Chapter Five – Final Words

The Model Built

“First we must explore something of the extraordinary diversity of contemporary and recent treatments of the dead around the world in order to find out how different they may be and what aspects are commonly found.” (Pearson, 1999: 20).

From the model laid out in Chapter Three, I have been building support for my explanation as to why toki are found as goods in the Māori graves of New Zealand. This explanation is that toki are found as artifacts in New Zealand burials because the community wanted to ritually portray the peoples’ control over the chaos of nature by bringing an element of nature into human culture and then releasing its energy as part of its mythologically important mana cycle.

First, I demonstrated that there is a record around the world of the use of tools referenced within the indigenous mythology, referencing the toki specifically in New Zealand.

Second, I showed that within the mythology those tools symbolically represent the ability to control and manipulate the environment. The tool represents the transition from the natural to the cultural world.

Third, I demonstrated that the societies have a tradition of burying goods along with the significant persons of a community.

Fourth, I concluded with, the act of including these tool types in the burial has mythological associations and ideological significance to communities.

In Chapter Four I demonstrated that each of the four criteria I developed in the Chapter Three model also apply to the Māori of New Zealand. To create this model, I had to demonstrate that the aspects shown in other cultures are also found in New Zealand. I showed that the toki is a preeminent tool represented in Māori myth. The mythology also addresses the special material, Pounamu, that is used in New Zealand, as the pieces of the body of a woman named Waitaiki, who the water spirit Poutini kidnapped and changed into the green stone so her husband could not get her back. Summaries of the myths with toki comparisons are also drawn from other mythologies, which have adzes or axes as a prominent tool. In Polynesian mythology the toki was used for a similar purpose as the axe in Chinese mythology and the adzes in Egypt and Sumer. Like the axe in China, held by the god Pangu, in the Māori tradition Tāne, uses the tool to sever the last threads of connection between the earth and the sky. Other comparisons for the uses of adzes/toki are found in their use in the mythology for the carving of wood, specifically into the world saving ark in Sumer and world expanding waka in Polynesia. In each mythology the tool is wielded by the gods/Atua and involves the gift of knowledge, through the ability to speak in the afterlife by Anubis, the knowledge of how and the ability to create a large ark to save every species on the planet by Enki, or the ability to travel to new places and cultivate plants and peace by Kū and Rongo respectively.

For the second point, I demonstrated that toki are represented within the mythology as having the ability to control and manipulate the environment in which the people live. The symbolic purpose of the tool is to bring nature into the realm of human culture rather than remaining a piece of stone that people use only temporarily. The Polynesian peoples’ mythology did not say that they were created where they are; instead, they sailed from afar to claim the new lands as their home with blessings of the Atua. Because waka were part of mythology from the beginning, the toki had to exist to create them by felling the trees and carving out their shapes. Even the demi-god Maui was said to have used a toki to carve his own waka that, after a fishing trip, becomes the South Island. The toki was the tool in stories that the Atua used to create landmasses, the means of travel, and the means of survival through cultivation. This spreading of human culture to areas that were previously uninhabited means that these areas were converted from the natural to the cultural. The symbology equated with the toki was impacted from spending a large time investment to get the work done correctly. Activities such as the initial shaping of the toki, carving the waka or house pillars, like planting kumara, was more likely to exist as a peacetime activity while the levels of chaos from outside forces were at a minimum.

For the third point, I showed that there is a tradition of laying grave goods alongside people of importance in the community. More work has been done in a wide range of global site locations spanning from cultures in the late Palaeolithic onwards. This commonality represents the innate thought process of ascribing some sort of importance to these objects, which are described in the society’s mythology. In New Zealand the tool is shown to have influence on completing cycles of life and death based on the mana gained from the presence of a manipulated piece of nature put to Earth by the Atua. Sites of the toki as a grave good are found in burials across New Zealand, with the highest concentration of them appearing in cemeteries close to the locations of quarries and the neighbouring manufacturing floors. To name a few: Wairau Bar, Opito Bay, the early burials in Sarah’s Gully Settlement, and the Long Beach site in the Otago area all have different assemblages that include the toki tool. Examples of the grave goods from these sites were found to either have been used and reworked toki or the unused ‘dummy’ versions in the forms of pendants and amulets, which, like the pendants of Mjölnir, were used as symbolism (Leach & Hamal, 1981: 131).

The fourth point, for which evidence shows that the purpose of gifting these materials, including toki, to the deceased connects to their use within the cultures’ mythology and signifies their representation as breach between the separate worlds of the natural and cultural. A waka, a season for farming, and an adzing toki all would have had charms and rituals done upon them in order to work properly with the prayers and tributes having to be complete before any mana was imbued. The meaning behind the “mana-ness” of the toki: sacred strength, courage, wisdom, and authority, was displayed by those who were embodiments of these ideals and therefore permitted to wear the ornaments, often the leaders and other elders (Keesing, 1984: 138). This demonstrates that the pendant and its mana were only gifted to those who deserved to wield its power and life force (mauri) by showing their own efforts in life and completing the life cycle when the wielder passes on.

I have demonstrated that the New Zealand Māori cultural pattern follows the patterns I reference from other world societies. I will now be summarizing the connections between the wider picture of human’s views on death and material culture as well as the rituals that connect life with death. I will also demonstrate that the New Zealand perspective continues to apply in these comparisons by including short interpretations of Māori tradition within each of these sections.

Death and Material Culture

Living people are burying the dead; this is a universal truth. In The Archaeology of Death and Burial Pearson describes funerary rites as largely unseen, but that the mere act of having them is part of a plan and its execution (Pearson, 1999: 5). After dying, a person has lost the ability to speak for him or herself, to tell their own story; it becomes a biography, as depicted by what was left behind. Along with the body, the goods that are left behind are seen as important to the person, and thus the community in which they are found. “[G]rave goods may be selected to serve as reminders of a person’s deeds or character” (Pearson, 1999: 6). This quote shows that for this purpose grave goods could be possessions, gifts, or both as representations of the best aspects of an individual and the people performing the burial ritual.

The act of gifting possessions to the deceased means that that item is lost to the community, therefore, there would be no inheritor. While many of the materials left behind could go to any number of the living, letting pieces go demonstrates that the community has enough of that material, that they could obtain more, or that the act of leaving grave goods is ritualistically more important than what could be lost. The most immediate example would be food, sometimes left in graves for the dead to sustain themselves during their societies’ version of the afterlife. Pearson remarks that “[f]ood marks identity … social status” because the means of obtaining the goods has connections with familial ties and the individual’s standing within the community (Pearson, 1999: 10). The toki indirectly ties to this idea because it is used in the production of food and is recognized for being both mythologically and factually involved in the cultivation of kumara and the hunting of moa on New Zealand. The mythological aspects are also reflected in the depictions of Rongo-maraeroa in Māori mythology and the similar gods of peace and cultivation in other Polynesian societies (Best, 1976: 178-179). The next level to this picture is that the hard work of cultivation is reflexive of times of peace. There would have to be little chaos from outside the community in any form, whether from a neighboring community of people or nature itself.

Gifting these tools as grave goods, even as a raw material, is a laborious process on its own; but because more than just time is involved in ritual, the statement of a sort of power and control is developed. Adzes that have been found around the world are shown to have been reworked after possibly years of everyday use; therefore, there is not as much work as having to creating the tool from scratch repeatedly. This, then, relates to the influence of possessions having a kind of power for those who used them. In New Zealand this mana would go to the deceased and, because someone else couldn’t claim that ‘power’ it would remain with the individual who earned it.

‘Dummies’ breach the difference between the nature and culture realms. The amount of work that went into the carving of these smaller stones did not matter as much in the importance of their usage. Versions found in European burials run from being a pebble that may appear similar to the larger tool it’s emulating to a carefully carved miniature version of a tool, and everything in between. While these were not as commonly found within the graves in the boundaries of New Zealand, there was, and still is, an important usage with the toki as a pendant on necklaces. For the people who wear them, they are symbolic of the tools’ use and the power that comes with them. Originally, many of these well-made pieces were also specific to the heads of a society because the mana-ness is being put on display. Not only for status, but even today they are supposed to be gifted rather than bought for oneself, and represents the kindness and welcoming of the recipient into the community. The tool itself and the miniature versions are a reflection of kinship, community, strength, and power. The mythos and the gifting rituals lean into the importance of bringing the community together. “[S]uch examples teach the archaeologist to study funerary practices not in isolation but as a set of activities which link with the other social practices such as building, dwelling, and subsistence.” (Pearson, 1999: 5). As an important part of subsistence there is a strong connection between these tools and the cycles of life and death as well. One can only be provided with power for a certain amount of time and the cycles must come to a repeating end in order to go back to the beginning, and along with the body of the person, the tool should be laid to rest, ritually giving its power back to the Earth.

Awareness of Death and Ritual

As humans we have death awareness, which gives us the need to create meaning in life and reflects the significance of mortuary rites (Pearson, 1999: 147). “[T]he awareness of the reality of death, its final and uncompromising nature as an event outside life… [it] heightens the significance of living human gestures, those actions which proclaim a belief in the innate value of being human and being alive” (Grainger, 1998: 105). Death rituals are not the end for the people who perform them; they are making a statement to the world in which they live. The inclusion of tools as grave goods depict that they are important for controlling the world around them. Most importantly, “funerary rituals are not simply an ideological ‘mask’ of an everyday reality but simply one arena of representations among many. In addition, human experience is not compartmentalized between the ritualized and the everyday but draws on knowledge of each to interpret and act in the world.” (Pearson, 1999: 33). While many cultures have the symbolic link between death and the importance of burial, the rituals are connected with parts of life and the importance of keeping those connections strong. Māori death rituals slightly varied depending on the iwi that were enacting them, but the toki as a grave good was a common thread across both New Zealand islands.

Any Last Words?

Through interaction with various interpretations of those mythological stories, I demonstrated the connection with the human idea of taking something from the Earth and turning it into a symbol. Refining it to fit into the cultural picture and utilizing it changes it into a means of power and control before then gifting it back to the natural world along with whom the community signifies its wielder. Following this evidence of societal ritual this trend repeats time and again in other societies around the world. The same pattern, therefore, is able to withstand scrutiny in Eastern Polynesia, specifically in New Zealand based on the contents of burial sites containing toki as grave goods around both of the major human populated islands of New Zealand. This led to the final conclusion of my hypothesis; that toki are important burial artifacts because they are representational of the power of bringing the natural world into human culture.

The tools I discussed were examples of the mythologically significant artifacts in various cultures. These tools brought the idea of the chaos of nature into a realm of human consciousness, which made the world that much easier to survive in. The people in all of these societies used these tools, symbols of connection from gods between the wild earth and the side of civilization, to shape the world so they could live in it. They could work the land for cultivation, hunt animals, cut down trees to build shelter, carve wood into ships to grow an ever-expanding world, and use the tools to create art. In whichever way they are used the final form of any of these options are always becoming things that humans can understand as helping ourselves, to be further from danger.

Toki exist as a means of subsistence through their use in cultivation and hunting, as a world expander through their use in carving waka, and a representation of the gift of power and belonging because of their mythical origins from Atua. After being gifted to humanity in general for the humans’ particular needs the symbolism of the tool was then passed between people in smaller communities. The last connection, in which the toki joins the body in the grave, is a gift of that mana back to the world from whence it originated and completes the cycle the Atua had started long ago.