Wairua in the everyday: Māori speak about meaning and experience

Abstract

Wairua (spirituality) is central to being Māori (Indigenous people of New Zealand), but there is little research that explicitly explores such experience. In Western framings, it has been relegated to uncanny and shamanistic domains. Many Māori scholars write about concepts intertwined with wairua, and interest in wairua research is increasing. Limited, but growing discussions, guidance and examples of how to approach wairua in research are emerging, with qualitative research gathering, in particular, views on wairua from experts positioned to have insights. This is occurring alongside tensions about what we share with the Western academy. We canvas the literature and then present interview data from Māori participants, from a range of backgrounds, who discussed wairua in the context of national days of commemoration. Findings point to A Wairua Approach to research that explicitly centres wairua in an effort to explore deeper meanings in kaupapa Māori (Māori subjects, principles, ideas) research.

Introduction

Indigenous spirituality has been the subject of denigration as Christianity has been imposed on many Indigenous peoples as one mechanism of colonisation (Clifton, 2000; Ihimaera, 2004; Moewaka Barnes, 2000). Notions of rational science further marginalise spirituality as a phenomenon able to be addressed and explained in research through social processes and meanings. In Aotearoa New Zealand, wairua (spirituality) has been suppressed in multiple ways, including legislation such as the Tohunga Suppression Act 1907 (the Act) (Stephens, 2001). Although central to being Māori (Indigenous people of New Zealand), articulating and exploring wairua is now fraught with tensions. In the Western academy, we are, at the very least, cautious about whether or how we bring wairua to our work and to the scrutiny of Māori and non-Māori alike. However, if we do not grapple with these tensions, we remain silent and risk not bringing deep meanings to the fore in our research. In this article, we provide a brief overview of wairua and the ways in which Māori spirituality has been treated. This is followed by a discussion on how some Māori scholars are working to reclaim wairua within academic pursuits. We argue that this is an important but emergent endeavour and that there are considerable efforts needed to embrace wairua more explicitly in research. As one step on this pathway, we present findings from key informants to understand the everyday meanings and experiences that might attach to wairua.

Colonisation and wairua

Prior to colonisation, Māori culture, lifeways and autonomy were intact and largely uninfluenced by outsiders (Lian, 1987, Mikaere, 1999). In these domains, tohunga (specialists in ancient Māori lore, traditions, religion and rituals) were highly active and influential. Valentine (2009) has noted:

Traditional Māori values related to Māori health and wellbeing were very much dependent upon beliefs, practices and behaviours related to wairua. Health and wellbeing for pre–European Māori was primarily the domain of the tohunga who was a spiritually sanctioned individual skilled in Māori health care models based primarily on traditional Māori techniques. (p. 30)

European colonisation brought significant disruptions to Māori society, systems and structures with more visible effects including the loss of land and language, the proliferation of Christianity and significant impacts on wellbeing (Ihimaera, 2004; Reid et al., 2016; Sadler, 2007).

Following Walker (1996), Ihimaera (2004) described the influence Christianity had on Māori belief systems and argued that:

conversion to Christianity seriously affected the tapu (sacredness) of tribal chiefs and therefore greatly reduced their ability to influence their people to hold to their own spiritual beliefs. (p. 28)

Ihimaera (2004) also noted that influential missionaries were highly active in persuading Māori to abandon pre-Christian beliefs, customs and practices. Moreover, Clifton (2000) stated that, through colonial processes, wairua has been denigrated and seen as primitive in comparison to Christian superiority,

Māori find themselves ridiculed as superstitious in a way that a Pākehā (European) talking about religion never is. (p. 22)

Christianity supported the negative connotations of superstition, backwardness and charlatanism that the title of tohunga attracted. By the 1900s, colonisation had seen the separation and categorisation of practical and spiritual skills, resulting in the “primary role of the tohunga becoming confined to that of a healer” Maaka and Fleras (2005); however, tohunga prophets persisted. Despite narrowing roles, tohunga were seen as a threat to progress – to Western medical practices and to European power (p. 123).

The introduction of the Act, which sought to outlaw tohunga practices and break their power, successfully contributed to changing the environments where those practices could be openly discussed or enacted. In addition, the Act translated te reo Māori (the Māori language) meanings by using English words to describe Māori traditional practices as “witchcraft, superstition and supernatural power” (Voyce, 1989, p, 99). Voyce (1989) references multiple descriptions of tohunga practices as witchcraft, using terms such as shaman, sorcerer and magical techniques, reinforcing the dominant Western view that wairua is a supernatural phenomenon. Today, there are increasing efforts to remember and reassert the value and place of wairua as central to Māori. One of the ways this occurs is through literature that describes multiple related practices and asserts tikanga Māori (Māori method or formality) as a guide.

Meanings of wairua

Wilson and Baker (2012) noted that the meaning of wairua is broad and multi-faceted, so that providing a single description that encapsulates a meaning relevant to all people is no simple task. For example, challenges arise over differences in how Māori explain and understand wairua among ourselves, as well as whether and to what extent we articulate such meanings to non-Māori audiences.

In some literature, wairua and spirituality are used interchangeably, but using non-Māori terms or words to describe Māori concepts creates a raft of issues. These include interpretation and meaning and the sense that concepts in one culture can be understood using the language of others or dismissed as not valid using the standards and understandings of the dominant culture. As Mead (1997) writes, from reflections on long experience as a Māori leader, “The majority culture is rarely involved in the day-to-day activities of Māori. And that’s fine so long as not seeing does not translate into believing that we do not exist” (p. 6).

Best (1922), albeit through a Pākehā anthropologist lens, describes wairua as the soul or spirit that continues existence after death, a similar meaning to Christian notions of spirit. However, when looking for commonalities between spirituality, wairua and religion, Ihimaera (2004) argues the need to clarify the difference “because Māori strong in their culture do not necessarily connect wairua (spirituality) with religion” (p. 28).

Within Māori philosophical analyses of worldviews (Marsden, 1992; Royal, 2003), wairua connects all things, the tangible to the intangible, the living to the dead and it is not viewed as a separate dimension of human existence. It is connected through tikanga (method, formality), beliefs and values and is an intrinsic part of the whole being. While wairua can be understood and readily seen within many practices, in the research domain, it remains a topic that is not openly discussed in most everyday situations, and the forums in which Māori share their understandings of it are cautiously selected (Moewaka Barnes et al., 2017).

Although there is no right or wrong answer when describing wairua, no definition is exhaustive or sufficient. Kingi (2002), in his assay of issues in Māori mental health and wellbeing, drew from data provided by tangata whaiora (people with lived experience of mental distress), clinicians and whanau, to argue that in relation to wairua,

notions or understandings would almost always vary according to a person’s own religious beliefs, environment, peer attachments, upbringing, notions of personal contentment, or self-constructed views on how the non-physical domains of life are considered. In essence, wairua means different things to different people . . . it is personal and considers aspects of wellness which are often nondescript and intangible. (p. 288)

Valentine (2009), in her critique of Western psychological understandings, used both qualitative and quantitative approaches with participants to explicate the rich, diverse understandings that her research surfaced:

There are many different dimensions of wairua . . . wairua of the people, wairua of the land, wairua of the spoken word, wairua of the child, wairua of different generations; wairua of our ancestors, the wairua that directs and inspires a person to engage. (p. 60)

Wairua is about who we are and how we behave as Māori as well as our place in the world. Taitimu (2007) also from a critical psychological perspective describes wairua as an internal component of a person that influences their behaviours, beliefs, emotions and thoughts.

Synthesising these and other writings by Māori researchers, Ahuriri-Driscoll (2014) has argued the centrality of wairua to Māori worldviews, where it sits within Māori philosophies, beliefs, values and practices. While wairua can be both implicit or explicit in such contexts, Ahuriri-Driscoll (2014) concluded: “Key characteristics noted include its intangibility but ability to be perceived, sensed and felt” (p. 34).

These conceptualisations are apparent in creation and whakapapa (genealogy) narratives, which abound in the literature and in discussions of concepts, protocols and practices central to being Māori. Wairua is either inherent in, or the narratives and concepts are framed as related to wairua. Writers including Barlow (1991), Edwards (2002) Ihimaera (2004) and Love (2004) discuss multiple related concepts, such as tapu, noa (common, profane), mana (enduring, authority) and mauri (energy). Mead (1997) points to elements of Māori existence and practices where wairua can be recognised; these include, but are not limited to, marae (courtyard of a meeting house), tangihanga (funeral), wharenui (meeting house), dawn ceremonies, welcome protocols, speeches and haka (war dance).

Considerable literature explores wairua through these domains, providing ways of understanding wairua and explicating meaning while acknowledging ubiquity, diversity yet centrality. As an accessible example, karanga (call) is a customary welcome or summons delivered by a woman of status (Edith Forster et al., 2015) during pōwhiri (a traditional welcome ceremony). As Marsden (1992, p. 118) argues: “An analysis of the concepts which underlie this formal welcome reveals the basic themes and approach of the Māori to questions of ultimate reality and the relationships among God, man and the universe.”

Karanga has a specific purpose related to wairua, as it opens the gateway between the living and dead of visitors and hosts. It welcomes people, acknowledges the dead and the reasons why people have come together (Barlow, 1991; Hibbs, 2006). Edwards (2002, p. 56) wrote that when she calls, an overwhelming feeling comes over her: “they [the words] are not practiced they just flow . . . you can feel the wairua of the situation.”

The karanga seems to channel wairua to enhance the purposes and relationships that a gathering may represent.

Wairua and the academy

Despite the pervasiveness and centrality of wairua, only a few authors discuss its role within research and place it at the centre of analysis. Valentine (2009), in pointing to an increase in literature relating to health and spirituality, argued that “Western health professions have historically struggled with the notion that spirituality could be studied empirically” (p. 12).

Mika (2015) explains that understanding the phenomenon of wairua is complicated by the insistence of Western approaches on objectification, which reduces wairua to bounded, manageable, non-relational entities and framings. While this may be seen as a practical necessity within Western academic approaches, it is one of the reasons Māori are wary of taking wairua inside the academy (Moewaka Barnes et al., 2017).

Despite this, a growing body of Māori scholarship argues the importance of wairua and for its consideration. This includes actions that seek to include wairua, in various forms or manifestations, in Western systems and initiatives, for example, in health and education.

There are a few examples in the research literature, where wairua is explicitly explored in data collection and analysis. This includes the work of al (2002) who developed Hua Oranga (a Māori Mental health outcome tool) through analyses of wairua and through discussions with people working in mental health services, to explore definitions of wairua as the spiritual dimension of health. Ahuriri-Driscoll (2014) describes how, in the course of research workshops with healers, forms of spiritual inquiry that unfolded. As part of their healing practice, healers explicitly discussed wairua and what they were doing as being strongly wairua-guided or informed. Dell (2021) describes “rongomātau [sensing the knowing]” which “recognises the researcher as an absorbent being” and taps into wairua to create distinctly Indigenous approaches to research (p. 1). Lindsay et al. (2020) argue from interview data with healers that wide acceptance of experiences with wairua among Māori individuals and social endorsement of the same mean that attending to these dimensions has significant potential therapeutically. Others discuss the importance of wairua largely through concepts such as mana, for example, rather than meanings of wairua (Nikora et al., 2010).

In relation to our study involving interviews with Māori participants and focussing on meanings and experiences in relation to wairua, Valentine’s (2009) study is key. She explored meanings of wairua in response to the psychology field as limited and not engaging with wairua. Her research is particularly salient because she interviewed key informants focusing on broad meanings of wairua. Valentine conducted interviews with university lecturers, Māori mental health workers, Māori ministers, iwi (tribal) representatives and healers. In contrast to our study, they may be more likely to have explicitly thought about wairua within their professional and personal lives. She arrived at key themes grouped under direct descriptions, personal experiences, personal beliefs and Māori worldviews, providing wide-ranging explorations of wairua as fundamental to existence and having no boundaries. Wairua is relational, experienced and felt and provides growth, balance and connection. It is inextricably linked with Māori worldviews and concepts including mauri, whakawhiti whakaaro (communication), whakapapa, whenua (land), tapu and mana. Valentine (2009) concludes:

Through wairua Māori identity is expressed, relationships are forged, balance is maintained, restrictions and safety are adhered to, healing is transmitted, and the connection between te ao wairua and te ao Māori are maintained. These aspects of Māori reality are inclusive and interconnected. (p. 15)

Latterly understandings of wairua have developed further with Ngawati et al. (2018) arguing from a detailed literature review for a fundamental linkage between wairua and mauri in particular and the contingency of meanings to other terms such as mana, tapu and hau (vital force and power). They discuss and accept the notion that “wairua is not created but descended” from atua (gods), but, unlike mauri, wairua is not amenable to being created or manipulated by humans (Ngawati et al., 2018, p. 31). Johnson et al. (2024) carried out extensive interviews with experts from grounded Māori communities, and their analyses position wairua among other foundational attributes in a new dynamic, holistic model of Māori wellbeing.

Centring wairua in rangahau

A Wairua Approach (AWA) exhorts us to examine the word research as a Western and bounded concept, and here, we turn to rangahau (research) as an act of weaving together. Through our experiences in rangahau and based on the centrality of wairua, clearly acknowledged in the literature, we arrived at the question of how we might analyse data in relation to wairua. The following sections describe the methods and findings that emerged from interview discussions on wairua as part of a larger study on wairua, affect and national days. The material presented here was an important step in the development of AWA, as it provided insights into everyday experiences and meanings of wairua. Similarly to Dell (2021) and others discussed above, AWA recognises the need to tap into self in conversation with the data.

The rangahau

This study sits within a major research programme Affect, Wairua and National Days (National Days project) funded by the Marsden Fund of the Royal Society of New Zealand. The overall objective of the wider project was to explore the affective politics evoked as people relate, engage and grapple with cultural observance and charged acts of remembrance in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Methodologically, this article precedes and provides a background to the development of AWA (Moewaka Barnes et al., 2017), which applied eight domains to the analysis of data to explore wairua as a central and salient concept within rangahau. It also builds on the emergent literature, particularly Valentine’s, (2009) study discussed earlier. For this article, the first author interviewed participants who were more lay people. The idea was to explore what wairua meant to them, whether they had thought much about wairua and how it played out in their lives; for example, how they learnt about and experienced wairua.

Methods

The National Days database consists of key informant and focus group interviews, media and web items and haerenga kitea (a form of go-along visual recording). The team used purposive sampling to recruit and conduct haerenga kitea, resulting in a total of 34 records, 18 for Waitangi Day and 16 for Anzac Day, from 2013 to 2015. The study consisted of Māori and non-Māori, from a range of ethnicities, participants from throughout Aotearoa New Zealand, aged from 16 to over 70 years of age. Interviews and focus group discussions were transcribed verbatim, and haerenga kitea were viewed and logged – noting both audio and visual content. In most cases, Māori team members gathered data from Māori and non-Māori team members gathered data from non-Māori; there were some mixed-group participants. Ethical approval was obtained from Massey University Human Ethics Committee with participant consent sought after discussion of the project and methods and prior to data collection commencing. Interviewees were offered copies of transcripts to edit or delete information, and haerenga kitea participants were given copies of their go-along after checking if any deletions were required.

Here, we analyse selected excerpts from interview data recorded from 22 Māori participants, of which, eight were male and 14 were female. Ages ranged between 20 and 90-plus years old. Interviews were undertaken in Wellington, Wairoa and Gisborne and took place either in 2014 or 2015. Individual interviews with 11 participants were completed. Although each participant was given the option of bringing a whānau (family) member or someone with them, at each interview only the interviewer, who is the first author, and the participant were present. Two mixed-gender focus group discussions, one with five participants and one with six, were also completed. Data were transcribed, checked and endorsed by participants before analysis using affective-discursive approaches (McConville et al., 2017) and wānanga. In wānanga, the authors discussed the themes alongside those emerging from the eight domains emerging from AWA to arrive at excerpts that illustrated and represented the broad-ranging topics of both individual and group interviews.

Pseudonyms replace the code given to each person and group discussion. Participant codes were renamed as native birds for females, native trees for males and group discussions were renamed putiputi (flower) for females and miro (a native tree; Prumnopitys ferruginea) for males.

As such, the pseudonyms were as follows:

Females

• Tui – female individual.

• Kererū – female individual.

• Kōkako – female individual.

Males

• Rākau – male individual.

• Tōtara – male individual.

• Pōhutukawa – male individual.

• Kawakawa – male individual.

• Tarata – male individual.

Group Discussions

• Rōpū Putiputi female group discussion.

• Rōpū Miro male group discussion.

Participants were asked to describe what they believed wairua was and what functions it served in their lives. The purpose was not to arrive at a definition but to see how participants understood wairua and the factors that influenced these understandings.

We present excerpts and then examine them in-depth, looking thematically and discursively at the data to explore wairua, based on participant experiences and meanings. In doing this, the patterns or major themes that emerged assisted in identifying how wairua is understood and perceived as an everyday experience.

Learning about wairua

For many participants learning about wairua happened at a very young age. Members of one group said that, as children, wairua was discussed openly. For others, it was accepted but not articulated. In some of these conversations, religious faith and Christian influences were evident:

meaning of wairua was never explained and although I can remember asking what wairua means and the meaning was explained on my parent’s religious beliefs. (Rākau)

Another participant said that they had never thought or had been asked to think about wairua. However, on reflection, they recalled some conversations with grandparents. They felt that, in their church setting, wairua manifested as the fantastical and was assumed and unquestioned, rather than explicitly discussed:

I suppose growing up I can remember my grandparents talking about wairua but they never explained what wairua was to us (me and my brothers and sisters) I think we had to assume the meaning of many things . . . . It’s funny now as I think about it . . . so many of the things that our church founder did were fantastical but my whānau never questioned the truth of those events . . . I think it was because lots of people were told the same stories over and over again . . . none of the church followers questioned those events. (Rākau)

Some shared stories, one speaking about his father, grandfather and great grandfather, who was a tohunga:

my koroua (elderly man) could not touch food because he was too tapu and kai [food] would bring him out of his state of tapu. A young child was usually used to feed the koroua . . . . Children were believed to have lots of pure energy (mauri) and were used to replenish the koroua so they were kept very close to him . . . so he would “zap” their energy when he needed it! He said his father and his father’s sister were the children that fed the koroua and sometimes he would take him and his sister with him to situations – mākutu (curse) etc. . . . in these situations my dad could not see but he could sense that something was not quite right around him. On the other hand, my aunty she could see, hear, feel and sense everything that was going on around her . . . she saw the whole thing. His father said that he always felt tired and needing to eat and sleep a lot after those sessions. (Tōtara)

Articulating wairua

While all participants acknowledged wairua exists, some found it difficult to express or explain what they thought wairua was. This could be related to the articulation of wairua as a feeling and something that just is. As one person responded:

wairua is difficult to explain . . . you just know it exists and you just feel things, for me, I like to think wairua is inherent . . . that is in you. You just feel things, I don’t even know how to describe it actually. (Tui)

This participant went on to assert that wairua is not the same for everybody but can change between people and between experiences and environments:

wairua should be described in a way which outlines that everybody is different . . . I think wairua changes in circumstances, events and what’s happening around you. I would have thought that it wouldn’t, but I think it does. (Tui)

In the concluding remark that “it wouldn’t [change], but I think it does” (Tui), the speaker demonstrates the ways participants explored their thoughts as they talked about what wairua meant to them. In this case, as she talks, she expresses some surprise at articulating the idea that wairua changes.

Wairua is part of everything and everyone

Wairua was seen as part of everyone and everything. It was described as broad and all around us, connecting people to each other and to the world, both tangible and intangible:

there is no one meaning for wairua because it means different things to different people. I think it is all encompassing – It’s a part of everything we do, how we feel, it’s a part of what and who we are. Everyone has one and is the part of us. (Rākau)

Although acknowledged as every day and inherent in all, some participants spoke of more unknown or uncanny aspects of wairua. These discussions usually involved notions of ghosts, second sight or spiritual gifts and was the aspect that participants seemed least comfortable talking about; the topic was not pressed. Although acknowledging all people had spiritual abilities one participant thought that this varied:

there are some people that are more spiritual than others such as Jesus, the Dalai Lama or Buddha . . . some people have been gifted spiritual abilities, like seeing ghosts or healing . . . for some people they don’t get a choice you are just given those gifts. (Kererū)

She went on to describe how this can be nurtured and grow.

and that the more you understand about the spirit and/or soul the more enlightened you become, the more self-aware . . . the more generous you are the more your spirituality grows. (Kererū)

In these excerpts, wairua is acknowledged in multiple ways and accepted as not unusual but rather as commonplace and relevant experiences in Māori communities, relationships and interactions.

Wairua and emotions

As well as wairua being described as something felt, participants spoke about how wairua reflected an individual and their emotions:

your wairua emanates who you are . . . it reflects a person’s emotions; your core beliefs and how they view the world; how you feel . . . while you’re alive you can’t separate the physical from the spiritual. (Kererū)

you could have somebody who has a “shitty” wairua if you like. (Kōkako)

Continuing in this vein, others ascribed emotional characteristics to wairua, one participant describing wairua through her connections, memories and feelings.

For me when I go home [although I have not lived there for a very longtime] I have a great sense of belonging to that place, it is full of memories and the changes to that place creates sadness . . . what I remember home to be like – to what it looks like now makes me enormously sad. I get a great sense of pride when I hear someone from my iwi [tribe] is doing well in something in anything . . . the flip side is that you feel a sense of shame when someone from your iwi does something wrong/bad . . . that’s what wairua means. (Rōpū Putiputi)

The affective dimensions to responses to wairua in terms of place and the memories that attach to it along with the reactions to the achievements or misdemeanours of iwi people illustrate strong links between wairua and emotion.

Wairua and being Māori

Wairua was seen as embedded in being Māori and expressed and demonstrated through Māori practices:

for me and because I’m Māori, wairua is in everything we do . . . wairua relates to everything. (Pōhutukawa)

wairua is inherent in our culture . . . wairua is about all my whānau meeting at the marae [which links to me being Māori] and it’s the way we share our kai together. (Kōkako)

For this participant, her understanding of wairua was woven throughout seen her understandings of her culture and key practices; for example, sharing kai and her whānau being together. Other participants described multiple ways wairua was embedded in all aspects of Māori culture and linked to belonging and accountability:

wairua encompasses a lot of things such as values, tikanga, kawa [cultural protocols] and upbringing . . . I guess that’s where wairua comes from. (Kōkako)

it [wairua] lies within the language it lies within the culture of the people and within the rituals that they do to make themselves feel better . . . it makes their spirit belong to where they come from.. . . for me my spirituality links me to home town because I have a sense of belonging and sense of ownership and sense of responsibility to the town . . . wairua lies within and is about love, interconnectedness and whanaungatanga [belonging]. (Kawakawa)

In the second excerpt, above, the participant sees wairua practices as making the “spirit belong to where they come from” (Kawakawa). He then elides wairua and spirituality as enhancing his sense of belonging and connection to place. Identity, belonging and connection to something bigger than self was echoed by several participants:

identity is important to who you are and how you connect to your whānau . . . and how you as Māori connect to something bigger than yourself. (Rōpū Miro)

for us as Māori we belong to something bigger than ourselves which means we have links to our turangawaewae [ancestral land], to our awa, to a hapū [subtribe] and an iwi. (Kawakawa)

Speakers affirm the notion of wairua as embedded and embodied within Māori people and culture.

Wairua and religion

Links between religion and wairua were evident in discussions on the meanings of wairua and when participants discussed their beliefs in relation to wairua. For some, wairua sat within a religious belief system, influencing their understanding and sense-making:

[Ihoa (God)] he is the giver of all things . . . (wairua) is given to you at birth and returns to where it came from when you pass over. (Rōpū Putiputi).

wairua links back to the Bible where it says . . . heaven and earth may pass away but my words will never disappear away they will be there for ever and ever. (Kawakawa)

Another outlined differences between what is spiritual and what is not. He explained that ture-wairua (spiritual law) is to do with Ihoa and ture-tangata (human law) deals with the laws of man (Kawakawa):

For the laws of man – he said that on the 25th January every year we all congregate at the Rātana Pā [a town in North Island, New Zealand] to celebrate the birthday of our church founder T.W. Rātana this is a ture-tangata day – why is it a ture-tangata day because that is the day Rātana was born. However, the spiritual day (ture-wairua) for Morehu [followers of the Rātana Church; literally, remnant] is the 8th November because this is the day the wairua tapu [Holy Spirit] came in search of us (the Māori people). (Kawakawa)

One person said that when people talk about wairua, they are talking about a person’s inner self or the spirit, similar to the Christian notion of soul:

I think a person’s wairua refers to a soul the part of a person that lives on after death. (Kererū)

While there were some parallels drawn between Christian belief and practice and wairua, it is clear that the latter occupies a particularly Māori space. Wairua transcends conventional religious practice and engages Māori in culturally unique experiences, understandings and ways of being.

Wairua and national days

Participants were also asked about Anzac and Waitangi Days. Here, we provide excerpts that illustrate ways they linked emotions to wairua in these discussions:

during a tangi [funeral] the wairua [spirit] is pōuri [sad] . . . you can feel the sadness and for Anzac Day the wairua is also one of mourning. I say it is day about mourning because that day is about sacrifice and death. (Tarata)

The participant calls on the Māori tangihanga process to ascribe sadness to wairua, which then reinforces his idea of what Anzac Day means to him. He goes on to compare the emotions of Anzac Day to Waitangi Day, pointing to similarities and differences. Again, the importance of place comes through in his discussion:

While you could say Waitangi Day involves the same emotions, I have been to [Te] Tii Marae [a Marae near the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, Bay of Islands, New Zealand] the during the event and it is a celebration for all people who attend . . . the mana of Waitangi is basically the coming together of the two peoples and the signing of the Treaty. That is the wairua that goes with this. That is why I think it is really strong. It’s a different kind of feel to other places in the country because that is where it was born . . . the mana of Waitangi Day comes from a really strong connection between what has gone in the past and the celebration of that particular day today. (Tarata).

Others also assigned feelings and emotions to wairua; for example, in one participant’s account of her experiences as a child attending Anzac celebrations, she speaks of wairua as having more than one emotional expression:

it was different to what we see today when we attend Anzac celebrations. As a child there were more returned service men who attended and the wairua was both sad and happy. Sad because of the soldiers left behind and happy because some people made it home. (Kōkako)

As times of reflection and review, in respect of national days, whether they be events of celebration or grief, Māori often reported wairua as being critical to their understandings of such experiences.

We found that across diverse themes similar conclusions apply, meaning that participants represented wairua as highly relevant to their personal discovery of this dimension of Māori lives and of articulating such experiences and their pervasiveness. In various ways, the data they provided show the importance of wairua to lived emotions, to being Māori, to engaging in religion and to their engagement with days of national commemoration.

Conclusion

Participants in this article identified multiple components of wairua which, together, hold some meaning intended to explain wairua as understood and experienced by individuals. Although our participants were not selected because they were considered to have particular expertise, insights or experiences, the centrality of wairua to being Māori was affirmed, as well as its all-encompassing nature. Tensions, similar to those in the literature that we have reviewed here, were expressed in relation to defining and articulating wairua. Wairua was spoken about as feeling and as something in themselves and connecting them to other people, places and times, both tangible and intangible. It was different for each person and dynamic and changing according to circumstances. The participants saw wairua as inherent in their culture, enabling connections to all that surrounds them. It was seen and expressed in thoughts and practices, including the concepts, values and protocols discussed earlier. As such, it was central to Māori identity and belonging and embedded in whakapapa. For some, wairua was linked to religion. The “uncanny” was mentioned, but this was clearly not seen as the only meaning of wairua.

In contrast to understandings drawn from discussions with healers and others with key insights (Ahuriri-Driscoll, 2014; Lindsay et al., 2020; Valentine, 2009), our participants were not selected for this reason. Some appeared to grapple with the articulation of wairua, as it was not something that was consciously at the forefront of their lives; it just is. Despite this, they began to engage with wairua, recounting their childhood and then bringing their thoughts to the fore, moving from notions of the uncanny to articulate wairua as normal and every day. This demonstrates our argument that we are all experts in our own wairua, although our articulation and everyday understandings have been suppressed through the denigration of Māori ways of being.

The literature and participant responses present challenges and possibilities. Along with our own experiences, we suggest several overlapping domains that provided a starting point for the development of AWA to research. We acknowledge these are not exhaustive and are just one possibility. Although wairua as a concept has vast, multifaceted meanings and is open to numerous personal interpretations, this does not mean it cannot provide a valuable way of understanding Māori experiences. These insights sit well with the orientation to application of wairua understandings, particularly in relation to hauora (health and wellness) evident in the more recent literature (Ahuriri-Driscoll, 2014; Dell, 2021; Lindsay et al., 2020). We have applied these domains to data to explore analytical possibilities guided by these domains and focusing on everyday understandings (Moewaka Barnes et al., 2017). These included:

• Tupuna (ancestors), people who have gone before.

• Future generations, having obligations to generations to come.

• Connection to place, people, events and issues; sense of belonging.

• Connection to self, a sense of wholeness.

• Connection to something wider than oneself.

• Tikanga whakaaro (Barlow, 1991), connection to, and understanding of, Māori ways of doing things and the obligations, relationships and accountabilities this entails.

• Practising wairua; processes involved in rituals and events.

• The so-called supernatural or uncanny.

We offer this as a contribution to research and as resistance to the denigration of wairua as primitive and shamanistic. Against the backdrop of Western struggles to address spirituality in research, Māori scholars are increasingly reimagining and asserting what it means to place wairua at the centre of our scholarship. Like the existing literature and particularly the more recent contributions, we address wairua in multiple ways, acknowledging it as central to Māori identity while also entailing challenges and tensions for Māori scholars. These relate specifically to the conventional positioning of scientific knowledge as factual and universal, while Māori knowledge is regarded, at best, as culture-specific but more widely as subjective and primitive belief.

Approaching wairua explicitly in research and rangahau is still rare within the academy, and there is much to deter us. As Māori who acknowledge that we are experts in our own wairua and as scholars for whom wairua just is, we make decisions, both conscious and unconscious, in relation to how we know, what we express and how we express it, including what we bring to the academy. Failure to attend to and apply wairua knowledges in research may mean loss, invisibility and silence around deep understandings of significance to hauora Māori. We have long done away with the notion of objectivity in the interpretation of participant korero, and here, wairua challenges how we approach subjectivity as we engage in the interconnections between people and something greater. These are exploratory but critical conversations.

Dedication

He tohu whakamaumahara mō te ahorangi, ko Dr Te Raina Taite-Gunn, who passed away while this component of her PhD was under review for publication in AlterNative. We thank her whānau for their support in ensuring her work reaches its intended audience. We – Helen Moewaka Barnes and Timothy McCreanor – had the honour of supervising her doctorate.