Māori Battalion scholarship for tangi researcher
university-of-waikato
Mon Mar 22 2010 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)
Māori Battalion scholarship for tangi researcher
Monday, 22 March 2010, 10:02 am
Press Release: University of Waikato
Māori Battalion scholarship for Waikato University tangi researcher
A brush with mortality set University of Waikato student Ēnoka Murphy on the path of delving into the history of tangihanga, and he’s now won a Māori Battalion scholarship worth $50,000 to support his doctoral studies over the next two years.
Murphy, who’s of Ngāti Manawa and Ngāti Ruapani descent, spent three years in and out of hospital and underwent several operations in his battle against cancer and other illnesses, but now has the all-clear. He’s now embarking on a PhD looking at the traditions of tangihanga during the nineteenth century.
“Three years in and out of hospital is a long time,” he says. “During that time I met and befriended many people who have passed on, so when this research opportunity came up I felt I could handle it because of my past experiences.”
Murphy will focus on the major tangihanga between 1800 and 1900, and his research will cover the ōhākī, or dying wish; the tuku wairua, or act of sending off the spirit; the tangihanga itself, burial or alternative practices, the hiding of the deceased, and the final exhumation and scraping of the bones.
He says many of these cultural practices have disappeared. “The scraping or cleaning of the bones showed love and dedication to those who had passed on. Today we place photos of the deceased and of relatives who have already passed on at the feet of the deceased. There’s some evidence that in the old days it was the bones and skulls themselves that surrounded the deceased.”
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Murphy is the only PhD student among the eight recipients of this year’s Ngarimu VC and 28 (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarships, awarded annually to enterprising, innovative and influential Māori in tertiary education. Murphy’s grandfather went off to war in his teens, and was the last surviving member of his iwi to serve with the Maori Battalion before his death last year.
“It’s extremely humbling to receive this award,” Murphy says. “I now have to step up to the mark and do an excellent job in my research.”
He says the historical tangihanga research is a very important study. “So much of our tikanga from the nineteenth century has gone, perhaps forever, so it’s important to write about it. Many of the generation who went to war, like my koro, would have remembered these cultural practices, so this is almost like a rediscovery, reclaiming our ways of dealing with funerals.”
Murphy’s research is part of a wider Waikato University study of Māori tangihanga practices past and present. Led by Professor Ngahuia Awekotuku (CNZM) of the School of Māori and Pacific Development and Professor Linda Waimarie Nikora, Director of the Māori & Psychology Research Unit, the study is funded by a Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund grant worth $950,000 over three years and a further $250,000 from the Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga National Institute of Research Excellence.
ENDS
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