Tū and I discuss globalization, cultural appropriation, and the evolving Māori identity. In our wide-ranging discussion, Tū explains how his facial “moko”, or traditional markings (tattoos), have changed his life.
Tūranga Morgan-Edmonds is the bassist of Alien Weaponry and an unofficial Māori cultural ambassador.
Interested in his Māori heritage from a young age, he received moko, traditional Māori tattooed markings, on his face when he was just 22 years old.
In this first half of our conversation, Tū discusses Māori culture, his family’s ever-changing multi-generational relationship with their Māori identity, and his views on globalization and cultural appropriation.
Tū also explains in-depth about the painful process of receiving his moko and how it was an intensely spiritual experience. As an atheist, the spiritual aspect came as a surprise.
Not only was the process itself an unforgettable journey, once completed, it changed his appearance forever. Tū knew that his life would never be the same again.
Introduction to Māori History, Culture, and Practices
Without further ado, please enjoy my discussion with Tūranga:
Ryan: For those who don’t know, could you please explain who the Māori are?
Tū: Yeah! Māori are the indigenous peoples of New Zealand, belonging to the Polynesian subgroup. Polynesia is a very broad group of people belonging to the cultures of the Pacific islands.
We Māori settled here down in New Zealand, at the very bottom of the world.
What got you interested in learning about your culture? You studied that in school, too, correct?
Yeah, I did so. Both of my parents are Māori, and they always raised me in an environment where I was aware of it.
It wasn’t something that I had to fully pursue on my own later in life. However, my parents don’t speak the language. That was something that I had to pursue outside of our home.
So you didn’t grow up speaking Māori?
No, not conversationally. It was always, I guess, like the Māori equivalent of Spanglish.
For example, growing up I don’t think I ever said “hat,” I would always say “potai.” So there were certain words that we always grew up with.
The language is something I’m still learning, but I really picked it up in university.
It’s not something that I’ve had a boost in. It’s just been a continual passion from day one.
Does your family not have as much interest?
So my mum, for example. My mum’s side is the side that we have the non-Māori. My grandmother has Scottish heritage. My grandpa, who was the Māori on my mum’s side, he wasn’t around as a father.
So, my mum’s upbringing was predominantly from her mother, who was non-Māori. However, she was a very passionate Māori activist and stood for things Māori.
She was well aware that she was Māori, and her mum encouraged these things. But Nan wasn’t Māori at the end of the day, so her knowledge would reach a point as far as she could go.
And then, with my dad, that was the Mormon side. So, their relationship with being Māori was different again.
It wasn’t non-existent. My nan was always very proudly Māori. But there were definitely things they didn’t do because the church replaced those practices.
Neither of my parents learned the language, even though my grandmothers all spoke fluently.
My grandparents were alive during the period when you were beaten at school for speaking Māori. So, when they had their kids they didn’t teach the language because it was so suppressed out of them in their youth.
That was like the lost generation of our language. Particularly tough was that schooling period where you would be physically beaten if you spoke anything other than English.
As a result, many in our parents’ and grandparents’ generations didn’t get the language because their parents were so traumatized from that period of their upbringing that they just didn’t pass it on.
So it’s been an interesting thing where they were always aware of their culture. And, from a societal perspective, they were always treated as Māori.
I’m quite pale when compared to my parents. When looking at me with my parents, people wonder, “How did he come out with that skin color?”
My parents have always been treated as Māori. So their experience in the public eye, whether connected to the culture or not, is that of a brown person.
They have come more into the culture as my passion for it has continued to grow. Both of my parents, I think, have done a little bit of a loop back around into their passion for things Māori.
How has Māori culture changed with colonization?
It’s been quite a journey since the British arrived here.
As we know from colonial history around the world, it starts very slowly but surely. Initially, it seems quite peaceful, and then things kind of go wrong.
I would say that for us, the early 1900s were probably the time when colonial powers were most powerful. Māori were quite good at war, that’s one of the reasons we even got as far as a treaty.
With New Zealand’s geographical positioning, it was very difficult for the British to send substantial enough forces down here. So, we were able to keep winning our way through these battles.
However, Māori were an oral people. We didn’t have a written language. I always say that the British beat us with the pen (when they made us sign this treaty).
And with the 1840 treaty, the very slow decline began.
The treaty was a way for the British to gain control using their own tools. The people who wrote contracts and all these other official documents did so in a way that they could be could then twisted and pulled at their will.
Then, the early 1900s was easily the period where things got crazy.
That’s when the grandparents were speaking Māori. That’s when a parliamentary act was passed that banned the continuation of Māori knowledge. It was called the Tōhunga Suppression Act.
Tōhunga is basically our word for an expert. Some people want to say “shaman”, but really it just means someone who’s an expert in a field.
Now it was created because the British didn’t like Māori medicine. They thought it was a barbaric form of medicine. They wanted to ban it.
But the gray area with that act was it prevented Māori from passing down their knowledge. Now Tōhunga was a broad term that referred to people who were skilled in any field. So, there was another period where we saw things like moko nearly eradicated because the tōhunga were not passing down the knowledge.
In about the 1960s and 70s, there was a big revival in things Māori. Māori started protesting a lot. They wanted these things back that had been taken from us.
Since then, there’s been a consistent boost in Māori wanting to be Māori again. There was definitely a period when Māori had been so oppressed or suppressed that they wanted to just put all things Māori aside.
Many in my grandparents’ generation were taught that nothing good can come to you from speaking this language. They reasoned, “It was a terrible experience for me growing up. Don’t bother.”
But that switch is finally coming around. Not without its issues, of course. It’s still a revival, it’s still a battle.
Now, even though Māori are feeling really proud to be Māori again, those who have any ill intent towards Māori are feeling extra anti-Māori.
It’s an interesting time for us as a people.
But honestly, I think social media can only be good. It’s made all the difference. I think it allows us to get eyes on us.
There are so many people around the world who would otherwise never know who the heck we are.
It also further helps show people here in New Zealand who are so anti-Māori that they’re close-minded. It’s also inspiring for Māori to feel that people elsewhere care.
For people who don’t know, what’s moko?
Moko is our traditional tattoo practice — it’s our marking practice.
Like most Polynesian peoples across the Pacific Islands, we mark our bodies to represent our lineage, our ancestors, and our achievements in life.
I think you have a unique position where you’re playing in a metal band. You’re often performing songs in Māori. You’re not using traditional instruments or wearing traditional clothing. Then there’s there are other ways you add in your culture. It’s almost like a fusion of local and more global cultures. So, what do you think about globalization in general?
I personally think it’s a good thing. This is something I talk about quite often, actually, because a lot of Māori get this kind of traditionalist mindset. Particularly the ones who are trying to really re-indigenize or decolonize. You find them wanting to reject everything that’s not Māori in this context.
That mindset has never sat right with me.
If you look at our ancestors, before everything was going bad, we were never opposed to new technology or new ways of life. We adopted these things so quickly.
The minute steel was introduced, we were like lapping it up. Even using it for decorative purposes. Same with wax, too. You look at all the old paintings of our chiefs, and you’ll see they absolutely loved it. But we didn’t have wax originally.
We absolutely absorbed and welcomed the evolutions of our traditions, of our tools, of our way of life, and new ways to weave, make blankets, and make clothes.
All while maintaining our traditional practices as well. if you want to call it that.
For example, let’s take the modern tattoo machines. Some artists get a lot of backlash for using modern machines for moko.
The machines are not very traditional, but it’s the practice that’s the tradition. It’s not a tool.
The tool is merely an instrument to execute the same tradition, but the tradition is the act itself.
This further extends into all facets of our culture, like music.
Our songs, for example. “The Māori performance,” has perhaps been internationalized for as long as Māori have been around.
We still perform it in a traditional sense to this day. But then we’ve also adapted it to sit over the top of heavy metal music, sit over the top of pop music, or over the top of the even haka itself.
When you look at the national haka competition, the haka that we perform on those days it’s not what haka looked like 500 years ago. That’s modern haka.
It’s so overtly choreographed. It’s all extravagant and very performative, which is great, but it’s not what Haka looked like.
Still, no one’s ever questioning the fact that that’s not old Haka anymore.
It’s just a natural part of the evolution. I don’t see anything wrong with it, and I actually welcome it because it’s healthy. But the reason Haka, for example, never gets the same flack as moko is because it was never lost.
Moko, of course, was nearly lost. So when it comes back, some people hold onto the traditional element of it really hard, almost too hard. I’ve heard one moko artist say that if moko was never lost it would look nothing like it looks like today.
If it was never lost, it would have evolved like all the rest of our art forms have evolved, and might look completely different, right?
So, for me personally, I think globalization just adds to the evolution of culture and the survival of culture.
I’ve heard you explain the difference between moko and kirituhi. Can you expand on that for readers?
This is another topic that’s up for debate. I do a series with the moko artists, and I ask them if they use the word interchangeably.
When we started seeing the revival of moko, we inevitably started seeing the appropriation of moko. People started trying out absolutely butchered and appropriated variants.
So the moko artists had to make a decision. “What happens if we start giving non-Māori people Māori tattoos?”
Many decided to do it themselves. That way, it comes from the source, and the art is proper. It’s got some substance behind it and not just ripped off a picture.
But then there was a debate about what to call it.
Some Moko artists said, “Look, let’s just call it Moko, it is what it is.” Other artists thought that the term “moko” should be reserved for Māori only.
The second group’s solution was to say kirituhi which translates to “writing on skin.”
So, if you hear the term kirituhi today, it refers to Māori markings done by a Māori artist on a non-Māori person.
Most people will say if it’s a Māori wearer, receiver, and it’s a Māori artist, it’s moko.
Some Māori just call all tattoos kirituhi. While moko is a separate category, everything non-traditional, like a rose or a skull, they call kirituhi.
One of the big misunderstandings comes from the fact that we don’t consider moko tattoos.
Then the question is what to call tattoos on Māori? Some people say, “It’s kirituhi, isn’t it? It’s skin art.”
So when they’re referring to Western or non-Māori tattoos, they use the word kirituhi. Then, if it’s a Māori style, they use word moko. But then it gets even more confusing.
I can see why people get confused by it. What do you think about the whole cultural appropriation thing? What about non-Māori having moko or incorporating other parts of Māori culture, art, or self-expression?
This is always an interesting one — the appropriation question because I do think it exists.
But, I often see very black-and-white opinions when it comes to cultural appropriation.
You know, sometimes people say, “Nah, it’s made up. It’s not real. I can wear whatever I want.”
Take Moko, for example, I think kirituhi’s a great thing. I don’t think we should hold back our art. If people respect it and they love it, and they want to get it done, then absolutely.
I think it’s really cool for them to show their appreciation, as long as you have those essential parts, like having a Māori artist. Also, it’s important that they get it for a good reason.
However, I definitely think appropriation exists. Though, in some cases, I really wonder, “Is that appropriation or ignorance?”
When it comes to that appropriation term, I think of the big companies profiting off of our artwork, not some random guy who thinks it’s a cool Māori tattoo.
In the second case, I think that it’s either arrogance, ignorance or he just doesn’t care.
In my mind appropriation comes from profiting or benefiting from these things that are not paying homage to the origin.
And are there examples of that?
There absolutely are.
Obvious examples are things like Hollywood movies.
For a while, probably in the early 2000s, maybe late 90s, you look at all these bad guys or henchmen in movies with all these weird scribble things on their faces.
You see this problem chronically in video games, too. You can buy a skin in the store that gives you some generic black lines on your face or something.
This is an egregious case of appropriation. There’s no excuse there. So in those circumstances, I think that it’s 1,000% an example of a problem.
What would be the solution for something like a game? Would it be to not have it altogether or maybe have people make or choose their own designs?
That’s something that’s really debated. In my opinion, it needs to make sense in the game.
For me, I think it’s better off in the context of NPCs — non-playable characters.
There are too many variables when it comes to the playable character when it comes to representation. There can be a lot of gray areas when deciding how much of the real thing to represent.
In real life moko is supposed to be unique. So, is it ok if every person that plays the game have the same one, or one of three choices?
It gets to be a bit too much, too much to kind of navigate.
So, I think it’s simple —make a non-playable character.
Have it be somebody else other than the player that you can interact with.
Get representation that way.
I think James Cameron did a good job in the latest Avatar movie, which had elements inspired by Māori markings.
He was very upfront about the inspiration of his latest alien tribe being inspired by Māori, and they had tattoos and everything. But, the way he approached it was good.
Most people probably can’t tell just by face value, but to Māori, their tattoos look nothing like moko. We can tell they’re inspired by moko, but look closely, and they look nothing like moko.
So, in this case, the design had been changed enough to be considered “inspired by moko”.
The reasoning and inspiration components were there.
It’s one of the most highly profiting movies of all time, and it’s still considered appreciation and inspiration.
So it can be done and has been done.
Unfortunately, it’s just usually done badly.
What sadly often happens, though, is that when the ones that do care include representation someone’s going to complain. And, because they care, they’re just going to pull the plug.
It’s not worth the risk for them, so we rarely see these well-executed examples. They get started but never come to fruition.
So it sounds like, from what you’re saying, that cultural appropriation is when people are using it to make money or if people are blatantly mocking?
Yeah. Take the haka, for example. Haka’s not for only Māori. That’s one of the big questions I get.
We do allow non-Māori to perform Haka.
A good example is our rugby team. Not everyone on the rugby team is Māori. But, they perform it before the All Blacks games.
When the last Rugby World Cup was coming around, I think it was the Spanish team that performed a mock haka. Of course, there was a lot of uproar.
I wondered, “How come you’re complaining now? You know you want us to do it, but I guess you don’t want everyone to do it.”
You have to be smart enough to realize when someone is mocking rather than genuinely doing it.
Be sure to check out part II! If you have questions or comments feel free to leave them down below.
