Māori concepts for animal ethics
Professor Eloise Jillings (Ngāti Maru Hauraki), Dr Leilani Walker (Te Whakatōhea, Thai) and Dr Kimiora Hēnare (Ngāti Hauā, Te Aupōuri, Te Rarawa) discuss how understanding of whakapapa, mana and tapu influence the ways in which they think about and work with animals.
Please note that the video footage of the laboratory mice is from the United Kingdom and not from the University of Auckland.
Questions for discussion
Leilani talks about whakapapa and tuakana-teina creating family relationships. What do you think she means by this?
Leilani also says the living things she interacts with naturally have mana, which we should acknowledge. How does this compare to Eloise’s statement about animals being property by law?
What role does tapu play in Kimiora’s cancer research?
Transcript
Professor Eloise Jillings (Ngāti Maru Hauraki, veterinarian and educator, Massey University)
When we think about te ao Māori perspectives on animals, I think you really have to come back to concepts of whakapapa. Animals, people, whenua are all related, and so therefore I’d say we have a greater sense of responsibility.
Dr Leilani Walker (Te Whakatōhea, Thai, lecturer in the Faculty of Health and Environmental Science, Auckland University of Technology)
Within te ao Māori – whether it’s the rivers, the rocks, the tuatara, the wētā, the insects – we are tuakana-teina to one another and that creates this family relationship. Whereas within Western science, we know that we evolved from other species. But Western science itself was formed on the basis that we as humans are separate from the environment, that we’re separate from other species and that we sit as outside observers looking in.
Professor Eloise Jillings
From a Western standpoint, I can do what I’m doing over here, and I might not have to think about the impact of that on animals and land. From a te ao Māori standpoint, there’s actually more of a sense of that responsibility in terms of whenua and animals.
Dr Leilani Walker
We can’t live outside of that. We live inside it and we can observe what’s around us, but we are also inherently part of it as well, and that comes with an obligation to look after and care for those things around us.
Dr Leilani Walker
Mana and ngā atua are concepts that I grew up with and which I now carry with me into my work. Growing up, when we went fishing or gathering kaimoana, my grandfather would do a karakia before putting out bait or things like that.
Our experience meant that we were in these special environments, but it wasn’t necessarily our right to just simply take from those places and to go wherever we wanted – that we had to acknowledge the places around us and what else was living there. It was a reminder from a very important person in our family that we have a responsibility, there is a requirement about how we behave here.
When I work with an individual species, we still have that tuakana-teina relationship because we all descend ultimately from ngā atua. We also have a tuakana-teina relationship or at least a relationship of care because we both come from the terrestrial environment, we both live in the same place.
Mana ties into that in that all of those things that we interact with naturally have a mana, they have this dignity and this authority, which we have to acknowledge.
Professor Eloise Jillings
Upholding the mana of an animal is about the way in which we think about them and therefore treat them. In New Zealand, animals are property by law. We train our students to think about them much more holistically as not just an owned item but as a sentient being that feels pain, has needs, and that their role is to then try and ensure that they’re supporting the welfare of those animals. They’re having their needs met in the best ways possible.
Dr Kimiora Hēnare (Ngāti Hauā, Te Aupōuri, Te Rarawa, Research Fellow at Waipapa Taumata Rau – University of Auckland)
You recognise the responsibility that you have as a researcher working with these animals and making the best use of the tissues that they’re contributing to the research to fight cancer.
If you consider things as tapu, all humans are inherently tapu, and in te ao Māori, human tissue is tapu and so therefore it comes with a set of restrictions and you have to navigate that really, really carefully. Sometimes, it might not seem immediately obvious in animals, but if you have mauri and wairua and tinana, then there’s tapu inherent in all of that. And so it works hand in hand with ethical research, because if you’re thinking about tapu then you’re probably going to be more likely to be conscious of what you’re working with and more respectful of the tissues.
Acknowledgements Professor Eloise Jillings, Tāwharau Ora – School of Veterinary Science, Massey University Dr Leilani Walker, Auckland University of Technology Dr Kimiora Hēnare, Waipapa Taumata Rau – University of Auckland Advisors: Professor Georgina Tuari Stewart and Dr Sally Birdsall Vets working with native birds, and kākāpō brain surgery at Wildbase Hospital, Massey University Pare carved by Dennis Conway at entrance to New Zealand Arthropod Collection (NZAC) / Ko te Aitanga Pepeke o Aotearoa, Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland Hominin skulls, sciPAD Carte de visite studio portrait of Sir James Hector. Photographed by John McGregor, Dunedin, in about 1863. Alexander Turnbull Library, Webster Collection Reference: PA1-q-264-17-4 Group alongside a whale skeleton. Photographed by William Thomas Lock Travers. Alexander Turnbull Library. Reference: 1/2-004109; F Kiwi in bush, Australian huntsman spider (Delena cancerides ), and father and child preparing pest trap in backyard, DOC. CC BY 3.0 Takahē, CMKM Stephens. CC BY 3.0 Woman at microscope, and all footage of laboratory mice and rats, Understanding Animal Research. CC BY 4.0
