Reading the signs: what happens when mātauranga Māori and science converge?

Since the 1800s, New Zealand’s land, ocean and resource management systems have focused on European perspectives of science - but there is growing interest in how western science and traditional Māori knowledge can converge to improve the sustainability of environmental practices.

Māori tūpuna were experts at reading the natural world and interpreting the signs, shaping the way people connected with the environment. Long before satellite studies of weather systems and GPS, tūpuna voyagers used science to cross the greatest expanse of ocean on the planet. They amassed detailed and complex empirical scientific data, based upon their observation and experience of the world around them. Those understandings and processes are embedded in Māori tikanga, according to Māori astronomer, Professor Rangi Matamua .

“Despite colonial efforts to eradicate these systems, Māori have never let go of their traditional knowledge bases, much of which is environment-based,” says Professor Matamua. “In order to preserve the purpose and meaning of this knowledge, it was incorporated into religious practices, making science the root of our spirituality.

“For the most part, that knowledge has been disrespected and looked upon as mumbo jumbo or myths and legends, while in contrast western perspectives were valued.”

However, new generations were now seeing recognition of an interface between traditional knowledge systems and western science.

Ātihau-Whanganui Incorporation Board member Che Wilson believes the time is right to remember ancestral environmental practices such as observing stars, flora and fauna.

“That is how we gather the knowledge to help us better understand the science our tūpuna already knew,” Che said. “Everybody has tūpuna wisdom ingrained in them whether they realise it or not. It is the ability to observe the natural world and the changes that happen every few weeks, every month and every season.”

“If you were raised gardening, eeling or gathering kai with your parents it’s likely that they were following the moon, whether they knew it or not. Their parents more than likely told them ‘don’t do it at this time or that time’ and didn’t necessarily explain why.”

“Our tūpuna encoded that data into karakia, waiata and other forms of oral recall. Those who still live closely with the land, who are in the bush, those who fish, who hunt, have retained the memory of how to observe those signs. When we recognise that our tūpuna were scientists, that will take us all to a different place.”

Important ancestral observation points exist on Incorporation land, including Tuhi Ariki and Tohunga—both well-known places for surveying the stars, the sky, the wind and the ground below.

The challenge is not only to reinstate these observational skills, however, but also to develop a system for recording the information to build a contemporary knowledge base.

When we link back with the physical, the metaphysical then starts to reveal itself, Che says.

“When we have a strong relationship with the land, over time the land will start to teach us. If, as a result of that we become better land management practitioners, that just adds value to the bottom line.”

“For us, that bottom line is not just profit or loss: it includes our wairuatanga. If we can teach ourselves to talk to the land again, to talk to the river, then the river and the land will talk back to us and help replenish our wairua.”

Māori have always been willing to accept other forms of knowledge and incorporate them into wider belief systems, all the while connecting back to their own kaupapa.

“The approach has been inquiry and observation before incorporating that knowledge into our lives,” says Professor Matamua.

When farming practices become driven more by profit than by producing food for our own population, the connection to the environment becomes a moot point.

“It’s just about producing more. That’s a dangerous approach with negative impacts. Instead of working with the environment, we’re manipulating it to hold it at a constant,” he explains. “Adding fertilisers and phosphates to maintain productivity throughout the year and erase seasonality means that environmental indicators don’t mean anything to us. We’re not meant to eat like that. Our ancestors would rest the land, allow the goodness to come back.”

But in the past five years there has been an explosion of interest in re- establishing some of the practices of indigenous knowledge systems.

“We are moving away from the theoretical to becoming operational in some spaces, where we’re now seeing real learning and benefit from observing such signs as the position of the sun, the stars, the flowering of trees, the arrival and departure of birds,” says Professor Matamua. “Planning activity according to environmentally-led triggers and observations is all part of a much bigger environmental mechanism recognised by Māori scientific practices.”

Many individuals and business organisations were moving to embed mātauranga Māori in corporate or personal values and practices, Professor Matamua said.

“They are noticing how traditional observation lines up with what they see in the environment and how that impacts their business. They are responding with activity such as planting by lunar phases, or meeting or organising events and workload according to lunar phases. There are potentially significant benefits for corporations to realign some of their practices back to the environment to become more sustainable and generate beneficial impacts on land, waterways and oceans.”