The Winds of Tawhirimatea, Now: From Ancestral Saying to Modern Framework

Tawhirimatea's standing as actively venerated in a living tradition takes the form, for this atua more than for his more ceremonially invoked brothers, of a saying kept alive in ordinary speech rather than of ritual offering. A traditional Maori saying describes returning to one's own ancestral mountain to be cleansed and restored by the winds understood as Tawhirimatea's own, treating his storms not as a threat to be placated but as a renewing force belonging to a person's own land, honestly distinct from the more materially concrete practices, a canoe offering or a food blessing, carried by his brothers. That saying has continued into an unexpected present tense use. Nga Hau e Wha o Tawhirimatea, the four winds of Tawhirimatea, is the title and organizing image of a published guide for culturally responsive teaching in New Zealand's tertiary education sector, produced through Canterbury University Press in 2022. The book builds its four core teaching values, manaakitanga, whanaungatanga, kotahitanga and rangatiratanga, directly on the traditional image of Tawhirimatea's four winds. The god's standing here is neither temple worship nor a historical footnote but an ancestral image doing active work in a real, current institutional setting, cited by name in published guidance for how tertiary teachers relate to their students today.