Hongi

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Hongi at the greeting of East Timor's Ambassador Lisualdo Gaspar in Wellington (2019)

The Hongi ( Māori : smell, sniff ) is a traditional greeting ritual of the Māori in New Zealand .

There are slightly different processes and different positions of the arms and hands in Hongi . What all ceremonies have in common, however, is that with Hongi the noses are pressed together in order to feel the breath of the other. The Hongi symbolizes the first breath of life between two people who meet.

procedure

Version 1

A Hongi of two women in front of a meeting house

Those who greet each other approach each other, say " tēnā koe " ( German : Hello, thank you ), give each other their right hand to shake hands, lean their heads forward to first touch their foreheads and then gently move their noses towards each other to press. The noses are not rubbed against each other sideways, as is sometimes wrongly explained.

Version 2

Like version 1, with the difference that the left hand is placed on the right shoulder of the other person and the noses are gently pressed against each other twice. In other areas this only happens once.

background

According to tradition, this kind of greeting, exchanging breath, goes back to Tāne , the god of the forest and birds, who is said to have breathed people's first breath.

The hongi is an integral part of the powhiri , the welcoming ceremony in a marae .

After the greeting, the meal follows. Thus the visitor ( manuhiri ) has become part of the local people ( tangata whenua ) and thus part of the family ( whānau ) of a marae . From modern everyday life of Māori is Hongi almost disappeared and is now replaced by a kiss at the adults. As part of the Powhiri, the Hongi is also used today to greet state guests, for example new ambassadors.

Statements by Tame Iti , a radical activist of the Ngāi Tūhoe , show that a Hongi can not only be celebrated from a peaceful point of view . He described in August 2008 that the Hongi can help you get to know your enemy better. " You hongi your enemy because it's better to have eye-to-eye contact with them - to know their shape, their form, their smell and their thinking. " (German: You greet your enemy because it is better to To have eye contact with him - to know their shape, their shape, their smell and their thinking. " )

Web links

Commons : Hongi  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
  • The hongi . Te Kete Ipurangi Ministry of Education,accessed on January 20, 2011(English, embedded Quicktime video, duration 1:29 min.).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b hongi . Māori Dictionary , accessed April 15, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b Powhiri - nga kawa o te powhiri . (PDF; 290 kB) Adult Community Education Aotearoa Inc , archived from the original on February 1, 2016 ; accessed on April 15, 2018 (English, original website no longer available).
  3. ↑ tēnā koe . Māori Dictionary , accessed April 15, 2018 .
  4. ^ A b Marae Protocol - Hongi . Eske Style , archived from the original on July 16, 2014 ; accessed on January 20, 2011 (English, original website no longer available).
  5. ^ Marae Protocol Procedures - The Hongi . Ngai Tuhoe - Marae Kawa , accessed January 20, 2011 .
  6. ↑ Hongi needed to know the enemy - Tame Iti . October 15th Solidarity , August 8, 2008, archived from the original on November 21, 2008 ; accessed on August 17, 2014 .