Māori Tā Moko + Mauri
Māori Tā Moko + Mauri is a Indigenous Polynesian / Māori — tā moko and mauri body system as transmitted through the lineage Tā moko is a Māori practice of marking identity, genealogy, status, and relationships on the body, with facial moko carrying whakapapa in iwi- and artist-specific forms. Mauri is a life principle or vital essence discussed in Māori knowledge traditions; this record places two mauri attention points beside a cautious face-moko projection and does not treat the result as a single canonical Māori anatomy.. This page lists every point in the system with sourced placements and links to cross-tradition correspondences curated for The Body Spiritual.
Open in interactive explorerPrimary sources
- Hirini Moko Mead, Tikanga Māori: Living by Māori Values (Huia Publishers, 2003) — Chapters on tapu, noa, whakapapa, wairua, and tikanga provide a contemporary Māori account of relational personhood and value. The book supports the cultural frame but does not prescribe the rendered face-zone geometry.
- Mason Durie, Whaiora: Māori Health Development (2nd ed., Oxford University Press, 1998) — Chapters 1–3 and the Te Whare Tapa Whā model describe Māori health through tinana, hinengaro, wairua, and whānau dimensions. The heart and head points are an editorial visual aid informed by this holistic framework, not a clinical map.
- Te Rangikāheke, Ngā Mahi a ngā Tūpuna (Māori-language narratives recorded c. 1849–1853 in the Grey Collection; published in John White, Ancient History of the Māori, Government Printer, 1887–90) — The opening creation and atua narratives in the Grey/White corpus preserve Māori-language accounts of whakapapa, atua, and ancestral order. The narratives are primary testimony for the cultural vocabulary, not a direct tā moko or mauri body chart.
- Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, Mau Moko: The World of Māori Tattoo (Penguin Books, 2007) — Contemporary Māori scholarship and practitioner interviews document tā moko history, revival, identity, and design variation. It is the practical source for treating moko placement as iwi- and artist-specific rather than as one fixed diagram.
Known lineage variants
- Tā moko designs, placement, and interpretation vary among iwi, hapū, historical periods, artists, and the person's own whakapapa. The four face zones are a visual scaffold for relational identity and are not a universal Māori facial chart.
- Mauri is used in multiple Māori contexts and overlaps with, but is not interchangeable with, wairua, mana, or tapu. The head and heart points are broad interpretive anchors chosen for this requested body map, not claims that all Māori knowledge traditions place mauri in only two anatomical sites.
- The face is shown frontally with anatomical-right at x below 0.5; the two whakapapa halves are a rendering convention that keeps bilateral identity legible. Actual moko designs need not be symmetrical, and the zones should not be used to infer a person's iwi or genealogy.
- Te Rangikāheke's recorded narratives and modern Māori scholarship preserve different kinds of evidence. This file keeps the modern body projection at medium fidelity and does not retroject contemporary health models into nineteenth-century narratives.
Cross-tradition overlaps
- Mauri — head locus ↔ Head — tapu locus (distance 0.015)
Related systems
No other systems share this tradition label.
Points
- Mauri — head locus — Vital essence · upper identity focus
- Mauri — heart locus — Vital essence · relational life focus
Frequently asked
What is Mauri — head locus?
This head point is a visual anchor for mauri as a vital and identity-bearing principle in Māori interpretive language. It is not a claim that mauri is a physical substance in the brain or that every iwi teaches this exact location.
What is Mauri — heart locus?
The heart point marks mauri as lived through relationship, care, and continuity rather than as an isolated inner object. Its position is a cautious body-map convention that keeps the requested mauri focus visible without collapsing mauri into a biomedical heart function.