The powhiri is a ritual of greeting, when visitors are welcomed onto a marae
Experience a virtual Powhiri
Mäori Rituals of Encounter
by Dr Rees Tapsell
In essence the powhiri is the traditional process of engagement between two or more groups. It involves a series of highly ritualised processes which, traditionally, occur in a marae setting. It is a process of determining the relatedness and connectedness of each group with respect to the other and with respect to the spiritual, physical and metaphorical domains. It involves a process by which the tangatawhenua or home people invite visitors to declare their intentions (whether friendly or not) and involves a series of contextualised rules governing the process of the coming together of the groups. This formalises the process of establishing the ancestral identity of each group relative to the other, as well as to the physical and natural world and to the spiritual world.
In the process of the formal speeches, Gods and the ancestral origins of all those attending are acknowledged as are important ancestral connections. Characteristically, there is recognition of all of those who have gone before (tüpuna or ancestors) and who now reside in the spirit world watching over the living. There is a ritualised process of the separation of the deceased from the living before the speaker is free to concentrate on the issues at hand for those attending. Recognition is made of local groups or significant local figures of prestige (for example the Mäori Queen) and visitors are again formally welcomed and warmly greeted. Dependent on the reason for the powhiri there is often opportunity to voice significant issues, concerns or challenges to those attending prior to the formal closing of the speech. Traditionally, a speaker is supported by those of their sub-tribe with the incantation of a waiata, traditionally significant to the area of the speaker. It is important to recognise that there is variation between specific tribes but that the essential tennets of the powhiri are similar.
Following the formal process of the powhiri, visitors are welcomed as one of the tangatawhenua (home people), sealed with the traditional touching of noses, the hongi. Following this it is traditional for all attendees at the powhiri to be fed and entertained by the home people at a häkari or feast, to celebrate the coming together of friends.
See: Rituals in Clinical Practice (the whänau hui)
For those interested in reading more about Mäori styles of thinking
and behaving, I would recommend:
Mauri Tu - Encounters and Domains - Towards a Mäori Psychology
Chapter 3 of Mauri Ora - The Dynamics of Maori Health
by Mason Durie
Pub. Oxford University Press 2001
In this chapter, Professor Durie discusses a series of cultural encounters on the marae and examines the way in which they form the basis for identifying a set of domains in which patterns of thinking and behaving are elaborated. He discusses the domains of space, time, shape, mind and earth, safety, metaphor, generosity, interconnectedness and synchronicity and he infers a series of psychological attributes from each.