NOA
Noa - Free from Restriction
   Before the subjects of the rituals, or before those
participating in the rituals, can emerge and move wherever they want
to, they must be made  noa, that is, they must be made free from all
the restrictions surrounding the rituals, restrictions derived from
the calling up of the atua and the ancestors. Therefore, following
the pure, 'loosing' and 'binding', rites, there are the tapu rites,
the rites to 'make noa' the subject of the ritual and all those
taking part in the ritual.
   Williams defines noa as 'free from tapu'; 'of no moment,
ordinary'; 'indefinite'; 'within one's power'. Similarly, he defines
whakanoa as 'Make or consider free from tapu'; 'Remove or abrogate 
tapu'; and 'Bring under one's power'.
   Williams's definitions of noa and of whakanoa are misleading for
he has failed to take into account the distinction between the
primary tapu and the extensions of tapu.
   To say that noa means 'free from tapu', and that whakanoa means
'make or consider free from  tapu', is true if by tapu we mean the
extensions of tapu, the restrictions referred to as tapu and imposed
because of tapu. It is not true if by tapu we mean the primary tapu,
the tapu possessed by something in its own right.
   The child made noa after the completion of the hair-cutting
ritual is free from all occasional restrictions. The restrictions
which have bound him during the ritual, these  tapu, no longer bind
him. But the whakanoa rite, carried out at the end of the
hair-cutting ritual does not remove his primary tapu, his link with
the mana, 'power', of the atua Tuumatauenga and Rongo. Tapu is tona
mea nui, 'his great possession'. This is not removed by the whakanoa
rite, but acknowledged as coming from the atua Tuumatauenga.
   The same is true of the whakanoa rites for each of the major
rituals. These rites do not abrogate or destroy the tapu which has
been 'bound' to the subject of the ritual, but by means of the ritual
offering of food they acknowledge the particular atua which is its
source. 
   After the acknowledgement and the ritual eating of the food by
the chief and the ruahine, 'old woman', the subject of the ritual is
noa, free from all the restrictions placed at the beginning of the
ritual, and can emerge ki te ao maarama, 'into the world of light'.

Noa as Explained in the Karakia
   The meaning of noa is perhaps best explained by the karakia
themselves.
   The karakia Ka aha te tama nei, chanted at the conclusion of the
hair-cutting ritual, is a statement that this child, now bound to the
atua Tuu, is free from any restrictions and can go wherever he
pleases:
         Ka aha te tama nei?
         Ka huhu te tama nei, ka tuku rawa te tama nei,
         ki muri rawa te tama nei.
         Ka kokiro te tama nei, ki muri rawa te tama nei.
         Ka kokiro te tama nei, ka tuku rawa te tama nei, ka
        ka hopara te tama nei, ki muri rawa te tama nei.
         Hopara, hopara, hopara ki te hopara nui a Tu.
         'What does this child do?
         This child strips off [the tapu restrictions].
         This child goes where he pleases, this child [goes]
        even to the cooking area.
         This child bathes himself in warm water, this child
        [goes] even to the cooking area.
         This child bathes himself in warm water, this child
        goes where he pleases, this child goes forth, this
        child [goes] even to the cooking area.
         Go forth, go forth, go forth, with the big steps of
        Tuu.'
   The karakia  Rere au , given in the Te Ao narrative, also is a
statement saying what noa means. It is given as the karakia chanted
at the conclusion of the funeral ritual to make noa the son of the
deceased chief. This chant emphasizes the being loosed from any
life-destroying atua, asking that the son be not harmed wherever he
goes and that any power dangerous to him be destroyed:
         Rere au i te pari, kaua au e tineia.
         Rere au i te pari tataramoa, kaua au e rakuhia.
         Kai au i te maihi o te whare o nga tohunga, kaua au
        e tineia.
         Ma raro mai koe, ma runga atu au.
         Homai to mana kia kurua,
         Puhuki tou niho kai tupua.
         Puhuki tou niho kai tangata.
         'If I fall from the precipice, let me not be harmed.
         If I fall on the brambles, let me not be scratched.
         If I eat at the gable of the priest's house, let me
        not be harmed.
         Be thou undermost, while I am uppermost.
         Be blunted your spirit-devouring teeth.
         Be blunted your man-devouring teeth.'

   Another karakia,  Ka hiki raa ngaa ringa nei , shows that tapu
in its primary sense and noa are not in opposition. The karakia is
said at the completion of the hair-cutting ritual and is an offering
up of the hands of the priest, to Tiki, the source of life, and to
Hine-nui-te-po, the 'Great-woman-of-the-night':
         Ka hiki ra ngaa ringa nei, ngaa tapu nei,
         He noa no Tuu-i-whiwhia, no Tuu-i-rawea.
         Rawea mai te whiwhi, rawea mai te noa rawea kia
        papa.
         Homai taku tuu kia hapainga.
         Hapainga nga tapu, hapainga, ka mana.
         Ka hiki ra nga ringa nei,
         ki a Tiki ra nga ringa nei,
         ki a Hine-nui-te-po ra nga tapu nei, nga noa nei.
         He noa - ka noa.
         'These hands, these tapu, are lifted up,
         a noa that comes from Tuu-who-has-been-wrapped-up,
        from Tuu-who-has-been-bound.
         Bind the wrapping, bind the noa, bind them so that
        they will be tight.
         Give me my belt so that they may be lifted up,
         Lift up the tapu, lift them up. They are made
        effective.
         These hands are lifted up,
         these hands [are lifted up] to Tiki,
         these tapu, these noa, [are lifted up] to the great
        woman of the night.
         Some noa are noa.'
   The hands are seen as both tapu and noa, a tapu and noa coming
from the wrapping up and binding of Tuu to the subject of the ritual.
The hands are raised up to Tiki, the source of life, and to the great
woman of the night. There is a parallel here to the eating of the
ritual food by the chief and by the ruahine, 'old woman'. The noa
wrapped up and bound to the hands of the priest, the noa established
at the conclusion of each of the major rituals, are noa linked with
the primary  tapu which are life-giving.
   So noa is directly opposed, not to tapu in itself, but to the
restrictions which follow on from the recognition of tapu.
   When one tapu acknowledges the other, then the restrictions, the
extensions of tapu are lifted. The situation is noa 'free from
restriction', in a positive way, for the primary tapu have been
acknowledged and enhanced.
   On the other hand, when tapu meets tapu and one tapu overpowers
the other tapu, the intrinsic tapu that has been overpowered is no
longer effective and so the extensions of that intrinsic tapu are no
longer effective. The situation is noa, therefore, but in a negative
way, for it results from, and signifies, the loss of power of the
primary tapu and its extensions. 
   Some examples might help.

Noa that are Positive
   Some noa are positive. Each person has his or her own intrinsic
tapu When that person moves onto another people's marae, he or she
is restricted in some way, is under a tapu, because of the meeting
with another people who have their own intrinsic tapu. Once the local
people speak to that person and acknowledge that person, then the
tapu restriction is lifted, the person is now noa, there is a hongi,
a  greeting , and the people can eat together. This noa is a positive
reality. In no way has the person s intrinsic tapu, the 'great
possession', been taken away.

Negative Noa
   Some noa are negative. There are many other occasions when a
person, or people, is made noa in a negative way. This happens in the
meeting of person with person, of tapu with tapu when one person puts
down another person, or one people put down another people. This
'trampling' on the tapu of another is itself seen as a way of
increasing one's own tapu while diminishing the intrinsic tapu of the
other. With the weakening of the intrinsic tapu there is the
weakening of the power of the restrictions, the extensions of tapu.
The other person then becomes noa, or 'free from restriction', in a
negative way and able to be treated as otaota, as 'rubbish'.
   A clear example of a negative noa is the noa possessed by a
prisoner. The prisoner is 'free from restriction' not because his
intrinsic tapu has been acknowledged, but because his intrinsic tapu
has been diminished by the greater power of the tapu of the person
who captured him. With his intrinsic tapu diminished, the extensions
of tapu, the restrictions surrounding and protecting his intrinsic
tapu, have no longer any tapu, any power and so he is noa. The noa
which the prisoner possesses is, therefore, linked with his
taurekarekatanga, his being utterly contemptible as a slave, and with
the hau otaota, the 'spirit making him to become rubbish', which has
come upon him .
   The following karakia was recited over prisoners on their being
returned to their own home. At the beginning it speaks of the
negative noa mentioned above. This negative noa is cleared away by
the words of the karakia. Then the person is linked again with Tiki,
the first man, in Hawaiki, and his tapu is restored. Finally the
forces that have held him as a prisoner are themselves declared noa.
The forces which made him noa in a negative way, which made him
powerless, are themselves made noa in a negative way, are made
powerless.
   Waea te noa i a koe,
   waea te hau i runga i a koe,
   waea te taurekarekatanga i a koe.
   Ko te mumu te awha, tenei ka horo.
   Ka horo te hau otaota i runga i a koe.
   Ko Tiki i ahua mai i Hawaiki.
   Ko te mauri tena i kawea ai
   te toko mauri o te tapu, tapu nui, tapu whakahirahira,
   he mauri no Rongo ki te whai-ao.
   Tihe mauri-ora. To koiwi ka horo.
   Ka noa nga hau i runga i a koe.
   'Clear away the noa from you,
   clear away the spirit which is upon you,
   clear away from you the state of being a slave.
   The storm rages. This clears it.
   The force upon you that makes you rubbish is cleared off.
   You are Tiki formed in Hawaiki.
   That life-force brought [to you]
   is the manifold life-force of the tapu, a great tapu, a
   highly important tapu.
   It is a life-force from Rongo, leading to the dawn.
   Breathe living spirit! Your bones are cleared.
   The forces over you are made noa.' 
   It should be noted that all the extensions of tapu surrounding
the celebration of the major rituals are restrictions having to do
with food. Also, the ritual removal of the restrictions includes the
use of food. Only after the whakanoa rite has been performed, a rite
which includes the ritual offering of food to particular atua and the
ritual eating of this food by the chief and the ruahine, 'old woman',
are the restrictions lifted.

The Whakanoa Rite
   The following, a description of a whakanoa rite to remove the
restrictions placed on a war-party, is a typical description of the 
whakanoa rite:
             Ka hoki mai te taua ki te kainga tupu, e kore e
        poka noa e tangata ki te haere ki te kainga kia
        kainga ra ano te roi e te Ariki, e te ruahine. Katahi
        ano ka noa, ka haere noa atu nga tangata ki nga
        kainga. Heoi ano, kua noa.
         'When the war party returns to its own village, none
        of the men venture to go home till either the chief
        or the old lady has eaten the fern root. Only then is
        the situation noa and the men go off freely to their
        homes. For then it is noa.'

The Noa of Women
   Understanding noa both as a positive reality and noa as a
negative reality, are important in seeing what is meant by the noa
of women and by their power to make noa.
   When women are called noa, the noa referred to is a positive
noa, a positive freedom from restriction. When women are called noa,
it does not mean that they have no intrinsic tapu of their own, but
that they are free from restriction, especially when it comes to
dealing with other tapu. They have a special tapu a special mana, to
whakanoa, to make situations noa, especially when the clash of tapu
is between the tapu of the local people and the tapu of a people
outside their own area. Perhaps this is the underlying reason why the
women are asked to give the karanga, to call visitors onto the marae,
and why, in some tribal areas, the women in a visiting party are
asked to take the lead as the visitors move onto the marae. The same
tapu and mana to whakanoa, to make situations noa, is called upon
when particular women, sometimes ariki, sometimes first-born,
sometimes virgins, are asked to be the first to step into a new
meeting house. They are asked to do this in order to make noa, by the
power of their tapu, any destructive powers. It is not a
contradiction, therefore, to speak of women as noa and as tapu, as
Te Rangikaheke does. 
   The first reference to tapu, in the following quotation, is a
reference to extensions of tapu, to tapu restrictions. The men are
tapu, meaning restricted. The women are noa, meaning free from
restriction. But this does not mean that the women have no intrinsic
tapu of their own. The second reference to tapu, in which Te
Rangikaheke says that the tapu of the men is greater than the tapu
of the women, is a reference to tapu in itself, to that intrinsic
tapu.
         I tapu ai nga tane i waiho ai nga wahine hei mea noa
        hei waha kai, hei mea katoa i nga mea o muri ara i
        nga mea tuari, kuki ki ta te pakeha ritenga.... No
        reira i nui ake ai te tapu o nga tane i nga wahine.
         'The men are made tapu while the women are left noa
        for carrying food, for doing all those things at the
        back, that is, preparing and serving food, cooking,
        to use the pakeha word.... Therefore the tapu of the
        men is greater than that of the women.'
   This is the understanding presented by Te Rangikaheke. However
in some places the female ariki, or high chief, was regarded as
having more mana, and therefore being more tapu than the male ariki.
Also the chief's sister's daughter, the female iramutu, the niece,
was regarded as possessing mana but not the nephew:
         Ko te mea mana hoki he kotiro, he iramutu. E kore
        hoki e mana te iramutu tane.
         'The niece is the one who has mana, not the nephew.'
 
Te Houhou Rongo: the restoring of tapu
   The Waikato story of Kiki and Tamure illustrates how the use of
violence to increase one s mana can have the opposite effect. Both
tohunga possessed great mana, great tapu. Tamure went to visit Kiki.
When Kiki sought to kill Tamure, Tamure was protected by the
spiritual power of his daughter, strengthened by karakia , and Kiki
became ill and died. Kiki seeks to increase his own tapu and mana by
violence, by killing Tamure, but it is Kiki himself who is killed,
his own tapu and mana destroyed.
   The use of violence against another person is an attack on the
being of the other person, an attack on the basis of tapu and mana.
Is this why the Io tradition is a tradition of peace, of
non-violence?
   The real sign of a person's mana and tapu is not that person's
power to destroy other people, but that person's power to manaaki,
to protect and look after other people. This is illustrated by Pei
Te Hurinui Jones s account of the chiefs who in the 1850s refused the
title of King of Aotearoa because they did not feel their tribal
resources were sufficient to manaaki, to look after the people in a
way fitting the position of king. 
   The best way to build up one's own mana and tapu, is not to
destroy other people, but to recognize them, to manaaki, welcome them
and show them fitting hospitality, and to tautoko, support them in
the issues they take up.
   There are many cases where manaaki and tautoko have not been
shown, where instead the tapu of the human being has been violated.
There can be violations of tapu whenever people meet. They occur
between individuals, within our own families, within tribes and
between peoples. The refusal of successive New Zealand governments
to fully recognize the Treaty of Waitangi is a continuing violation
of the tapu of the Maori as a people.
   There can be no true peace until the violated tapu has been
restored. This is done through the hohou rongo, the making of peace
in which the violations are acknowledged and the tapu itself is
restored and acknowledged. This is a need which must be fulfilled as
a matter of tika, of what is right, not just as a matter of aroha.
It is a need which arises from the very nature of our being, and
therefore of our tapu. 
   There are many people throughout the world who are poor, who are
oppressed, who are marginalized, who are in prison, who are
downtrodden in many different ways. A recognition of the tapu of all
things, and especially of the tapu of the human person, te tangata,
calls for a hohou rongo, a gathering together and binding of all the
chips and pieces, and a renewal, a restoring and making young again,
of all that has been broken. Then people can stand tall again. 
         Rere mai te maramara koi hopiri, koi hotau.
         Rere mai te mangamanga, koi hopiri, koi hotau.
         Toro tika!
         E tu te maota, hee!     
    'Fly together chips and shavings, stick fast together, hold
   fast together.
         Fly together bits of branches, stick fast together,
        hold fast together.
         Stretch straight upwards!
         Look the young green tree stands!  

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