Abstract:
In this chapter we explore the idea of home as a place of spiritual belonging and continuity, and how tangi or customary Maori death and mourning rituals rely on the genealogical connectedness of ancestral and living communities to care for the tūpāpaku (the human remains) and wairua (the spirit of the deceased, as well as the living). While colonisation and Westernisation have changed us, the institution of tangi, our rituals of death and mourning, have remained with little change since pre-encounter times. In the face of death, the tangi and its repetitive ritualised pattern of encounter and mourning might be viewed as a lifeline to hold on to as the disturbance and turmoil spawned by death are endured. While death may be conceived as a transformative personal experience, it is, simultaneously, a collective one with impacts and ramifications felt across spiritual and temporal domains. In a culture where the living and the departed remain in relationship, togetherness simply takes on a different form. This idea is one that the Western world has recently rediscovered and looks jealously upon the indigenous world for having never forgotten (Klass, Silverman & Nickman, 1996). While critical to ongoing physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing, our walk with the living and the dead is importantly constitutive of our lives and of our personhood as we sit in relationship within those worlds in which we are members.