Marae Visit

Within the whare the carvings of their ancestors rather than being the ancestor worship that it is commonly accused of being, is instead ancestor veneration. It is not to be construed as worship in a culture without written communication if ancestors are carved statues so that they be honoured and remembered. Even within European culture it is valued to know where and from whom you have descended. It gives a sense of identity to the individual and it also lets you know to whom you are related. In a similar manner the statues within the whare are the ancestors who give identity to the iwi. Also, when there are visitors to the marae they will show which statue they are related to or identify with and this shows how the two iwi are related. In addition to this the fact that the statues are stylised should not be construed as making them nonhuman but rather it is part of their story and possibly is more true to who they are than a mere lifelike representation could ever be. The Christian then should be very sympathetic to this whole thing. The writer of Hebrews declared that “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,” this cloud stretches back in time and although we are not related to them by blood we are related to them in one Spirit through faith. The whole of the eleventh chapter of Hebrews enumerates these ancestors of Christians that we are related to from whom we gain a sense of Christian identity. Indeed it could be to Protestant Christianity's benefit to learn from the Maori in this regard. For in discarding the Catholic tradition of remembering the saints we cast ourselves adrift from the history of church and the heroes of the faith leaving us without the sense of identity that these provide.