Te Puhi
Puhiwhenua represent the female balance within spiritual sacredness of Ta Moko. The facial tattoo nominates a side for female whakapapa inside Rangatira customs of learning from the earth's parallel of women.
Puhi can define the woven lineage of the womb from mother to daughter and son. As a female vessel she is beyond the literal interpretation of youngest daughter or virgin. All women are born puhi to land.
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Spiritual instincts guide the wairua of blood from a family tree. From birth threads of Poutama make their weave into the Well of a Puhi.
The cycle of rebirth we associate with identity.
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The ability of the female womb to procreate for Rangatira made great puhi bloodlines prized in old times.
For Old Jacob The Puhi Line he had hidden carefully was generations later discovered and plundered for their gifts of spirit and skills of dream in the world of Poutama.
His Puhi line were prohibited from Ta Moko, an easy identifier in a time when stealing women for bloodline was a skill filled practise.
Manuhiri sought Puhi to access the world of families' spiritual mana with the land of specific Tangatawhenua energy.
So to any tribe, a great puhi bloodline could be priceless and bring riches if nurtured, or sorrow and war if harmed.
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The Pepper Tree blankets the arc of our buried afterbirths joining with womb and spirit back to the time of Jacob on the banks of the awa.
Wairua of Tangatawhenua soil could awaken spirits under the tree. A working Puhi could stand on sacred soil, left side in their world; and rite in ours to korero across the steps of Poutama to be scale and scribe in play on words.
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Rongowai joins the spirit of muka from harakeke, kawakawa, totara, kauri, rimu, manuka and many more of the feminine healing properties of native bush. To use Te Rongowai one has the blood to open the spirit of leaves as medicine
"A man is asked what he sees and he replies a Tree. A Puhi asked, may answer instead, 'I see leaves'.
Te Arawa Suitors A modern day reflection on the influencial chieftain spirit over suitors for a sacred puhi could be filled with wonder when nga lineage were hunting brides.
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Some puhi were sacred vessels used by sacred rituals for guidiance and direction from the afterlife. They could hold a photo and blink into darkness then light of the living ancestors world.
Nanny Tawera was upheld as a true puhiariki of old, who would not bow to the european ways forcing themselves on her choices to live eat and sleep with te whenua. Born with a sacred spirit she was given free reign of her environment able to swim and fish by the age of three. Her parents saw her natural affinity with nature a gift and she was forever protected from colonialism to live in her maori world, turning up at the old pa or across at the very old meeting grounds during hui or tangi, returning from the bush with fish in trade of her occassional meal with te iwi.