Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

 

Archive

 

Volume 15 Number 2, August 2014

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Children's and young people's participation in Spiritual Funerary Ritual

by

Anita Hammer

Queen Maud University College of Early Childhood Education in Trondheim

 

Introduction:

During the funeral service for my father[1], there was a moment when the organ had stopped playing, and the minister conducting the service was on his way physically moving from one place and position to another, so there came to be a pause in action. As the tone of the organ tuned out, however, another sound was heard. It was the sound of a baby’s voice singing, a high pitch melody continuing the organ notes, piercing the pause. A baby boy lay in his pram at the fore of the congregation, the great grandson of the deceased. As the sound from the organ stopped, he kept singing for his great granddad in the coffin.

 

It was a very moving moment for those who attended the funeral.

 

My father had passed away on the 4^th of December, and the last days of his life he spent in the apartment with my mother. The day before he died I was present with him, and the great grandson, his first, also visited this day. We sat with the little one on his bedside from time to time during the day, until the time came for the little one to leave for home. As we stood in the hallway, baby dressed to go, talking over practicalities, the little boy, however, turned again and again to return to his great grandfather’s room, twisting his little body almost out of his mother’s arm, as to have another look at his great granddad on the bed. As we walked into the room with him the last time, he looked around in the room, as if watching sense impressions that were invisible to the adults present.

 

There is no need to interpret such a situation. There is no need to impose upon a child any interpretation of his body movements of sensations. There is no need to impose on to a small child an intentional act of singing during the funeral service.

 

On the other hand, the awareness of the expressions of the child, by all adults present, is of importance. Not being aware of what was expressed would be an act of reducing the small child’s expression as non-valid or irrelevant. Was the baby’s singing an act of, play, of sing-along? Was it an act of ritual? Can it be described to be “intentional” in any form or way? This may be a matter of more or less fruitful discussion, but the fact that it was expressed, and experienced by all gathered, is what I will be concerned with here.

 

Generally, in a Scandinavian context, as well as in other western countries, there has been a rapidly growing awareness of children's need for play, presence and education on their own terms over the last decades. Secularization of societies had led to a situation where children's participation in traditional rituals have been questioned, and where religious, or any spiritual influence in children's lives are questioned with regards to imposing upon children an adult worldview that may be a burden.

 

While such discussions are highly valuable and necessary, from another point of view, one may ask if avoidance of addressing spiritual issues with and for children is not also depriving children from the recognition of a spiritual reality that is a birth gift for them, and preventing them from developing a vocabulary of experience that is necessary for all, if humans are viewed as fundamentally spiritual beings. The theologian Sturla Sagberg points out that "Fruits of the Spirit (St.Paul), inner qualities of the human spirit (Dalai Lama) or spiritual intelligence have in common that it is all about leading meaningful lives, connected to nature, to humanity and the quest for ultimate meaning."[2] And he points out that in the Norwegian context "it is easy to neglect spirituality in this sense when dealing with children's needs in our time".[3]

 

From my own experiences with young children I know this to be true. Further, Sagberg holds that "/---/there is strong evidence showing that children express their spirituality in their own way, quite often in opposition to established religion in their own neighborhood."[4] My claim is that humans are spiritual beings, and that depriving children of having access to, and/or to develop a vocabulary for experience and expression of a spiritual dimension in life, is depriving them of access to a more profound dimension of joyful experience of meaning.

 

In the following I will therefore present my own experience of participation in a Maori funerary ritual, a tangihanga, in which children's participation is not only taken as natural, but also considered to be of great value both to the children's lives, destiny and to the spiritual world.[5]

 

 

Experiencing a Maori tangihanga including all generations

 

As argued in my earlier works, that research must be based on personal experience,[6] I choose to present the children's participation through thick descriptions of contextualized experience, starting with the Maori Tangi.

 

In Maori culture the spirits of the ancestors are experienced as present in the here-and-now. This fact is perhaps never stated any clearer in Maori culture than by the ritual enactment of the passing over to spirit of a family member. What in the Western world most commonly is named a funeral would not be a suitable name for the sending off of a Maori family member into spirit. A Maori tangi[7] is experienced as so much more than just burying a body and saying goodbye. I shall in the following give an account of a Maori tangi in which I, by the curtsey of the family, had the opportunity to take part as one of the family. This was an honour accorded me unconditionally, not because of my person, but due to the heartfelt warmth and hospitality that I experienced when seeking to understand some aspects of Maori culture not from a standpoint of interpretation of credo, but as a shared spiritual community experience. To me there is no way in which Maori culture can be understood other than on the terms of the people themselves; experiencing a Maori tangi can never be explained intellectually, or understood in other terms than by the terms of those who are part of the heritage.[8]  Approaching this ritual event as spiritual experience, I will focus on spiritual interaction between the present and the past, and between the spirit and the flesh, actualized by the presence of children in ritual and the presence of ancestral spirits. As will be pointed out, children's presence is crucial in the Maori tangihanga.

 

One day during my fieldwork in Hawkes Bay on the east coast of New Zealand, my Maori friend "Anna"[9] picks me up in her car, as I am graciously invited to take part in the funerary rites of her uncle, who has passed away during the night. I have been asked to dress in black. Anna picks me up in her small, quick car, and we drive down to the flat part of Napier, close to a small river. As we drive up and park on the footpath alongside a Chapel, family and friends are already gathering; greeting each other, presenting children and family members to those they have not seen for a long time, as well as sharing emotions and sentiment with those closest to them. More and more people are gathering in the yard outside the chapel. The people gathering seem to be from different professions, status, age and walks of life. There are very old people present, as well as many children of different ages, and many teenagers as well. Not everyone is dressed in black: All the women present are in black dresses and coats; the boys and men wear individual clothes with different colours.[10] Anna presents me as her spiritual friend. I am greeted warmly and openly by Anna’s closer and more distant family members. Anna tells me just to stay close to her and do as she does, so that I will act/behave in accordance with cultural custom.

 

I experience this gathering and re-kindling of connections with more distant relatives, as well as one’s nearest and dearest, as a very important part of creating a collective or transpersonal sphere around the event. Anna explains to me that not all the relatives are here yet, and that those arriving from more distant places will arrive the next day. Experiencing this re-kindling is to me like being in a circle of togetherness and holding one another that is to carry us all in the ceremony and the ceremonies to come. Therefore, the waiting in the yard outside, before entering the little chapel must be seen as a necessary and important part of the gathering. Starting at seven does not mean, then, that the part of the event which is held inside starts at seven, but that at seven we must be there in order to create the collective feeling that will hold the event, spiritually and emotionally. Did anybody misinterpret and think that the service started too late? No: the wisdom of processual dramaturgy[11] is present already in the planning, preparing the preparation.

 

The chapel is a relatively small space with room for approximately eighty to one hundred people, I should think. It is furnished as a common funeral chapel in western style, with a podium at the top with a cross behind, and rows of benches on each side of a centre aisle. As we enter, the chapel becomes crowded. We sit down on the end of one of the back rows, as those more closely connected pass us and walk to the front. At the back of the church some musicians are seated, playing the guitar and singing, as we walk in. The deceased is an old man who has several children and many grandchildren, or mokopuna.[12] The close family and the women in particular, are the whanau pani[13] of the deceased. They are not sitting on the pews with the rest of the mourners, but are placed on the podium, facing the rest of the whanau[14] and the community. The guitar playing and singing, along with the wailing from some of the whanau pani in the front, immediately forms an impression with me, of stepping outside of my personal realm and entering into a collective space of sharing in the grief. The communal emotion surrounds us all: it is a gripping atmosphere, an intensified presence of non-self or trans-self in an emotional landscape of loss, anticipation and togetherness. Individual emotion is given over to the we of togetherness.

 

Piercing through the thickness of the hot afternoon comes a rich and clear female voice from the back of the church opening the way through the crowd for the coffin to be carried inside: she is singing Whakaaria mai. The open coffin is carried by eight teenage boys, and following it are the women of the whanau pani. More people gather from outside and are standing at the back of the church and in the doorway after the coffin has passed. The male family members carry the open coffin to the front so that the body of the deceased can be close and visible to all. The tones of Whakaaria mai fill the chapel as the women of the whanau pani take their place at the podium to receive the body of their husband, father and grandfather. The whole ceremony is conducted in the Maori language, with the priest and the male Maori elders taking their turns in speaking to the deceased, the family, and those ancestors now present from the spiritual world.

 

At this point in the description of how the event unfolded there is a need for me to stop and reflect on my role as an observer. Have I come here to watch someone’s grief? The deceased is someone unknown to me, and yet I am welcomed to take part in his farewell. I cannot understand most of what is spoken in Maori, but I can feel the collective atmosphere of respect and grief: yet I feel shy to join in, and to look at the whanau pani women. Part of me feels like an intruder, a witness with little understanding of Maori culture, coming for the experience, not to grieve a loved one. My feelings towards my own presence are mixed. I know I am here to participate, and feel my heart is moved and present in all that is taking place; still, I am aware of my presence as a visitor, a newcomer, an onlooker to someone else’s grief. In her book, The Vulnerable Observer[15] Behar describes similar sentiments in relation to fieldwork experiences, and argues for the necessity of making known what happens to the observer. “[P]articipant observation” is split at the root: act as a participant, but don’t forget to keep your eyes open.”[16]

 

During this hot afternoon in the chapel, and in the three following days as I participate in the tangihanga, I must admit that my eyes do not remain clear in what they see. Neither are the ears, the nose, or the sensations of the rest of my body. Although I have no personal reference to the life of the deceased, as I am present in the chapel, a connection to his life is instantly made, by way of the presence of his close relatives. Are my eyes open? I mourn with all those present. Rather than keeping my distance, I experience a deeply felt communion with those present in the actions that are undertaken. My eyes are open in between waves of emotion, as I dry them with a handkerchief kindly handed me by Anna. I experience my own grief. Perhaps misplaced, some would say. Or perhaps, on the contrary, the way of the Maori to honour a deceased, as I now experience it, provides a place to mourn not only the presently deceased, but also to connect with the grief for all losses in life, something the Western city culture, which has surrounded me most of my life, has not allowed for. I will return to this question below, when considering the tangihanga event dramaturgically.

 

I have no personal reference to the Maori way of saying farewell to the deceased. But I possess a personal reference to grief and to a feeling of togetherness in the family and in a group. I also have the reference to village life and the sharing that takes place when saying goodbye to a family member in a local chapel in my own home country. I have been present at burials in a small churchyard on the island Frøya on the coast of Norway as my father and his brothers sent away their deceased sister into spirit while the wind blew in from the North Sea through the tufts of grass as the family, with all its broken and unbroken links of mixed emotions stood there in togetherness, knowing that she was now given back to the same ground that she had been born out of, the sandy and salty earth of the island she called home.

 

No, I do not want to sit there on the bench of the chapel studying someone else’s grief. I want to give from my heart, from the villages and islands of the coast of Norway, my heart of the sea, to these people of the sea and the land of Aotearoa,[17] to make us as one in these very special moments that are an unavoidable and most certain part of all human life: the act of saying goodbye.

 

My own previous references to funerary rites are mainly from Lutheran church practice. But they are also coloured by local custom. Still, when I watch the women of the whanau pani caressing the face and body of their deceased loved one, stroking his cheeks and wetting them with their tears, I see that there is no place to hide for them. They are to share their grief with all present. There is no going home to cry alone in the kitchen. Also the children, the moko (as the locals spoke of them), or mokopuna, sit there with their mothers and grandmothers. This is different from what I have experienced in my own culture, where the audience and children in particular are, to a large degree, to be sheltered from emotions of grief. What I experience, though, is that in sharing the grief, we are all invited to carry the burden of it, along with those who are hurting. In the Maori culture one does not grieve alone.

 

The service continues with songs and speeches. It is the men who speak. There is a priest leading the ceremony, but the Kaumatua, the leader of the marae where the deceased has his ancestry, also plays a leading part. He comes forward, and standing next to the coffin he speaks from his heart to the deceased, as do one after the other of the men. Some of the speeches are in Maori, and those who speak in Maori are also calling upon the whakapapa,[18] the genealogy of the tribe in their speeches. Others speak in English. The deceased is reminded of good times as well as those times when he might have tricked someone, or made a mistake. There are laughter as well as tears in the room. The atmosphere is thick with the drama of a life lived, with all its intertwinements. The deceased has lived, related, and shared. He has had fun and been involved in conflicts, and shared highs and lows in different ways with everyone present, close or distant, in work and in intimate life. Those with whom he has shared have also shared with each other. There is no human life without regret, loss, and entangled emotions, along with joy, commitment, truth and love. The man to whom the body belonged, that is now being caressed and cherished, has been well loved and respected as a caring man for and by his family. Throughout the event the whanau pani weep loudly and express sincere emotions belonging to their own grief and the community.

 

At the end of the ceremony everyone queues up in order to approach the front and walk around the coffin to say goodbye to the deceased, as well as to kiss and comfort the wife and the others of the whanau pani as well as the rest of the whanau. The body’s head lies on a soft cushion, and he is draped with flowers, feathers and objects of honour. Anna and I walk out together with two of Anna’s cousins, whom she introduces me to, and whom I will see more of in the two coming days. Standing outside before leaving I also speak to her brother; they all greet me with hospitality and welcome me to take part in the next day’s rituals. As Anna and I drive home she tells me that the deceased will not be left alone until the body is put into the earth two days from now. The whanau pani will surround him night and day; they will not leave even to take a meal, or to sleep, so food will be brought to them. The spirit of the loved one is experienced as being present; he is there and is aware of all that is taking place around him. We, however, can go home and get a good night’s sleep before going to the first day Marae[19] the next day, where the next stop of the body will be.

 

Anna picks me up in her swift little car the next day, and during the twenty-minute drive north from Napier along the coast, she prepares me for the events of the day. She has with her big cakes that are to be portioned out and served with the tea and coffee, but when I offer to share in the costs she bluntly refuses. “You are a guest,” she says. She also tells me that we are going to be at the first day Marae where the funeral procession will be received; the family will bring the body of the deceased here so that the family and ancestors from the side of the family belonging to this marae may bid him farewell. It is this side of the family that Anna belongs to, so she will be one of the women welcoming the body as it arrives, and so will I, as I share in her spiritual path. It is a special honour, being allowed to take part and pay my respects. Also, me being a newcomer, a waetapu,[20] I am able to appreciate the trust by which I am honoured. Driving along the shore of the sea we turn off into a side road that curves into a slightly hilly landscape. The land on which the buildings of the marae are situated is rather flat, and a stream or small river runs nearby: we can see the hilltops in the distance

 

 

At the first day Marae

 

Being at a marae, as well as the significance of what takes place there, has a substantially different quality from being in a chapel in town. A marae is the place of belonging for a certain Maori tribe or people. The first day Marae is comprised of a flat area with several houses built on it, including the traditional meetinghouse or wharenui.[21] Outside the meetinghouse chairs are being set up in rows, left and right, facing the platform where the welcoming is to take place. We park at the back of another building, a hall that has a huge kitchen at the back, and walk in with the cakes. Only a few relatives have arrived so far. Some older women are working in the kitchen, and the Kaumatua, the elder that is responsible for the etiquette and standards of the marae and its people, greets me with friendship and dignity. As Anna introduces me, he welcomes me to be present. I recognise him from the ceremony the previous evening. After carrying the cakes in, we cut them up and lay them out on trays that will be put on one of the long tables that have been set up in parallels angling away from the windows at the front of the hall and next to a big door facing out towards a yard between some of the houses. Returning to the back porch I speak to a young, disabled boy who is here for the occasion. The Kaumatua greets us and watches to make sure we are ok. Then there are some hours of waiting; I chat to the women in the kitchen and some female relatives that are also there on the front porch of the meetinghouse so that they may greet the funeral procession as it arrives. Suddenly we hear the cars starting to arrive.

 

We, some nine or ten women, sit very crowded together on chairs on the porch in front of the door: we guard the door of the marae while watching people arriving by and through the entrance gate to the meetinghouse area. The women are of different ages, and all very open and welcoming, we laugh and share, and they tell me of their complex family ties and family trees. The chairs down on the grass are set up so that the men, and some of those in the first row I see are kaumatua, sit on the right, facing the porch, and the women sit on the left side. Between the rows there is space to walk up to the podium where we are sitting. This open alley between the rows of chairs leads up to an open space on the grass beneath us, in front of the rows of chairs.

 

In front of the men’s row of chairs a woman is standing, and as the coffin arrives at the gate and is carried forward she makes the ceremonial call for them to approach. She is the Kaikaranga.[22] Her melodious and strong voice of lament fills the air: it penetrates the atmosphere and sets the ceremonial mood of intensified presence. Suddenly the chatty atmosphere is condensed into ritual presence and the body in its open coffin, surrounded by the whole whanau, is held aloft as a ceremonial mat made of flax is laid out for it to be placed upon. It is laid out by one of the close women relatives who is not wearing black like the others.[23] Tears are allowed to flow freely, now that the ceremonial frame is set. The male elders hold their staves and speak to, and over, the body of the deceased one by one, addressing him as part of the community, as one belonging to a genealogy: the whakapapa. Emotions are freely expressed. There is no hurry. The deceased has come for the last time to this marae, to recall his belonging here, so that this branch of the family tree may see him off to the next world. Several times I observe that as a man speaks, or at the end of his speech, one or several women may rise up and stand with him, singing, as if to underline his message and give strength to it. This soul-filled interaction between speech and song is unlike anything I have ever witnessed. It is as if the women stand up to carry, to hold, and to fill the gaps between the words spoken by each man. They do this through their quality of voice expression. There is mana[24] in their voices which replaces gaps of meaning with intensified collective presence. This reminds me that the men speaking are not only speaking on behalf of themselves, as individuals, they are speaking for a we. There are several of this we at the gathering: different generations and branches of families, as well as friends. It strikes me that all individuals are here as a we, as whenua and manuhiri,[25] that is, as deceased whanau and grieving visitors. The sobbing heard in the crowd belongs to all. It is a communion of the we, gathered into us, which is taking place within the ceremonial frame of the tangihanga. To an urban foreigner visitor, an overwhelming sense of lost cultural identity becomes visible, the cost of Western individualism. Whakaaria mai is sung by the Kaikaranga, and those who know it by heart, join in. It calls forth memories of my own homeland far away on the other side of the globe, but not so far away from my ancestors, perhaps, in spirit.

 

The final, and most profound part of this ceremony of greetings is conducted by the women. The women who have been sitting ready on the porch, overlooking the proceedings, including myself, now rise and line up to greet and welcome the whanau and all present into this marae.  Some hundred people or more, I would estimate, pass through the line and each and every one of the guests is kissed and given a nose-greeting. These moments of kissing and performing the hongi[26] feels to me to be simultaneously a very intimate and yet very collective we sort of experience. We do this because it is a custom. To me it makes sense that it is a custom, it makes you feel everyone, physically, in a way that may be personal, but also totally impersonal, depending on how you choose to relate to each individual.

 

After the greeting of welcome, tea, coffee, cakes and savouries are served in the hall. People need food before they continue the journey, as the body and its whanau still have some way to go before today’s journey will end.

 

Next the crowd lines up for the last goodbye of the deceased at this marae. It is the wairua of the deceased person that has been honoured, in speech, place and song. In death the wairua becomes tapu.[27] The wairua is believed to remain with or near the body during the time of the tangi. The wairua of deceased and the ancestors encourage this individual on his way to the world of departed spirits or to the ancestral homeland. The speeches uttered at this time also encourage and aid the spirit of the deceased on its way. This is what we are witnessing and taking part in, on this day, then in the evening to come, and on the fourth morning.

 

As the coffin is lifted, a young woman from the whanau pani, the same one who laid down the flax mat for the coffin before, dressed in trousers, a green top and with a bright red cap on her head, now places herself in front of the coffin. In her hand she holds a patu,[28] a ceremonial weapon, club-shaped and made of greenstone or of whalebone, which she swings in front of the coffin as it moves. She moves her body in circular movements while striking or beating with the greenstone patu through the air. The movements are controlled and gracious, certain and pointed, as if she is paving the way through air thick with resistance in order to get her relative safely through uncertain dangers, out of the gate of the first Marae and into the vehicle by which he will be taken to a second marae, the one that is his primary ancestral home. The Kaikaranga also leads the mourners in song as the coffin is carried along, while men from the community step forward to make speeches between the songs. The movements of the young woman are peaceful, yet strong and war-like, and seem to me to be carried by an intense stillness of inner presence. It is viewed with humble respect by the onlookers.[29]

 

As we end our meal we walk out into the grass field used for parking. Everyone gathers there, and more speakers come forward to give words to the body, and song surrounds the coffin as it is carried out of the gate of the marae where it is lifted into the waiting car. All the cars, including ours, follow the car holding the coffin, and the cars of the whanau, driving slowly down towards the next stop, that is to be the second Marae.

 

 

At the second Marae

 

The second Marae is located about ten minutes' drive from the first Marae. Before departing I meet with Anna’s cousins and her uncle, and am warmly greeted. They tell me stories of their family, and I even learn that one of the cousins has some Norwegian heritage on one side. Anna’s cousin then calls me her cousin, too. Anna calls everyone she feels close to, cousins, uncle or aunt, sister or brother. I learn that this is an expression of affection. We chat away. The ritual frame of the event allows for spontaneity and sharing, laughter and exploration of who we are and what our thoughts are, of self-expression and opportunities to play with the children, the mokopuna of all ages, in between and even along with the seriousness of the farewell. The enjoyment of good food and each other’s company is part of the tribute and necessary to send the deceased off in a proper and appropriate manner.

 

Anna and I follow the cars of the whanau which in turn follow the vehicle carrying the coffin, driving at slow pace to the next stop. We drive through a landscape that becomes increasingly hilly and where the sides of the road are covered more and more with native bush. On the way I hear stories of how in the sixties there were up to two hundred people living at the marae, but now no one lives there anymore. Most marae are now used only for ceremonial gatherings. As we arrive at the gate of the second Marae I meet with the cousins again, and are again warmly greeted by many who appreciate that someone from outside is there to share and to spread an understanding of their culture.  I am very aware that the welcoming attitude of what Anna always calls her people, has very little to do with me personally. It has do with Anna and the decision she has made to take me in. Because Anna is a respected member of her family, some of that respect also rubs off on to me. The love and respect for Anna elicits the same for the one she has chosen to bring with her.

 

A large group of people now enter the marae firstly to gather on a big grass lawn in front of where the cars are parked. It is even more crowded here. The momentum of the event is intensifying. It seems that what I have experienced until now has only been preparatory: there has been a building up of energy, mana and collective presence and spiritual intent that will help the deceased on his journey as well as the family in letting go.

 

The Kaumatua stands in the middle of the lawn, talking to several people, when he suddenly calls out to those standing nearby if anyone has an envelope. Anna explains to me that it is customary to give a gift of money from the tribe to the family, the whanau pani, to aid with the funeral expenses, and this is to be handed over by the Kaumatua. The money is all in order, but just now an envelope is needed. Incidentally I have an envelope in my purse. I hand it over to the Kaumatua. It’s just a practicality.

 

Together we follow the crowd, now walking in procession through the gate to the marae area. It is we now, informally I have become part of a group of women that is made up of Anna’s aunts and cousins, and they make me feel like one of them. The awkwardness of being a newcomer and outsider disappears for those moments we have our informal talks of this and that, family and life. As we enter the open space in front of the meetinghouse we see the women waiting on the right, and men sitting on chairs to the left, as at the first marae. There are rows of chairs placed on the grass in front of the meetinghouse, to the right side (left as seen from the meetinghouse), and we sit down there. Many people have come, maybe around one hundred and fifty, and many stand at the back. On the platform in front of the door there are stacks of mattresses and pillows, and as the procession arrives, the coffin is put in between the mattresses. The mattresses are for the women of the whanau pani as they will be staying awake all night: caressing the body and keeping the deceased company.

 

The coffin is still open, and there are a sheepskin, feathers and flowers on it. I can see that the body of the deceased is clad in a uniform with a hat. The envelope containing the gift of money is then formally handed over to members of the whanau pani. And just like that, I think to myself, I unintentionally have provided an object of ritual, physically taken from one culture to another, from one family connection to another, to humbly be the carrier of the ritual and financial gift.

 

The afternoon sun shines hot into evening, as we sit watching and listening to song and greetings. This marae is situated quite close to a main road, and from time to time a car is heard passing by. The landscape is excruciatingly beautiful, with luscious bush on the one side, while opening up to wide plains and pine forests on the other. Several male speakers now address the deceased in memorisation of humorous or profound events in his life. This goes on for quite some time. When a man speaks, a group of women often stands with him, chanting or singing, in the same way as we have experienced earlier in the day.

 

After this ceremony, which has lasted for some two or three hours, we are called in for a meal. Dinner is served in the big hall, where a row of long tables has been set up, and decked with food and drink. A meat stew, and a lovely desert are served, after which there is also coffee. Seated around the long tables, I speak to several more members of the family that I have not spoken to before. I meet a Maori wood carver and storyteller who informs me he will not carve motifs of anything but stories that he knows and knows the meaning of. I also speak at length with male and female members of the family, and we share stories, compare cultural knowledge and laugh together. Anna informs me that the food served is very important to the occasion. It is customary to eat the food you are served at a tangihanga, since it is important to digest what is taking place, and not leave any unfinished traces of physical substance, as this may provide an opening for less benevolent spiritual presences. As we shall also experience throughout these events, the food served is of a supreme quality and all freshly taken from the tribe’s own land, seas, lakes and rivers.

 

Many people will sleep at the marae this night. Like all marae, this one too has a hall in which mattresses can be laid out. But Anna and I are to go home this night, and will not return until the morning of the final day. Looking at our watches we see that we have been at the tangihanga for about ten hours. For me it is time to reflect upon some of what has taken place, and upon what is to come the following day: the final day of the tangihanga.

 

 

Reflections during the process of the tangihanga

 

The impressions are many. Dramaturgically the event, starting on Tuesday evening, has had a gap in it for me, since Thursday was the day of the whanau pani to organise and prepare for the main events, and a day for them to watch and wait for more geographically spread relatives to arrive for the final day of the tangihanga. Still, I felt, even on that Thursday when I stayed away, some sense of being inside the process of the tangi, a mode that I could not step out of. During the meetings and thoughts I had that day, I felt to be carrying the mode of the tangi, so it was as if it was living its own life within me, and that had to be carried over the Thursday, the day that had now passed. A tangihanga lasts three days. The family watches over the body while the spirit or mana of the deceased is still connected to the body, until the morning of the fourth day. Then his wairua will be taken away by the spirit ancestors.

 

As the dramaturgy of the tangihanga encompasses individual experience as well as interactive experience, transpersonal experience and collective experience as different levels or modes of experience taking place in performance, I will point to how the various elements of this processual event seem to take care of these different experiential modes or levels.

 

All formal and informal ceremony and interaction are framed by time, namely the time of the clinical death of a person, until three days later when the burial and a final festive meal take place. This is a time set aside as ritual time, in which procedures of the ritual take over the profane, everyday time. Counting the hours of presence does not make sense according to ritual time. Within this timeframe the comings and goings are all connected to the main action and its purpose. This action is centred round the body of the deceased that still holds its spirit. The dramaturgy proceeds according to the journey of the earthly life of the deceased, namely from his connection to the earth, the places, the ancestors, to which he belonged. Everyone present collectively relates to this journey, in making the journey themselves as they follow the body to the marae, the ancestral and communal home. The attendees are all accustomed to these proceedings. They value the quality of food, singing and the dignity and responsibility of the whanau pani. The whanau pani hold a position of respect and honour, while also the burden of the grief.[30] There are expectations of the whanau pani to show compassion and comfort for the body of the deceased, and there is nowhere for them to hide or turn away from the crowd. Ambivalent emotion or conflicts, which in general may exist in all family relations, are not to be expressed by the women of the whanau pani. The men speakers, however, seem to have a great deal of liberty to express various emotions, and some of them choose a humoristic approach. These two aspects of expression by the actors or main protagonists of the ritual together form an atmosphere containing and expressing emotions on behalf of themselves as well as of the total community. On a collective level, the vehicles, the marae as places of belonging to ancestry and land, and the landscape with its vegetation, its roads, its sunlight and its evening dew, and the high skies over the landscape, create a stage for humans to connect to the ancestral spirits. By the visible flesh of the deceased, it is clear in the day that his spirit is no longer giving breath to the body, and that the spirit of the ancestors must be getting close so that he can join them. This also implies that collectively the same ancestors are close to us. We, as family, share in the same ancestral presence. Since this is so, the communal presence is also one unified by the presence of spirits, so our relating to the collective mode will be different from what it would be in an everyday social gathering. This, of course, affects our attitude to the ceremonial procedures, and also the way in which we behave towards each other. We have the liberty to express emotion more freely than on more mundane occasions. Thus, the collective atmosphere of spiritual presence also affects the individual interaction that is taking place. In the moments of meeting in the car park, or outside the door, or sitting at the table, the various individual interactions are very informal, and as such they may be considered to be at the other end of the spectrum in an imagined continuum of formal/informal behaviour. Chatting about our love lives or commenting on each other's dresses, yes, indeed these are trivial matters, but our conversation is still, nonetheless influenced by the spiritual communal mode so that underneath and in between this triviality there is more physical touching, more empathy and more deeply felt sharing with the other. The communal spiritual mode carries not only the formal, but also all informal human interaction taking place during the time and space of the tangihanga, making the trivial, like a plain envelope or a word whispered to someone, something of significance whose meaning only spirits could reveal. By way of the collective spiritual, individual interactions may become transpersonal. Transpersonal experience is usually, in para-psychological literature, considered to be individual experience. It is an experience in which an individual seems to transcend the limits of their own private self into an extended self. Due to the overall spiritual collective frame of the ritual frame described here, and the lesser emphasis on the individual, what I did experience as transpersonal was not so much to do with my own personality as with togetherness. During the tangihanga, I experienced the transpersonal as the joint experience between two or more individuals. These were particular incidents taking place which were not shared by the whole collective group. Still, they were not individual experiences. They also included levels of consciousness beyond what is usually consciously shared by individuals in interaction. I would characterise the greeting with kisses and hongi, which creates a sense of intimacy which goes beyond the individual level, as a form of transpersonal encounter.

 

The intensity of presence taking place in the informal interactions between two or more people, framed as they are by the overall spiritual processual frame of the three-day long event, clearly shows how the three layers that I have defined, the collective, the interactional and the individual, must be seen as interacting with each other. The overall dramaturgy of slow movement, formal procedures and social inclusion with spontaneously expressed sentiment, allowing for expression of emotional reactions as well as reflecting on these, along the way, is a dramaturgical frame in which participants whether carrying out central roles, the whanau pani, speakers, singers, and movers, or carrying out parts that have little or no focal attention in relation to formal procedures, still are actively producing soulful contents into the frame. The intensified presence taking place each time the body is moved, the female voices calling, or the women caressing the body on the collective level, allow for a sharing on the interactional level, of expression of grief, joy, concerns for everyday life, children, and ancestors.

 

Anna had prepared me that tangihanga was a formal event with set ways of how to behave, of treating the body, speaking and singing. I was less prepared for the personal sharing that occurred with many people whom I had never met before, which became surprisingly intimate. But my individual experience could not escape or be set apart from the spiritual frame into which I had entered. These individual and interactional experiences that may be categorised as transpersonal in their effects, are not easily described; still, it is for the sake of these experiences that the dramaturgy is set. Each person in the crowd is in communion with the unseen, the spiritual presence. The physical actions and interactions done by body, voice, architecture and movements, as well as the presence of the body, the flesh from which mana is to depart, all this is a staged meeting between visible and invisible, tangible and intangible worlds. It is also dramaturgy that actualised both the personal and collective memories, in which the whakapapa, the ancestral lineages were made present by words and by the mokopuna, the presence of the children and grandchildren. The presence of children and young people is particularly important at a tangi. Since spirits of the place and the ancestors are present, the past is confirmed in a way that may open up for an insight into the meaning of life, of the life task, for the younger people present. In this way the event also looks to the future. The distance between past and future is condensed by spiritual ancestors. It is actualised by dramaturgy. Living beings, by way of the dramaturgy of the tangihanga, come together in a collective mode of intensified presence consisting of the past as well as the future. Spiritual presence produces effects in our interaction and communication with each other.

 

Before moving on to describe the events of the final day, I will use the words of James to describe the kind of presence that the dramaturgy of this three-day processual event expresses:

 

The further limits of our being plunge, it seems to me, into an altogether other dimension of existence from the sensible and merely “understandable” world. Name it mystical region, or the supernatural region […] we belong to it in a more intimate sense than that in which we belong to the visible world, for we belong in the most intimate sense where our ideals belong. Yet the unseen region in question is not merely ideal, for it produces effects in this world. When we communicate with it, work is actually done upon our finite personality.^[31]

 

This work done upon the soul is coming in effect for children too, in allowing them to take part in a ritual sacred time and place. Through their presence during the worship and the sharing, a profound sense of belonging and seeds of a deeper meaning of life, purpose and hope may grow. Keeping children away from ritual presence would deprive them of developing this sense of meaning, hope and belonging. This is true for their social and spiritual belonging, because in a ritual setting togetherness and intensified presence is part of the same flow of belonging.

 

 

The final day of the tangihanga

 

The words by James are perhaps even more fitting for the last day of the tangihanga, than the previous days. The Chapel mass for Anna’s uncle took place on Tuesday afternoon, and the journey to first Marae, and then to second Marae on Wednesday. The body has been kept at the second Marae until Friday morning. The Maori faith is that on the morning of the burial, as the sun rises, the spirit ancestors of the deceased come and take his spirit with them, so when the actual burial takes place, this mainly concerns the body of the deceased. 

 

On Friday morning the field where we park our car outside the second Marae is even more crowded than it had been on Wednesday: there must have been several hundred people in attendance. This is not unusual at a tangi, Anna tells me, as she presents me to some of her newly arrived relatives. As we walk through the gate into the marae I see that people are finding their seats, the chairs having been placed in the same positions as last time. The women, and the Kaikaranga sing the welcome warmly and expressively, and formal and informal addresses and speeches are made before the coffin is raised once again and carried towards the gate of the marae as the whanau pani and mourners follow. We too move slowly after the coffin, which has been closed and decorated with flowers and sacred objects in the morning before the events of this day. There is a slow movement towards the gate, with the young woman again moving with the patu in hand, in front of the coffin, as it is carefully carried forward under the stark autumn sunshine. The voices of the women singing Whakaaria mai, and the crowd following their song, intensifies with the movement of the coffin towards the departure gate. Since I do not know the text in Maori, I sing it quietly in my own mother tongue, O Store Gud[32], making a connection to my own belonging. People are lining up in rows to see the coffin pass through the gate and out of the marae for the last time when suddenly a young teenage boy jumps in front of the coffin as if to stop it on its way. He is dressed like any young Maori or pakeha[33] boy you would see on a street corner, in jeans and a t-shirt with a cap on his head back to front. But what he does sets him apart. He cries out the first lines of the Maori male war ritual, the haka. His voice is strong and clear, and the movements certain and directed towards the coffin. Soon another eight to ten young boys have lined up with him, answering his call, and he leads them in a haka,^[34] a dance of war in honour of the grandfather as a last tribute from the people at the marae. The haka is performed with such intensity of presence that many of the crowd burst suddenly into tears. I have no other way of describing the effect of this performance than saying that the voice and movement of the young boy were sharp and pierced my heart, so as to say: “Open your heart, whether you want it or not.” The haka creates a total standstill in the movement of the crowd, after which there is wailing and sobbing, and people comfort each other. I stand there with the women from yesterday’s cake cutting in the kitchen, and Anna and her cousins. We all cry and comfort each other.

 

The performance of the haka continues until the coffin is placed in the car. Then we all follow. This is to “send him off,” Anna says. It is a dignified male honour. I find myself thinking I wish there was more space for expression of male grieving in my own culture. Stripped of the costumes and pretence that often follows a staged haka taking place for the sake of entertainment that one may come across in a tourist performance^[35] or even before a match of The All Blacks,^[36] this haka reveals situated and naked emotion, pride, dignity and identity. The teenage boys in action are revealing their own and their ancestor’s presence, identity and future. By and through this action they are also connecting to their own future, all under the bright sunshine of this morning on the final day of a tangihanga.

 

The deceased has chosen to be buried at the burial place owned by the people of the land, which is on the coast about forty minutes drive from the second Marae. Anna has told me we need a four-wheel drive vehicle to take us there, so we will have to ride with someone. But this is not difficult, as everyone with a four-wheel drive pitches in to make sure everyone will get there. We get a ride with one of Anna’s male cousins, and two woman cousins are also with us in the car. As we drive through the increasingly hilly landscape, my companions speak of the family and its history, and the land. Approaching the coast and getting closer to the burial place we drive past a river that is now nearly dried up, and the cousins share memories of how they used to live in the area in the past, and dive into the river, catching fish. We are driving through Maori land now,^[37] all the way. The tires crunch over the metal road surface, down towards the sea. The stark, bare hills are all around, and the view opens to the sea with its greens, blues and turquoise glittering in the sun, sending the sound of its big rhythmic surf up towards us. Arriving close to the sea we have to get up to the top of the hill, however. There is no real road here, so we drive up the slope, shaking and bumping away. Some people walk up. As we arrive, the cars of the whanau pani, also carrying the coffin with the body, have arrived before us.  Getting out of the car the views are breath taking. There are no buildings in sight in any direction, only the intensely green surroundings of the burial grounds, which for the most part is made up of bare hills with their cliffs that melt into the sky at the horizon. He is to be buried in the cathedral of nature, described in the text of the Whakaaria mai. The cemetery itself is a fenced area at the very top of the hill.

 

As people gather and walk to the gate the atmosphere is dense and concentrated. The coffin is carried up towards the site, we all sing Maori spiritual songs, and then enter the gate to the burial grounds, where we all gather around a hole that has been dug in the ground. The whanau pani, and the children, the mokopuna, who carry flowers, are standing closest to the coffin. They stand lined up around the hole in the ground, while all the others gather around them. Some men now hold the ropes that will be used to lower the coffin. At this point I become aware that the person conducting these procedures is not the kamatua, as at the marae, but a man who has previously been standing next to the kamatua during the ceremonies of the previous days. I now see that this man is wearing a plain white cloak, and Anna informs me that he is the minister or amokapua[38] of this community. Whakaaria mai is sung again, and then there are several speeches. We sing as the taonga[39] that has been used in preparing the body is thrown into the grave by the women of the whanau pani, and then, the men get a sign from the leader, the organiser, to start lowering the coffin down into the grave. Women wail and weep.  The women also make sure that all the objects that are left over from the preparation of the body are also put into the grave with the body. No traces of these are to be left above ground. Some of the men also weep or dry tears from their eyes. Several men then speak, and they all take soil in their hands and throw some on the coffin that is now lowered into the ground. Also two women come and speak. The last farewell song is then sung, and everyone lines up to walk around the grave and walk up to kiss the whanau pani standing at the head of the coffin.

 

Outside the entrance of the graveyard cans of water have been put out so that everyone may sprinkle themselves with water, on the hands and over the head. This is a measure of protection, so that we shall not take any spirits home with us. We have been in a tapu area. I walk back down the hill, meeting Anna and the others at the bottom down where it is flat. We have left the beauty of nature to watch over the bodies, a Maori way of thinking that is actualised in their burial traditions and the places chosen for burial.

 

Arriving back to the second Marae, we wait outside as the whanau pani" prepares themselves for the coming festivities. We hold ourselves in the background until the whanau pani appears at the front of the big hall. As they enter they are greeted by a kapa haka, a traditional Maori performance of song, music and movement, performed by a group of women and men positioned by the wall at the end of the hall. The performance goes on until the whole crowd has entered and found their places at one of the long tables set up in the beautifully decorated hall. Food of various kinds is set out on the tables, a variety of fish and shellfish, including paua that has been freshly caught during the night and early morning. The quality is exquisite. (I can still remember the smells and the tastes). Anna reminds me to eat everything on my plate, leaving traces at a funeral is tapu. We sing Grace, after which the performers also seat themselves. The whanau pani are seated at a main table along the wall, facing the others who are sitting on tables angular to it. In this way everyone can relate to the whanau pani. The atmosphere is now totally changed from what has been the mode earlier in the day. There is a lot of joking and laughter. During the sitting at the table there are also some speeches, but they now all seem to carry a less grieving mode, rather they are more reflective, as if a burden has been lifted. The soul has been taken home to its ancestors.

 

Reflecting on children's participation in a dramaturgy of transformation

 

Clearly, the festive atmosphere at this reception represents a transformation of the depth of emotion that has been carried throughout the day. As the chapel mass on Tuesday evening helped getting in touch with the feeling of grief, the three days at the marae have built emotions and reflections, memories and stories, and a togetherness that helped in coming to terms with the reality of loss. The last night bears the quality of transformation.

 

Overwhelming emotion has become the fulfilment of a journey, to and from the marae and from the land to the land of the spirit ancestors, from one sphere of reality to another that yet is present here-and-now. Dramaturgically there has been a three-day ascent to the highest point, the hilltop, a paradoxical journey of saying goodbye to a loved one, while simultaneously, in the same breath, saying hello to the ancestral spirits that all Maori carry with them, and know have been close when welcoming the wairua of the deceased. The continual shift of focus between the formal collective togetherness and the individual emotion and informal interactions of groups and individuals is an essential part of this dramaturgy. It allows for time to unfold, slowly and organically, while at the same time ritual procedure holds together the event as proceeding towards transformation. There are many peak and extraordinary experiences along the way. The peak experiences of final day’s haka and burial would not have been possible without the long waits and the journeys with their grief and lament. Also, looking at the dramaturgy as a whole, there is not a main turning point in the last day, rather it is a steady ebb of emotional peaks flowing together towards a stream that may be described by the living metaphor of the procession of cars and humans moving steadfastly in the same direction for the same purpose, forth and back, ending in the paradoxical shift of modes of the last day’s earthly burying of the body and returning to life. For the deceased it is a return to life in spirit, for us others, a return to festivity. I experienced the final festivity as an alignment with the spiritual ancestors in their joy of having their son sent back to them after a fruitful life on earth. It is also important to note, however, that in the Maori context ritual practices are solidly embedded in mythological stories that serve as a backdrop and as explanatory narratives, and they are there to be told and listened to for children and adults alike.

 

As will be recalled form the description of these events, children of all different ages, and young people have been present in all situations all through the three days of the tangihanga. On the first night in the Chapel there were teenage boys carrying the coffin with the body of the deceased, and many children of all ages present. As will be recalled, there were also children sitting on the podium with the body of the deceased as it was caressed by the whanau pani. These children are part of the whanau pani, sharing in the grief. The tangihangi ritual has been one in which the children are included without questioning their right to be there. It is of great importance for the children, the mokupuna, to be present when the whapapapa, the ancestors, are called upon. This makes them get in touch with their destiny, the meaning in their lives. The children from different parts of the family are also present throughout the three-days wake, and they share in all emotion of grief, as well as the joy and support in the family being together to farewell the deceased and to welcome each other in the event. As pointed out earlier, the children represent the continuation of the ancestral line, and therefore the future of the tribe. When the mana is built up, during the event, the life path of the young may be spiritually revealed to them in ways that are not always visible on the surface. This is true for all children and young people present, but to me this spiritual presence was most obviously and overwhelmingly revealed at the moment when the teenage boys did the haka for their granddad. The active bodily participation creates the spiritual presence of the gateway between different worlds. The honoring of their granddad in the presence of the spirit of their ancestors will not go unnoticed, neither for the participants present, for the passage of the soul, for the spirit world or for the future destined for these young men.

 

I also note that in the tangihanga context, children are not separated out as group different from the rest of the community. The only situation in which a separation occurs is from their function, be it the haka or the carrying of the coffin. I also note, however, that there is a strong emphasis on the family relations, and that the function of being a grandma, grandpa or a child, a moku, is what defines the children's role and participation. Another defining aspect in the Maori is gender. In Maori culture function is in various ways defined by gender. In an interview, Anna[40] reveals how grief in Maori culture is carried by women, and how her function as a daughter of their mother, and their complex relational pattern has shaped her spiritual path. She also emphasizes the importance of the mokopuna, the grandchildren, in the case of the mother's death. Her mother did not want her body to be removed from her house until all the grandchildren had arrived there to accompany her. In the last part of the interview Anna elaborates on her childhood experiences of spiritual presence. Here she describes that she, as a child, had the ability to communicate with the spiritual world: she would see and hear things spoken to her that would not be recognized by others, neither of her own mother. In Maori culture it is crucial to honor parents and other elders, and Anna describes how it was not easy for her that she, as a child, would, perhaps unintentionally, challenge her mother's spiritual authority. This situation relates, perhaps to the quote from Sturla Sagberg, sited earlier, of children relating to spiritual experiences on their own terms, rather than to religious beliefs surrounding them. The question of emphasizing traditional religious belief as opposed to individual experience is a deep and complex one, and I shall not attempt to solve it here. It is, however, a question related to balance between individualism and traditional faith, and one that the western culture has been gripping with since secularization.  Anna, with her solid spiritual outlook in life, however, thinks of her deceased mother with great love, and says "I thank her for questioning my faith, for she has made me a very strong person. If anyone tested my faith, my mother did."[41] I will suggest, however, that children's fantasy and imagination must be taken seriously, and perhaps be opening us up to experiences of spiritual realities that crate joy, meaning and hope.

 

In my view, children's participation in ritual that concerns all the family and all generations, opens up to children's individual experience that is framed, but not determined by adult creed or contents. Letting children shape their continued images and experiences of faith and hope, in and out of our adult context, is a way of preserving cultural truth whilst caring for children's own shaping of spiritual truth.

 

 

Epilogue in the Norwegian summer

 

As I sit writing this text in the summer of 2014, I receive a phone call from my mother that my auntie has passed away. She was the wife of my father's brother, who is also deceased, and this is the first death on my father's side of the family since my dad passed away nearly three years ago. According to Maori belief this is the time for my mother for the death-cloth, the mate, to be lifted off her. Five days later I drive in to Trondheim, where the funeral is to be held, to join my mother in participating. We arrive early in the sunny day at Tiller church on the outskirts of Trondheim. The close family of the deceased, my three female cousins, daughters of the deceased, and their sons and daughters are sitting to the left of the cousin and two of the moku, four and six years old, were also sitting at pews with their parents. The beautifully very colorfully decorated coffin stands before the altar. I notice a number of young men are present, the sons and sons-in-law of my cousins. They are all dressed in black, while my three female cousins had draped themselves in identical bright pink cardigans on top of their black dresses, this is to honor the love of beauty and color that was a hallmark of their deceased mother. Subbing is heard as the organ softly plays a prelude. The coffin, of course, is covered, so that the body of the deceased is hidden, as customary in modern Norway.[42] All present are from the close family. The service is held in a sober and dignified manner, by a modest and well-spoken minister, and there are no speeches except for my mother's short and moving thank you for all the good and close memories, which moves all present. The moment of the most condensed intensified presence is a point when the priest announces that we will read a poem for the deceased grandma, written by all the now grown up grandchildren together. At this point all the young people, the grandchildren, nine in all, three young women and six young men walk forward and stand around the coffin as the text is read. What is read is a condensed rhyme of gratefulness for the closeness and care that has been given to them in childhood. Nothing could have described my auntie better than this. The image of the young people standing there also portrays the strength and ability to build a family, but also how childhood experience is lifted and dignified in a moment of spiritual ritual. I cannot help but feel the ancestral spirits from my father's family coming through to give back meaning and joy to these young people, at this moment. I cannot but recall the haka of the young boys and the movement of the patu by the young woman back in New Zealand. It was a ritual of opening the heart.

 

Later we are invited to the home of the youngest daughter, and from there we drive in several cars to a restaurant for a splendid meal. We end up spending the whole day together. Many memories from childhood are shared. The small children are playing in amongst the adult sharing of grief and of laughter. Recalling my reflections of how several layers of experience, the individual, the interactive and the transpersonal are all embedded in a collective field of ritual, and intensified, I realize that this is so, also in a Norwegian Lutheran church, regardless of the specifics of religious belief. It is clear to me that whether recognized as a spiritual reality or not, there is, in this funeral, a coming together of the spirit and the flesh, the past and the present, as it has been explained by Maori spiritual belief. And as for my mother, I sit wondering if she now may have her cloak of grief lifted from her, so that she may go to a new phase of letting my father go, looking to the future with more light and letting go.

 

Also another line of thought is added to my reflection by this experience of young people's contribution to the collective field of funerary ritual: their participation as young adults is also a working through of emotions from childhood, offered and received by the ritual collective and the spiritual presence in ritual.  

 

References:

 

 

Websites:

http://www.maoridictionary.co.nz/

 

Behar, Ruth (1996) The Vulnerable observer: Anthropology that breaks your Heart. Boston: Beacon Press.

James, William (2002) The Varieties of Religious experience. London and New York: Routledge.

Hammer, Anita (2010) Between Play and Prayer: The Variety of Theatricals in Spiritual Performance. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi Publishers

Sagberg, Sturla (2008) 'Children's spirituality with particular reference to Norwegian Context: some hermeneutical reflections'. International Journal of Children's  Spirituality, 13:4,355 – 370.

Schechner, Richard (1994) Performance Theory. London and New York: Routledge.