Murray ParsonsTitle: “Another world view? The use of the metaphor in communicating knowledge”242A Main Road, Moncks Bay, Christchurch 8008, Aotearoa - New Zealand E-mail: parsons_whänau@lynx.co.nz |
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Talk
Murray J. Parsons of Ngäti Kahungunu, English, Scottish and Swedish
descent, was born in Wairarapa. He
completed degrees in Botany and Zoology at Victoria University of Wellington
and then went on to study marine algae at University of Adelaide, South
Australia, for his PhD. In 1971 as a
marine phycologist, he joined Botany Division, D.S.I.R. (which became
Landcare Research in 1990). Murray
was appointed Herbarium Keeper in 1986 to administer the CHR herbarium of
dried plant specimens. He jointly
compiled “Current Names of Wild Plants in New Zealand”, published December
1998, as a preliminary document towards computerizing the names of plants for
easier public access. At present he
is a botanical consultant, researches marine algae, especially the red genus Gigartina,
and serves as a member of Nga Kaihaut Tikanga Taiao - the Maori Advisory
Committee of the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA NZ).
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Abstract In any language, and particularly in an oral culture,
the use of metaphor and metaphorical statements become important ways of
communicating knowledge. Metaphors
explore relationships between ourselves and other objects, between objects,
or between situations, and in doing so bring the often unknown or unfamiliar
to a familiar understanding. Using
metaphors to communicate concepts is culturally based, presenting a
particular worldview, which can lead to misinterpretation and thereby
misunderstanding, particularly if the full context of the metaphor is unknown
and therefore it appears to have no relevance to the specific subject under
discussion. The situation alluded to
by a metaphor or a metaphorical story often needs to be “felt” and so
experienced to be understood.
Examples of traditional Mäori stories illustrate this point of view. |
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Talk
Introduction
In 1990 I witnessed a conversation that
encouraged me to look at not what
was being said, but at why it was
being said in a particular way. At a
meeting in Wellington of Mäori elders and science administrators convened by
the Ministerial Science Task Group and MORST (Ministry of Research, Science,
and Technology) to discuss the Mäori dimension in the reorganisation of science
in New Zealand, an elder asked a eminent geologist: “what is greenstone or
pounamu?” The elder waited while the
geologist gave a detailed account of the chemistry and geological development
through time of this taonga. The elder
thanked him and replied “No, it is a fish!”
I will never forget the look of disbelief on the geologist’s face.
Just what was the elder saying in this
instance? What was the cultural
perspective being put forward? How is
it that I too will be able to see that greenstone is a fish? In nga korero tuku iho, the Mäori stories
that have been handed down, there is an account telling how pounamu came to be
a fish. In my opinion this is a
metaphor not explaining “what” but indicating “where” this treasure is to be
found; lying like a fish sparkling in the sun in the rippling waters of the
Arahura River. Knowing the whole
traditional story gives some meaning to the esoteric metaphor. Also I emphasise that there is not
necessarily a one to one relationship with this traditional story and my
understanding of it either. The
traditional story might well indicate other relationships within time and space
that I do not yet understand. There is
an interesting analysis of this story given in Thornton’s book on Mäori Oral
Literature (Thornton 1999: 56).
Joe calls a spade a spade! This is really the
last straw! It is the last straw that
broke the camel’s back!
In these metaphors we are not really talking
about spades, or straws or camels at all.
We are using these metaphors for saying something about a situation. The first says something about Joe’s
attitude, one of openness and forthrightness.
And the other two are saying something about some sort of situation that
has been developing for a while and has finally come to pass. These last two metaphors convey something
of the feeling of the speaker for the situation; and we, the listeners can
identify with that feeling. I doubt if
there is anyone here who can not identify with, or feel for, the situation of
the speaker who has experienced “the last straw”.
The metaphor “now he has put his foot in it”
conjures up particular images in each of our minds. If I asked each of you to draw your thoughts on to paper, we
would see an amazing series of images, each one different but with “a common
thread running through them”. Each of
these images would also show an interesting cultural bias. If you are from Africa an elephant might be
depicted; from New Zealand perhaps one might envisage that which a cow or a
sheep might leave behind for one to tread in.
We all use metaphors. Metaphors enrich our expression of language as much as they
enrich our expression of experiences.
They explore relationships between ourselves and other things both
tangible and intangible, and relationships between these kinds of things, or
between various situations taking place at the same time or even at different
times, and in doing so bring the often unknown or unfamiliar to a familiar
understanding. Anyone who has tried to
learn another language will be aware of how easy the rules of grammar are to
comprehend, whereas the idiom or form of expression of language, often through
the use of metaphors, is much harder to understand and often appears to have no
relevance to the specific subject under discussion. The situation alluded to by a metaphor or a metaphorical story
often needs to be “felt” and so experienced to be fully understood.
With the Western literate culture to which
empirical science with its precise words and formulae belongs, the facts can be
quantified in a variety of ways.
Perhaps this idea can be summed up by the comment “how long is a piece
of string?” for the length of a string can be expressed in several different
ways and units of measurement. Is the
string long enough to tie up the tomatoes?
Empirical units of measurement are based on systems of comparison with
previously selected standards. An inch
originates from the last joint of a standard man’s standard thumb, while a
centre metre is a one hundredth part of a metre, which was once based on a
particular bar of platinum and iridium kept in France, but now, since 1960, is
based on the wave length of orange-red light emitted by activated krypton
86.
Another example might be: what is the value of bread? Either money value or the nutritional value
might provide one answer, but then the symbolic value of bread as seen in the
Eucharist in Christian cultures might well provide another answer. So it is in oral cultures that esoteric
knowledge might be experienced through the use of metaphors relating to differences
in time and space as well as the understandings of everyday experiences.
According to Merriam-Webster Online -
Dictionary and Webster’s dictionary a metaphor is:
“a figure of speech in which a word or phrase
literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to
suggest a likeness or analogy between them.”
In short - a metaphor is: a
phrase or story with another implied meaning.
A metaphor often enables the unfamiliar, those
things that are known to the speaker but unknown to the listener, to be
expressed in a way that might become familiar to the listener and therefore the
unknown becomes understandable or known.
Of course the metaphors used in this process are, by their very nature,
heavily culturally biased and value laden.
I suggest that the word myth, so often used to
describe traditional information in Mäori culture, or indeed any indigenous
culture, including ancient European cultures, can also be used for a
metaphorical story, a story with another implied meaning. Professor Agathe Thornton, from Dunedin, who
is a student of the Greek writers Homer and Hesiod and in later years has
turned her considerable skills to studying Mäori oral literature, describes a
myth as expressing “... a spiritual truth which is beyond the scope of rational
statement” (Thornton 1999: 25). In
some circumstances carefully chosen metaphors have a similar function,
expressing a situation that is beyond the scope of rational statement.
Let’s go back a bit in time for a moment. We
know that when the ancestors of the tangata whenua arrived in Aotearoa - New
Zealand, they had an extensive oral tradition from the stories, poems, chants
and songs that have been handed down to us today. An extensive oral tradition requires great memory skills and
there are plenty of published records attesting to these skills in Mäori
people. By about 1820, perhaps even earlier here in Murihiku, Mäori were
beginning to adopt the Roman characters of English writing to record their
Mäori texts. By 1860's several hapü and
learned individuals, particularly those who had had some contact with English
missionaries and their schools, decided to write down their traditions as a way
of preserving them, in some cases for sharing them, and certainly to convey
them to future generations. Suggesting
a similarity to the classical Greek “oral” literature, Professor Thornton
(1999) refers to this body of Mäori knowledge as “oral literature”, written
down for the first time in the 1860's and now kept in archives throughout Aotearoa. This literature originally chanted or
recited, was often written down in its poetic style in which it was
performed. Some of this literature
continues to be heard in these forms today.
Those of us who have grown up in the Western literate culture with
writing and books for most of our lives, often find it a considerable effort to
think books and writing away, and so focus on speaking or singing on the one
hand, and listening on the other.
I wish to firmly state that stories relating
tradition information - nga korero tuku iho - have a purpose; they have something important to
convey. Initially our eyes and ears
might be unable to perceive that purpose as we exist today in a modern paradigm
that is different from that of the ancestors, or that of the original
writers. These stories were told in a
traditional setting, in a language of metaphor understood, in all its richness,
by the people listening.
Of the many kinds of stories that exist, I
choose two to illustrate these ideas.
The first is the story of an ancestral journey, and the second is a
version of the Mäori creation story.
In pre-literate Mäori culture there was a huge
dependence on memory and the careful transmission of history from generation to
generation. The names in the landscape
were like survey pegs of memory, marking the events and places of history. Today a journey could be retraced by the
traditional features mentioned in the story.
It is this relationship between the historical tradition and a group of
names which gives rise to the concept of an "oral map". The story explains and orders the geography
and the land geography reinforces the history.
The two serve each other (Davis 1990, p.xiii).
The story of the journey of Hau-nui has been
told many times in print. The account I
use here was recorded by Jock McEwen in his book “Rangitane, a tribal
history”. I use this version as this
book tells my own family history. I
have shortened this for my purpose today.
After Hau moved to the west coast of the North
Island, his wife Wairaka ran off with another man. Following them southwards along the coast, Hau named rivers and
other features as he went. The first river had a large estuary so he named it
Whanga-nui (big river mouth). Shortly
afterwards he come to another river mouth, so close to Whanganui that one could
almost splash water from one to the other, so he named it Whanga-eü (splash
harbour). Hau continued on his way
until he came to a narrow and deep stream.
On the bank was a dead tree, which Hau threw down to use as a
bridge. He named the stream Turakina
(thrown down). At the end of a tiring
day he came to a large river but he was too tired to cross. He called it Rangitikei (day of
plodding). The next day Hau came to a
river that was so wide, deep and cold that it made his breath stand still. He called it Manawatü. Hau continued down the coast naming rivers
until he overtook Wairaka and her lover at Pukerua Bay. Hau dispatched the lover and then asked
Wairaka to get some seawater to wash his sore feet. She brought water but Hau said it was not clean and asked that she
should go out further. Again she
brought water and again she was sent back out further. Then Hau recited powerful incantations that
turned Wairaka into a rock out in the sea at the south end of Pukerua Bay. Hau continued his explorations and named the
lake Wairarapa. Hau’s journey is
beautifully told in an oriori or lullaby chant.
Here we have an oral map. Singing the oriori will safely and surely guide
a traveller along the same route. The
rivers and the rock “Wairaka” will be recognised from the descriptions in the
song. The fact that Wairaka the wife,
is a rock is one metaphor in this story.
The maps of our landscape carry a huge amount
of information about the shape of the land and its environment. We find our way
around our maps by marking place names. The map doesn't tell us anything about
these names usually but each name has a history and a meaning. Many Mäori place names are part of a group
of names relating back to a story for another time commemorating a journey of
an ancestor or traditional events.
My second example is the Mäori creation story
of Rangi and Papa. Here again I have
shortened it considerably. I have
chosen this as an example because I have heard it retold at conferences and
seminars on several occasions recently.
In the beginning there was Te Kore ‑ The
Void - Nothing. From the many levels of nothing came Te Po ‑
The Night; and from the various levels
of the Night came Papatuanuku ‑ the Earth Mother and Ranginui ‑ the
Sky Father. They lay close together and
their children, the Atua, lived between them in darkness. The children, tired of being constricted,
agreed to force their parents apart and each one tried in turn. Finally Tane-Mahuta braced his shoulders
against Papa and used his legs to push Rangi, his father, away and the light
flooded in. I suggest that we might
call Tane-Mahuta a lateral thinker these days, as he thought and did what
no-one else had thought and done.
The children of this union became responsible
to their parents for the maintenance and good order of their newly created
environment. Tangaroa looked after the
sea and all within it; Rongomai-Tane
looked after the cultivated crops; Haumia-tiketike guarded the ferns and
similar wild foods; Tane-Mahuta clothed his mother with the forests and all the
living creatures within; while Tawhirimatea who disagreed with the separation
of Papa and Rangi continues to express his disappointment in the winds and
storms with which he threatens his brothers. Ruaumoko-potiki ‑ the
youngest child, some say unborn, continues to kick and shake the Earth, his
mother. All parts of the environment
and the maintenance of its balance and harmony were assigned to one or other of
the children of Papa and Rangi. Tane-Mahuta created the first woman from the
red clay of the earth.
The reductionist thinking of Western literate
culture of science has divided the world into its parts: Astronomy, Geology, Botany, or Forestry,
Chemistry and Agriculture etc., often forgetting their inter-connectedness,
whereas Mäori express the relationships of the world and its connectedness as a
whole family through whakapapa (genealogy): Papatuanuku (mother earth),
Ranginui (sky father), and their children Tane-Mahuta, Rongomai-Tane and the
other members of the family. As part of
the metaphor these divisions recognised by Mäori, have been given the status or
rank of people, as also has the whole of existence. This status or rank is saying something about the relationship
between the elements known as “Atua” and the people listening to the
story. For Mäori the sense of whänau or
family indicated the close relationship of all parts of the environment, and
human beings, being descendants of Tane-Mahuta, were therefore an integral part
of that environment. The fact that
Tane-Mahuta created the first woman from the red clay of the earth after the
rest of creation is also saying something of the tuakana - teina relationship
that people have with the rest of creation.
It is saying something about kaitiakitanga ‑ guardianship and
respect that the younger generations have for the older.
The holistic attitude of Mäori is emphasised by
the fact that they consider they are, along with the plants and animals, all
the children of Tane; Ko nga Aitanga a
Tane tatou katoa - We are all the Children of Tane; not separate or superior or
exercising a dominant, exploitive role.
So the creation myth tells, among other things, of how we are all
related and how we might act towards one another with respect.
I think that these ideas are very interesting
when we relate them back to current Western scientific concepts of evolution
and ecology. Any discussion on
evolution is usually expressed as one thing developing from another. For example: birds developed from flying reptiles, and mammals developed from
small reptiles, and chimpanzees and Homo
sapiens or humans developed from a common ancestor. In expressing these ideas we are also
speaking of relationships; relationship or whakapapa, in a genetic sense. The exciting DNA studies that are going all
around the world at the present time, are quantifying these relationships. We are told that “The genetic make-up of a
chimp is 98.5 per cent identical to a human.”
(Hopkins 1999: 26). That “... 83
per cent of (a particular) sequence in the tsetse fly (Glossina palpalis), a blood-sucker that spreads human sleeping
sickness, was the same as a sequence in humans.” (Edwards 2000: 5). And “Nearly 75 per cent of the human genes
have some counterpart in nematodes — millimetre-long soil-dwelling worms— but
that doesn’t mean that a worm is three-quarters of the way to being a person.”
(Hopkins 1999: 26). This does say,
however, something about relationships within creation that arose from the
primeval soup, or fell from the stars after the big bang.
In the Mäori creation story there are also the
relationships and interdependence that we find within the science of
ecology; the relationships of whänau or
family, the relationships of hapü or community. The evolution of any species does not take place in
isolation. Evolution takes place in
community, with all the other species around interacting and participating, and
with all the other dynamics present in those communities. So there is a whakapapa expressing those
relationships in community also. I
caution here though that I am not suggesting that there is a one to one
relationship between this creation story and my comments concerning evolution
and ecology; relationship yes but not
an absolute one to one relationship.
The retelling of the creation story brings it from the past into the
present and so alters the time and space of its expression.
I finish with a thought about journeying on the
back of a whale. According to the
traditions of the East Coast, my ancestor Paikea arrived in this place on the
back of a whale. The empirical paradigm
says to me that this really is not possible; but my cultural paradigm tells me
that it is so, because this event happened. What is this story telling us?
Is this story a metaphor for something that I do not understand because
I do not have the cultural context in which this story was created? Is it that I do not have enough
understanding of my taha Mäori to correctly interpret this metaphor! I do not have the keys to this treasure
chest of knowledge.
However, I know that Paikea my ancestor,
arrived in New Zealand because I am here.
I know and you know that the “last straw will break the back of a
camel”. I believe it is the essence or
the energy of the metaphor and our reaction to it, rather than the words of the
metaphor itself, that really matters.
If at first you don’t understand what has been said, one could try
standing in the paradigm of the speaker; with the intention of walking a mile
or two in their paraerae, their sandals.
Take care if you take this metaphor literally as the speaker may not
want you to have these sandals. Instead
we need a firm intention to walk together down the same road of exploration and
this might lead to some understanding of the things that matter to us both.
For many of you here this idea might be old
hat! And I don’t mean to teach any grandmothers to suck eggs!
I do hope however that my comments here will
begin a conversation about another world view concerning the validity of
knowledge expressed in metaphor that belongs to the direct experience, and that
knowledge based on empirical measurement and formulae is only one way of
viewing this beautiful world of ours.
So I finish with a metaphor of who I am:
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No reira . |
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Ko Tararua nga Maunga, Ko au nga Maunga, |
I am the mountains |
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Ko
Ruamahanga te Awa, Ko au te awa, |
I
am the river |
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Ko au te totara, |
I am the totara tree |
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Ko au te hau |
I am the wind |
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Ko au |
I am |
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Tihei mauriora! |
The first words of life! |
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Ko tatou katoa nga Aitanga a Tane |
We are all related. |
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Tënä koutou, tënä koutou, tënä koutou katoa. |
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References:
Davis, Te Aue (comp.) 1990: He Korero Purakau mo nga Taunahanahatanga a
nga Tupuna - Place Names of the Ancestors, A Mäori Oral History Atlas. New
Zealand Geographical Board, Wellington.
Edwards, R. 2000: Look before it leaps. New Scientist 24 June 2000 p.5.
Hopkins, Karen 1999: The Greatest Apes New Scientist 15 May 1999 p.26
McEwen, J.M. 1986: Rangitane, a tribal history.
Auckland: Reed Methuen. 292 p.
Merriam-Webster Online, The Language Centre - Dictionary on the
internet. http://m‑w.com/cgi‑bin/dictionary and
Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language ... with
Reference History of the World Springfield, Mass. U.S.A.: G. & C. Merriam Company, 1926.
Thornton, Agathe 1999:
Mäori Oral Literature: As seen by a classicist. Revised edition. Wellington: Huia
Publishers. 91 p.
Discussion
Question/Comment (Tungia Baker)
Thank you Murray. I just want to make sure that Murray leaves this hui without
“scoring brownie points” because this is not about brownie points. Because we have got Ngä Puhi from the North
sitting over here and our experiences, I am sure, of Murray’s körero is
definitely not your experience of it.
Now I have got a couple of questions. If I have an 80% factor of a tsetse fly, as
a granny, does that make me a blood sucker?
MP - Do you feel like a blood sucker?
TB - Sometimes. You say that I have an 83% factor as
a worm. We have got a word for that in
Mäori - tangata hianga. A tangata
hianga is a person who’s got legs on the belly. So you see there is a very fine transition between the metaphor
and the actual and real. Now I just
want to get back to the whale because we actually tend to look at Ngäti Porou
and think oh that’s a bunch of nonsense.
He’s riding on the whale all the way from - wherever you come from. I
have ridden the backs of the whale. You
are looking at a woman whose done it.
Okay? It’s not a myth, it is not
a legend, it is not a fairytale. In any
case a myth is simply another experience of the truth. I’ve ridden the backs of tohora. I know what it feels like to sit on the
water with a whale underneath me. I
know what it feels like to sit on the water with a whole pod of whales
underneath me and close enough for me to touch. The story about Paikea is not a fairytale. It is a story that has an acute observation
in there about a scientific, Päkehä scientific, reality. Also thank you for making it possible for me
to declare myself as a post literate Mäori.
MP - One thing I would like to
add to Tungia’s comments is that she has just given you a key to the treasure
chest of the knowledge of Paikea. Kia
ora.
Question/Comment (Peter Horsley, Massey
University)
Kia ora Murray and
thank you. I just wanted to share a
story and perhaps ask for your comments on it.
In the 1970s there were proposals
to build a huge earth dam on the Wanganui which was going to flood most
of the valley and there was a gathering at Koroniti, up the river. A number of people came to talk about this
proposal. They included electricity
people and some engineers and local greenies, and local iwi and the wider
community. And the night before the hui
took place, the elders saw a koura, a freshwater crayfish on the marae at
Koroniti, which is probably a hundred feet above the river itself. There was great discussion about it and next
day in a gathering like this. One of
the elder’s got up and said “That koura we saw - that’s our kaitiaki. If you people build that dam, our kaitiaki’s
going to come beneath the dam and its going to break down the earth and it will
collapse.” Then a young engineer,
probably freshly out of Engineering School, got up and said “Well I’d like to
comment on that.” He said “The reason
we can’t build a dam with this particular earth, this papa rock, is because
under great pressure it will collapse from the base” and he sat down. It struck me at the time that you know it
was an extraordinary metaphor of the sort of things you’re talking about. But perhaps even more significantly, that
young engineer had the courage to get up and say that. It seems to me that one of the problems we
are facing is that the people trained in the Western traditions have become so
fixated and perhaps so sure of their world view that they haven’t got the
courage, as you have done, to open up and say there are other ways, there are
other metaphors and we are the richer for it.
I’d be grateful for your comments.
MP - I
can’t speak for the Wanganui people. I
cannot speak for the Tuwharetoa people but I can say that the head waters of
the Wanganui River were taken and put in Lake Taupo. I can say publicly that my father, whom I love very much, was one
of the contractors that did that. I can
also say that my relationship with my father has been very special. He also was one of the contractors that
straightened the Ruamahanga River so that it would flow to the sea better. I remember as a third year University
student saying to him “If you drain Lake Wairarapa, where will you go duck
shooting?” And being a father, he chose
not to answer his son. Fair enough,
fair enough. His son was delighted to
hear some time later, hours or days, I don’t remember which, my father talking
about ecology to the Catchment Board engineers and saying: “You have to leave a
little bit, you know, for the ducks.”
So I know my father was listening.
There are dams throughout this country and some of them have been put
there for purposes of the land and some have been put there for the purposes of
the politics. All I can say is we have
to make decisions according to our hearts, as well as our heads. No reira, tëna
koutou.
Question/Comment (Del Wihongi)
Kia ora mai ra
tatou. Maybe one of the keys that I
could add about the whales, again told by my grandfather, was that if you go
back thousands of years, when whales were so plentiful that they used to travel
like you people are sitting here, they used to put the canoes on the backs of
the whales as they journeyed out to New Zealand. Maybe that’s one of the keys that you could look at because now
you hardly see whales. But during that
time there was millions of them migrating down to the South. So the story of some of the people coming on
the backs of the whales and some of them actually riding them could relate to
that.
I would not for one
instant think that we as human beings are part of the ape family because we
have a saying in our whakatauki:
"I haere mai matou i tawhiti nui, i tawhiti roa, i tawhiti pamamao,
hono ki wairua." Now that’s a
journey that takes us out into space.
That’s another key I’ll leave to you to find out about.
There’s another key
that talks about the planets also.
Maybe I really don’t want to say too much here because of the fact that
what we are saying runs against the WAI262 claim that we are in the middle
of. But there are stories with keys
that could help our people or other people to understand what Murray is trying
to say. Kia ora mai ra tatou.
MP - My response to my kuia’s
comments: Somewhere, sometime ago I
remember reading that I was 23 grams of minerals. I guess if you got rid of all the water and the oxygen and the
carbon I would be 23 grams of minerals.
But I’m more than that. Kia ora.