagles #tocweek2023 #māori-fying tolkien #mine #yes this is a little bit cracky #i fully acknowledge that #so please don't be weird in my notes and inbox #(also i SWEAR i haven't forgotten about my wips and i promise i'm working on them!)

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mhaccunoval · 1 year

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portrait of a young maori woman with moko (1891) — louis john steele

#pant rambles #portrait of a young maori woman with moko #louis john steele #tā moko #māori #painting #i LOVE researching moko. and every time i see this portrait on the wiki page i'm DELIGHTED

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crabussy · 9 months

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people being RACIST CUNTS on my aotearoa poll post 0 dead 1 really pissed off

#GOD dude #'what was it called before the maori invaded' ???? you are literally just making shit up??????#there is NO evidence that there were ANY people on aotearoa before the māori discovered it. and if there were it was THOUSANDS #OF YEARS AGO. TENS OF THOUSANDS EVEN.#they didn't invade shit. that was MY ancestors dude hold THEM accountable holy FUCK #then some random asshole was like 'wow.... ): so sad the moa is extinct because of maori people. they died because of maori people guys'#like yes. humans have a habit of causing extinctions its terrible and sad but why mention that when europeans were responsible for over 90%#of the bird extinctions in aotearoa #rant #racism tw #listen to my gibberish boy #I have a headache. I'm going to go and play and have fun with my friends bye [:

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g1deonthefirst · 6 months

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the idea that the link between john gaius/the nine houses and real-life imperialism isn't deliberate on tamsyn muir's part is really funny the longer i think about it. you think she just stumbled onto calling him an emperor? you think that, when she had the nine houses justify their claims to the lands of other planets by pointing to ancient treaties the inhabitants of those planets couldn't possibly have understood the full implications of, she wasn't thinking about any real-life parallels?

#can you believe i'm still thinking about this #you can dislike the fact that muir put a māori man in that role sure #but to argue that she didn't do it deliberately is pretty wild #tlt

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yellowgnomeboots · 1 year

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Ok so we know there's still a long way to go with indigenous rights and so on in NZ but there is one thing I like to see and that is bilingual signs, but even more so is stuff like this:

This McDonald's bathroom sign. It's common with bilingual signs in many countries to put English on top and larger, but frequently nowadays I actually see the text the same size, and even with te reo Māori first like here.

Also you can see this is a predominantly Māori sign because of the little suggestion of koru on the ends of the horizontal divider.

Like maybe it's not a lot but te reo Māori is dominant on this sign and it's completely normal. That's what I love. It's important to have Māori language week and other things that draw attention to Māori things and this is still very needed, but I love to see the ways that te reo Māori is present and normal.

#gnome post #te reo Māori #Aotearoa #reminder I'm not Māori #this is all Pākehā perspective

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calamitaswrath · 8 months

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Honestly dunno what's more wild to me right now: the fact that going by my current writing pace, I'm actually gonna finish the first draft of a bigger writing project (i.e., novel length) for the first time in my life. Or that I'm currently commissioning an artist to draw one of the protagonists, and I get to see one of my characters take visual form.

#shut up cal you fool #at one point I'll also really want to have the other protag drawn as well #but for that I'm gonna specifically need to find a māori artist #and idk how doable that is gonna be

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blackberryjambaby · 8 months

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i'm watching jacob geller's art in the pre-apocalypse & i cannot stress how horrifically he pronounced umurangi (& the other māori words.) if you're gonna make a video where you say words from a language you don't speak, please do the bare minimum & actually look up what that word sounds like 🫶

#rj speaks #umurangi generation #he literally makes the point that there are less than 200k speakers (not exactly true: it's less than 200k FLUENT speakers) & yet he doesn't #even bother to check that he's not butchering an endangered language?? 😭#don't get me wrong i'm not expecting perfection but COME ON #jacob geller #aotearoa #te reo māori

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irawhiti · 8 months

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kia ora! i would like to suggest the coining of a term that would hopefully help a large demographic of mostly-forgotten-about māori to connect with each other and share our experiences to feel less alone, congregate around a concept regardless of country of origin and upbringing, and organise as activists.

i politely ask as many people to spread this as possible to help indigenous people organise with each other and to get the largest amount of interactions possible.

anyway, with all that being said,

i would like to coin the term "ngāti rangiātea" for māori who do not know their iwi to use.

this is based on the well known whakataukī/proverb, "i will never be lost, for i am a seed which was sown from rangiātea." i chose this whakataukī due to the spiritual significance of rangiātea as a place in māori culture, as well as to emphasise that no matter how it feels, we are not lost, we can find ourselves in each other, we can experience strength and self-realisation, and that we will exist with mana and without whakamā as rightful tangata whenua.

i've put my reasoning, personal experiences shaping my viewpoints on the matter, and various statistics under the cut to make this post reblog-friendly and i would suggest fellow māori read it regardless of whether or not they know their iwi. i also ask for the opinions of other māori, ESPECIALLY AND SPECIFICALLY other māori who do not know their iwi. in fact, i politely ask māori to share this with their whānau and people in general to share this with māori they know, especially any they know who do not know their iwi. a wide reach is what i am going for to get the largest amount of voices, critiques, and opinions on the topic and to avoid this from just becoming a very small thing that stays in an online echo-chamber.

to begin, the 2018 aotearoan census shows that, of the 775,836 people identifying as māori in aotearoa, roughly 17% are unable to identify their iwi in the census. this has gone up by 1% since 2006, showing that we are a considerably stable percentage of people. along with this, there are more than 170,000 māori living in australia and, while there are no solid statistics, there are an estimated 8,000 māori living in the UK, 3,500 in the US, 2,500 in canada, and 8,000 in other countries where there's no option for māori or any polynesians on the census.

this number adds up to 967,816 total māori and while there's no census in these countries asking for your iwi, i would go as far as to assume that there's a larger number of diaspora māori who are no longer able to identify their iwi than there are in aotearoa. of course, this is just speculation based on my lived experiences and conversations with other diaspora māori, however even assuming that it's the exact same amount globally, 17%, this is roughly 164,532 māori worldwide who do not know their iwi. nearly one in five māori do not know their iwi.

regardless of the specific statistics, the hard fact here is that there is a large percentage of māori who are unsure of their iwi for whatever reason. it's extremely easy to feel unsure of yourself, lost, disconnected, and uncomfortable speaking on issues regarding te ao māori when you're unsure of your iwi (or your hapū, whānau, waka, or anything else, but there is heavy emphasis on the iwi) and it's very easy for whakamā to take hold, especially when many māori who can recite their whakapapa aren't very polite or understanding about your situation to say the least.

and there are a lot of those people.

unfortunately, i've spoken to many māori who are of the opinion that not knowing your iwi due to colonialism, assimilation, forced disconnection, etc. means that you should not, cannot, call yourself māori. this is a disgusting viewpoint to have and in my opinion it spits on the fundamental concepts of māori culture and worldviews. thankfully this is a small yet vocal group of people, but even so, they add to the collective experience that makes it extremely difficult to navigate a world while full of whakamā and internalised racism. it can feel like there's no space for you, no term you can use, nobody you can relate to, no mana you can claim, nothing. when you cannot recite your whakapapa, it can feel like there's a part of you that's fundamentally missing.

as well as this, even when people mean well, when you are in this situation, you're usually told to just do some genealogy work, do some research, ask your family what they know. sometimes, these steps are simply not possible. other times, we've already done everything suggested over and over and over again. we're generally told "oh, that sucks, but one day you'll find out, keep looking!" in response to our lack of iwi. sure, they mean well, but i have never once been told anything along the lines of "that's okay, some things are lost to time through no fault of your own. don't beat yourself up over something your whānau had to hide to survive, what you do now to uphold your family's mana, what you do know about your whānau, and who you ultimately become is more important than what you no longer know."

and why? why is it seen as shameful to say matter-of-factly that i don't know my iwi? i'm not looking for comfort, i'm not looking to be told that, aww, there there, i'll find it eventually. i'm stating a fact. i do not need pity, i need my mana and voice to be respected.

this concept is what i want to emphasise by coining ngāti rangiātea. some things are lost to time, but we aren't. our loss of knowledge does not mean that we are unworthy of being māori, that we are unworthy of basic human respect. it does not mean that we have lost everything that our whānau knows. it is a scar, a reminder of what colonisation took from us, yes, but we cannot allow it to continue to be an open bleeding wound. we will not be lost to time and we should not bow our heads and act like we do not exist, that we're inconvenient, that we damage the "image" that māori have. in fact, we are an important aspect of māori culture and ignoring our existence does harm to everybody.

and of course we can't speak on some topics regarding te ao māori. this seems to be a topic that comes up frequently as a strawman. yes, there are some topics that would be irresponsible to speak on when we have no experience with them. this doesn't mean we can't speak on anything. having a collective identity, an "iwi" to congregate around even just politically, would help us speak on topics that we are more qualified to speak on than māori with knowledge of their iwi (yes, those topics exist, shockingly.)

we will never be lost, for we are a seed sown in rangiātea.

by identifying as ngāti rangiātea, i wish to emphasise that it's important to accept that sometimes, someone just won't be able to find every piece of information. loss of family knowledge is literally one of the primary goals of forced assimilation! we all went through it as colonised peoples, why must we continue to attach shame to those of us who were forced to obfuscate our history to keep our children alive? it's not a personal flaw, it's not a dirty secret, it's a fact of life that must not continue to be kept quiet out of shame, and the sooner we can focus on healing this subsection of our community, the stronger māori as a whole will become.

so, this is why i'd like to coin a term for māori who are unsure of their iwi. this is what i intend to achieve by giving us a name, our own "iwi" to congregate around, to identify ourselves as. instead of hanging my head and saying "i'm not sure what my iwi is, i'm sorry", instead of feeling inclined to beg like a dog to be treated with respect, i would like to look people in the eye and tell them that i am ngāti rangiātea. i would like this label to be synonymous with strength and not shame, that i refuse to let my whakamā swallow me, that i am just as worthy of calling myself māori as anyone else, that there are many others in my iwi (or lack thereof). i would like other people to have that as well and i would like those like me to feel less lost when all they've been told is "well, you'll learn your iwi eventually!" as if that's going to help someone feel better if they can't find their iwi.

and even if a person finds their iwi eventually, it's absolutely disgraceful that people are treated that they're not allowed to access many basic parts of te ao māori until they discover something they are not even 100% destined to find. i think that this view contributes to a lot of people who eventually find their iwi becoming unnecessarily arrogant towards those who truly cannot find this information, that they're just not putting enough effort in. if a person finds their iwi after identifying as ngāti rangiātea, they are fully welcome to continue to identify as this political label along with the iwi they now know they belong to as i wish for it to be a term that describes your experiences, your upbringing, and your community. you don't suddenly lose your whānau or your lived experience when you discover your whakapapa.

finally, this hopefully goes without saying, but ngāti rangiātea is not meant to function as a real existing iwi does. the term will hopefully be used as a way to identify yourself and other people and organise but i don't expect nor do i want this to be treated like a coordinated iwi. i expect and hope for this to be a decentralised way of identifying and experiencing community to make it easier to organise as a people. think of this the way the terms ngāti kangaru, ngāti rānara, ngāti tūmatauenga etc. are used.

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so, the tl;dr is that i feel like coining a name for a phenomenon that nearly one in five of all māori experience in quiet shame, to make it easier for us to congregate and find each other, speak on our experiences, organise as activists, feel less lost, and ultimately give us the ability to regain our mana as a community with shared goals and experiences. i have spoken to many māori who feel this way and my suggestion for this term is ngāti rangiātea, to show homage to the well known whakataukī, "i will never be lost, for i am a seed sown from rangiātea", to give us a community to work with, and to give us an "iwi" to list when asked instead of fumbling for words and feeling whakamā.

i would like to take the emphasis off of constantly looking to the future for what you may or may not even find with this identity. we are not broken, we are not lost, for we are seeds sown in ngāti rangiātea.

tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tatou katoa, and if you got this far, thank you for reading.

#maori #māori #pasifika #indigenous #indigenous issues #polynesia #aotearoa #aotearoa new zealand #new zealand #tangata whenua #new zealand politics #politics #i was considering calling it smth along the lines of ngāti whāngai to represent that we would be whānau from different paths and family #but ngāti rangiātea felt more succinct and meaningful. particularly with how it's very easy to feel lost when you're unsure of your iwi #please boost this even if you're not māori as i'd like as many people to see as possible <3 #anyway i'm quite nervous and i hope this doesn't come across like i'm trying to be any kind of authority haha #i just feel like this is an extremely important topic that affects many people but is rarely spoken about for various reasons #ngāti rangiātea

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hedge-rambles · 1 month

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There's been a post going around lately which raises some very interesting points about the general lack of Māori cultural practices in TLT and what that says about Tamsyn's writing and what it says about John. John was Māori, and remade the world in his image, so where are all the Māori elements? And it's a good post, and it is an interesting omission, they are surprisingly lacking, the reasons for which are likely multitude.

But there are a couple of things at least alluded to, like in Nona the Ninth where John casually references first leaning the constellation of the southern cross as an anchor, and preferring that view and story of it.

I'm rereading Harrow the Ninth and have just noticed another possible thing. It's about our beloved Harrow Nova AU, the mention of the old Ninth tradition of scarifying the skull mask into the face of the Cavelier Primary.

Mortus had scarified the skull into his son, when the adopted necromantic heir had confirmed Ortus for her cavalier primary; the cicatricial lines showed clearly beneath the paint

And on the next page

Ortus Nigenad wiped the sweat off his forehead. The candlelight limned the carved hurts of his face, but his expression did not match their fearsomeness

And you know what it reminds me of? The very traditional version of Tā Moko, the Māori facial tattoos afforded to important members of society. Because the thing about them is that they weren't the standard needle tattoos we know today or that are traditionally found in some cultures. They were made by scarification, carving lines into the skin with a special bone chisel (uhi or uhi tā moko) and rubbing in pigment.

Sure it could be unrelated but I wonder.

#tlt #htn #I mean I'm not even from Aotearoa it's not even slightly my cultural background #but the one/two things I've noticed myself are both done without overt reference #I wonder if there's other subtle bits in there I miss #Aiglemene describing Ortus' posture as being like a fishhook is probably nothing though despite the Ninth not having fish #yeah fishhooks are a thing in Māori culture and mythology but I think that falls into the same category as Gideon saying ''pizza face''#idk those lines just suddenly made me go ''huh wait'' as it reminded me of tā moko

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