By Hone McGregor

There are several definitions of matakite across a number of cultures and several paths that they can take. Binney (1980) notes that many Mâori leaders were matakite that were “…able to communicate with the ancestral spirits, which is common in many oral societies. The wisdom of ancestors is received either in dreams and visions, or in cryptic oral pronouncements spoken in a trace-like state.”

My mother is a matakite who is an indigenous Mâori healer working in the physical and spiritual worlds. Specifically she now works in the field of counselling, but from an indigenous perspective, integrating all that being matakite implies. This is discussed in more definitive terms and with vignettes from her clients to illustrate their relationship to concepts of matakite.

There are already numerous other signs of movement toward indigenous forms of counselling and healing within a spiritual perspective. Paranjpe (1984) writes of eastern and western concepts of healing and spirituality. He has noted that the ontology of personhood in the Indian (Hindu) cultural context is rooted in both the spiritual as well as the natural worlds. Indigenous counselling, from this standpoint, would emphasize, “A holistic-organic worldview and a belief in multiple worlds (material and spiritual)”.

My mother has been working professionally in a counselling role now for almost forty years using her matakite skills. She has spent many years undertaking her own form of research; looking at theories, with intense interest in the mind and spirit, developing counselling approaches and therapies that are non-threatening and spiritually safe. These are grounded in the concepts of tinana, wairua, hinengaro or body, soul and mind.

The Three Baskets
Some years back she visited the myths stories of the beginning of creation, the Polynesian myths, and then re-visited the Mâori story/framework of the three baskets of knowledge. This was a formula or framework handed down from her ancestors for knowledge related to matakite. From the baskets of knowledge she has developed a framework guideline to operate as a matakite. She has found that from this framework diagnosis and cure lies in the same baskets. The following is a brief review of the three baskets as a model used by matakite healers to frame their knowledge, practices, beliefs in modern Mâori-counselling settings.

A Grounding Framework
Traditional Maori thinking presents us with three sources of knowledge. First there is the experience of our senses. Secondly there is our understanding of what lies behind our sensory experience. Thirdly there is the experience we have, particularly in ritual, of our oneness with each other and with the past. These three sources of knowledge are spoken of as the three baskets of knowledge brought down from the heavens.

1. According to Marsden te kete aronui (the first basket) is the kit containing the knowledge of what we see, aronui, 'that before us', the natural world around us as apprehended by the senses.

As a matakite this part of the model can be translated as being able to see the physical manifestation of the person’s condition. Conditions can range from physical through to spiritual (Mate Mâori) with physical manifestations. It may not be seen directly, but rather the energy that is emanated is seen. This is called the âniwaniwa or aura. Diagnosis is taken in so quickly that a client is seen in a multi dimensional way.

To illustrate this application of matakite, from within the first basket, the following is a recount of an incident with one of her clients who was a very angry person internally, and verging on suicide. He felt no one understood him and wondered what point there was to ‘hanging around’. He blamed people, counsellors, relationships, and family for his disappointments in life. My mother could see this energy around him, but she knew that this young man’s tupuna wanted to help him turn his life around. Unexplainable in rational terms, she knew this, and did not need to explain to him about how this came to her. His sense of what was reality and the truth was shared with what she was declaring and experiencing. It was a clear knowing for my mother, who asked this person to select a stone from a pile that she had in front of her, which are the physical items used frequently in her work.

Knowing that the mauri (or life-force) of the person and the stone will integrate, the stone was selected, picked up and held. At this time she does not know what she was looking for, but trusts her intuition. A face of a woman was then seen in the stone by my mother and the man, and appeared to be physically manifesting itself as they observed. The young man broke-down crying. It appeared that the face manifesting itself on the stone was this man’s mother, exactly how he remembered her, with all the emotional sensations as well. He asked why she (his mother) had left/abandoned/deserted them, which were his questions to the stone, which were discussed through my mother. A watershed moment in a counselling sense without requiring psychoanalysis or psychodrama, rather a cultural connection made by this man to a traditional form of healing brought to him through the belief and presence of matakite.

This unforeseen, unplanned, and culturally manifest therapy was totally accepted by him. He did not question where this had come from, and did not need to confirm to my mother that it was acceptable to him. He gradually turned his life around, because he knew, beyond all reasonable doubt, that he had a role and destiny in life to achieve. He changed his attitude, because he was given the truth (as was perceived by him and my mother) and he could forgive himself and his self-doubt. But how? Even he cannot explain this to you. It just happened and his issues in his life turned inside out, moving from the negative to the positive. There are some things in life that can never be explained using western logic only, and as a matakite nor do they need to be.

This is part of the work of matakite as it relates to te kete aronui (the first basket of knowledge).

2. Te kete tuauri – is the second basket, containing the knowledge that is tuauri, 'beyond, in the dark', the knowledge which understands, 'stands under', our sensory experience. It is the understanding we build up of “the real world of the complex series of rhythmical patterns of energy that operate behind this world of sense perception” .

For matakite this can be manifest by triggering off things such as a sense of smell, sound or colour. Maning recounts a tale of a local matakite in the Hokianga in the early 19th century who would sniff a person, who was coming to them for healing, and accurately diagnose what was wrong with the person through smell. My mother had a client who almost disappeared in a mist that manifest itself in front of them. As they watched, the mist got thicker and had a cold damp texture. This mist was removed from the client with them sensing that something was being pulled off them. That client had to wear a woolen hat for twenty years because she said that her head was always cold. After that session she never sensed she was cold again. She attributed this to having a mate-Mâori (Mâori illness) removed from her, through receiving a spiritual cleansing from a matakite, for which she had total acceptance of my mother’s matakite knowledge and cultural/spiritual power.

3. The third basket is te kete tuaatea, the basket that contains the knowledge of spiritual realities, realities beyond space and time, the world we experience in ritual.

It is in the third basket that matakite operate in a learning and teaching environment. It is not possible to explain what happens during the performance of ritual of this nature, because the pathway of western logic is a route that does not take spiritual factors into account, but rather requires some form of physical manifestation to prove that something exists. It is as if in western terms our minds are not to be trusted; the same organ that gives us life and makes sure we continue to exist, is not sufficiently discerning for us to trust when we sense or feel something that is not physically verified. There is no step-by-step process. Matakite are engaged in an instant knowing. It is what Mâori term pûmanawa (or intuitive knowledge).

As a Matakite this is where deep knowledge the healing process lie. The need for people to reconnect to the world where the greater consciousness is called in to take them back to the source, root or cause. It is where the spirit is healed and where Maori go for intergeneration perpetuation (to pick up a missing stitch) rituals and karakia (prayer).
The gift (and deep unknown knowledge/intuitive concepts) of matakite is translated through pre-destined occurrences and birthright. Known knowledge is given through physical and non-physical, conscious and unconscious manifestations. Known (or conscious/semi-conscious) knowledge for matakite can come through rituals such as karakia, where the community is brought together as one to connect with the spiritual powers from our ancestors.

Karakia is the cross over for boundaries of this and other existences, where we are called to take our part in the whole movement of the universe teaching and learning: i te kore, ki te pô, ki te ao Marama, ‘from the nothingness to the night, to the world of light.’

Tohunga teachings further explains the role of karakia in the transmission of knowledge where “tohunga (and matakite) teachings had been past on by word of mouth of how they performed their seemingly magical feats, which was based on the root words of waiata (chants) and karakia.” Matakite link strongly into a higher self-force that is sometimes reached through karakia or meditation that directs dreams, intuitions and premonitions through the subconscious self.

Sometimes cleansing (in a spiritual sense) is required. To illustrate this, an example given by my mother relates to when she was working as a matakite in a group, passing on knowledge of matakite form and teaching to students of healing.

The form of work was drawing using pastel crayons using their equivalent to the third eye. Information was coming from everywhere. My mother was describing a woman’s whanau and that there had been strong emotional problems with the children, with a continuation of this malaise down the generations. This lady acknowledged that this was indeed true. When the pastel picture was completed she recognised the person drawn as an ancestor of hers. The ancestor was a white man (Pakeha) who had in fact been an enemy to her Mâori male ancestor. Two generations after the Pakeha man’s grandchild and the Mâori man’s grandchild (moko) fell in love, and had children. However the grandchildren were angry, unhappy, and restless and many became self destructive, turning on each other with some of them taking their lives. Why? It transpired that the angry memories were in the children’s ihi (essential force) or genes and they were attacking themselves, as they are their ancestors had done generations before. Healing the past heals the now and creates a new future. This form of cleansing must be done through a matakite in spiritual counselling or through karakia.

Of particular importance to us, if we are to grasp the worth of the human person in Mâori terms, is the knowledge contained in both the second and third baskets of knowledge.