Glitter in My Veins

How did Māori know that the country was shaped like a waka and an ika? It suggests some celestial cartography when we told ourselves the story of how Māui fished up the North Island with his brothers using Te Waipounamu as their waka. It suggests a coastal knowledge, a deep understanding of the border between the whenua and the moana, and where they dissolve. And this is where the waka comes in. Superior in all ways to a car when it comes to surviving the bush. The tau ihu, or figurehead of the waka poking the lip of the sea with its tongue to be let in, the feathers trailing the taurapa, the stern of the waka, to bless the water, and as a karakia for balance.