Kōkōwai, Whenua, Mauri

TE AO MĀORI | ISSUE THREE | WHENUA

Written By Ivy Lyden-Hancy (she/her/ia) | Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Wairere, Samoan (Falefā), Tongan (Vava’u) @tekaraipiture | Contributing Writer

Kōkōwai, Whenua, Mauri.

When I think about whenua and its connection throughout history, I think of kōkōwai. Kōkōwai carries the colour of papa’s first breath. A deep, iron-rich red that binds Māori to the land, to their whakapapa, and to the pulse of mauri: the life force that threads through all living things. More than a pigment, it is a story in itself, dug from soil, earth, clay, and mixed with oils that once laid in the mātauranga of all Māori. In its making, there is ritual; in its wearing, there is remembrance.

For Māori women, kōkōwai has long been a companion in ceremony. It adorned the skin of wāhine as they stepped into motherhood, mourning, and even celebration. Its warmth echoes the whakapapa it carries. Genealogies of atua and knowledge lost to time, like moko. To speak of whenua is to speak of things that are being lost to time. To sustain the stories and the ways of being, and when kōkōwai touches the body, it is not decoration, it is declaration.

Kōkōwai also adorned carvings and taonga, sealing them both with physical and spiritual resilience. In the same way, it protected the spirit of wāhine, strengthening their connection to whenua and to each other. Even today, kōkōwai remains a living practice and appears in toi Māori by those who wish to revitalise these practises. Kōkōwai is a thread binding past, present and future in a single breath.