Tikanga evolves is a common term. Often this means people who were not brought up with mātauranga creating new tikanga while traditional values are forgotten or not transitioned into evolving society. This article discusses several common tikanga about the tapu nature of the head, not putting food on your head, not sitting on a table that you eat from and then how tikanga has evolved to consider a cell phone on the table.
The human head and the whare tangata are the two most sacred parts of the human body. A head contains all of your knowledge and whakapapa. A whare tangata is the only way as the human race we can continue to survive as a human-race. Both body parts have a plethora of traditional knowledge stories and atua (deity) associated with them. Far too many to describe in this post.
A cell phone is associated with the human head as we put a cell phone to our ear to talk, our breath goes into and onto the cell phone and without our head, a cell phone would be of no use.
A common tikanga for many Māori and non-Māori states that it is not appropriate to sit on a table that you eat from or to touch someone’s head. It is also widely practiced that you do not place anything associated with the head on a table. Items such as hats, sunglasses, glasses and more recently facemasks are not placed on a table that food is eaten from. For some mātauranga practitioners who are present may refuse to continue eating the food and may burry the food with a karakia.
It is also a common practice among mātauranga practitioners is not to place food on a seat. Likewise, a cell phone should not be placed on a seat.
A cell phone is no different, it should not be placed on the table that food is consumed from, because it is associated with the head, therefore it is tapu.
Another commonly practiced tikanga is not placing photos of people whether in a frame or a book on a table that food is eaten from. Many modern day cell phones contain photos of people, therefore another reason to not place you cell phone on the table.
Voicemail if stored on the phone is also considered tapu and should be handled with care as it contains the mauri of the person. We learn lessons about voice recordings from the story of Māui using his aunties of the four winds voice, which will be the topic of new tikanga post about online hui, voice mail and voice recognition.
Another traditional perspective is associated with our contact lists which are a digital representation of the person they are about. This is yet another reason to consider a cell phone tapu and a taonga.
A cell phone should never be placed upon a surface that food is consumed from for both hygiene reasons, nor should a cell phone be placed on a seat.
Leave a Reply